There's quite a bit of information in this chapter but don't let it overwhelm you, it will all be explained later. And this chapter is more about the characters than all the info. Enjoy!
~Chapter 2 - Spread~
The previous year...
Saturday February 6th, 2010, 10:45 p.m. - Deer Creek, Arik’s study
Three weeks after the death of Lora Kormak, rumours spread like wildfire within the Deer Creek community.
People suspected she didn’t survive childbirth because she 'wasn't one of them'. And the Elders believed it was true.
“She wasn’t the right one,” Arik said. His face was lined with many decades of leadership. Tough decisions stained his memory and the consequences of them -good or bad- would haunt him forever. But it was his duty and he accepted it wholeheartedly.
His light blue eyes were youthful but severe as he gazed at his old friend, Maria across the table. The light from the hanging, ceiling lamp cast harsh shadows down both their faces.
“We don’t know that for sure,” she replied.
“Oh, come on, Maria! You've been thinking it for a while now. Don't treat me like a fool!” he growled.
She responded with a stern lip.
He blinked, washing away the anger from his eyes and flashed her a delicate smile.
Her face softened just a little, enough for him to notice, but she still did not return the favour. “It is possible,” she conceded. “But her twin died at birth. Her parents have already proven this. So it stands to reason that if Lora survived birth, she must be the pureblood sibling.”
He wafted a hand away as if that didn’t matter.
“Thorpe and Eliza would not lie to me. They are loyal to the Pack.”
“So why aren’t they here? Why don’t they live here, where they belong? I tell you why!” he shot out the words before Maria could respond. “They do not accept who they are, they never have. They prefer to live around ‘normal’ people over their own family! You're their mother and you haven't seen them in years! You didn't meet Lora until she was a grown woman! All this proves to me is that they abhor us, so much so that they didn't want any child of theirs to live like us. Who knows what they might have done to prevent that happening.”
“Might have done? Arik, what are you insinuating? Have you gone mad?” she whispered.
“You deny that it is possible that they could have lied about Lora's twin’s death, because in their mind they'd have been 'protecting' it from us? Because, lets face it, not many people happily accept hybrid children. Thorpe thought we would react the same.”
Maria said nothing.
Arik continued. “Your son hid away from us the moment he and Eliza left this place and when we finally found them and eventually got their acceptance to bring Lora here so she could get our support, they allowed it as if they were more than happy to oblige. It was easy; too easy. It didn't make sense to me. Garik agrees also.”
“Garik has always been overly paranoid,” she argued. She disliked her eldest son’s inability to believe anything without scouring every detail until he was certain it was true.
“Even so, it turns out he was right to have his suspicions. He says he may have a lead,” Arik replied.
“He always thinks he knows more than everyone else,” Maria retorted, holding up her pointed chin to conceal the rolling of her dark green eyes in the shadows.
The old man’s eyes were sharper than she gave them credit for, but he let it slide. It was clear he had a soft place in his heart for his old friend. He always had.
It had crushed him many years ago when young Maria had been paired with her late husband, Vern, though he had never breathed a word of it to anyone.
He, Vern and Maria had always been close friends. Vern’s death caused a lot of heartache in both of them. In a way, it brought them closer together; as friends of course, nothing more. That ship had long since sailed. Thirty odd years if anyone’s counting. He was, of course.
He blinked out of his thoughts and said, “He tells me that he found old tape footage from a CCTV camera of Thorpe's BMW stopping at a petrol station in Sheffield, the day Eliza gave birth. He said it looked like there was an occupied baby car seat in the back. And a few of our tech team have confirmed it. Which would beg the question, what was Thorpe doing in Sheffield, three hours from home, with a newborn baby in his car?”
Maria blanched. She remembered Thorpe calling her that day. He'd said he was with Eliza and baby Lora. He was in tears about the loss of the twin, so was Maria when she heard her son sobbing down the phone. Not once did he mention this peculiar trip. Why would he go? He was the kind of man to stay and comfort his wife after the loss of a child, not go on mysterious trips.
Arik shifted position and sighed. “The baby wasn't Lora. It was the twin. Thorpe must have given the child to another family to hide it from all of us.
“I'm sorry, Maria, that Lora did not survive her pregnancy. I know you're grieving her loss, and also your great grandson, but we have to look at the facts.
“I am almost certain now, thanks to Garik and Kerk's research, that Lora does have a twin who is alive and living somewhere, possibly in Sheffield, and she is the pureblood sibling.
“From what Garik and Kerk found, it's clear that Eliza gave birth at home and went to hospital afterwards. We suspect at some point between the births and the hospital, Thorpe hid the twin. Which would explain his suspicious trip.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I don't know, Maria. No doubt the same reason he couldn't stand living here any longer.
“What still confuses me is why he allowed Lora to come here but did all he could to hide the other child. Why would he hide the pureblood but not the hybrid child? Perhaps he somehow accidentally mixed them up? I don't understand...” Arik became lost in thought as memories flooded his mind.
“Lora was one of us! Stop talking about her like she was an outsider! She was still a Were! Pureblood or not!” Maria snapped. “She had the scent on her! How can you dismiss her like that when she had the scent of a pureblood?!”
“Do we have many hybrids around to compare scents with?”
Maria lowered her gaze at his words.
He pursed his lips with displeasure at her unhappiness. He added in a lowered voice, “They aren't the same regardless of their scent. Whatever type of Were hybrid they may be, they're different to us.
“If we piece together everything that Lora could do, we can see that. We don't know for sure that she Changed, we never saw it for ourselves. We both know Nik would have protected her; she was bearing his child after all.”
Maria didn't meet Arik's scrutinizing gaze as he said this.
“Because of Lora's rich bloodline, she may have had such a strong connection to her pureblood sister that she could have passed as a pureblood too and we would never have suspected her-”
“What does it matter? Lora was still family. This changes nothing.”
“It changes everything, especially for the twin. And if I'm right, and she exists and we can confirm she's pureblood, then we have to accept Thorpe and Eliza lied to us. You know what that'll mean, don't you?”
“Of course I do!” she barked back.
She wasn't a foolish woman, quite the opposite. The idea had occurred to her but she had always ignored it, pushing it into a small corner of her mind. She didn't want to believe her son could have lied to her all these years. He would be severely punished for it once the Elders knew of it. Arik had no choice but to tell them; there was no escaping it.
Arik fixed his sky-blue eyes on her. “Though I don’t like the backlash this will cause for your son and his mate, if it is true, they have to face the consequences. And we must do our duty and follow this up. If this child is still out there, we need to find her. And soon. She’ll be twenty soon and you know the risks if we’re too late.”
Maria could only nod in response. “I’ll send my daughter out if she is found,” she said sombrely.
“I’ll get Kerk on the search.”
Maria’s face aged ten years in that moment. She knew this wouldn’t turn out well. So much was at stake and it could all go horribly wrong.