A world of words builds on the profound silence that's escalating to an unmanageable level within the walls of the cottage.
Two minutes go by this way. Shamus and me sneaking a quick peripheral glance at one another while sitting on the bed that we have been herded to without so much as a sound uttered.
Mom and Uncle Grey pull the chairs from the table bringing them towards us. Together they sit down side by side while Dad takes a position on Uncle Grey's left, Aunt Meela stands to the side quiet but watching the Three.
"When I was younger, I never wanted to become the Alpha of the Northern Pack, there was too much pressure, too much responsibility. I doubted my Nature. There was an invitation from Victoria's father to train with the Eastern pack when Grey and I were just still juveniles. I refused to go, instead Grey went in my place." Dad's voice holds a solemn regret as he takes a step away from the two sitting in the chair.
Mom's shoulders are back, head high. Uncle Grey has the same posture.
The corners of the dwelling shadow as a cloud passes across the sun to darken Uncle Grey's and Mom's face briefly before that cloud moves letting the light back into the room.
Eyes meeting ours.
"The very minute I met Victoria I was drawn to her. My body responded to her as one does towards a mate. Her presence did things to me that I was confused about. My wolf knew she wasn't ours but it didn't stop me from seeking her out every opportunity I had." Uncle Grey's voice holds a tone of deepening melancholy
Emotions flow from everyone inside the room, Mom's jaw starts to tremble in the fierce hold she has on it. Her eyes shine with rapid blinking that's unable to stop the singular tear from escaping out to fall from her jaw to land on her shirt.
A breath in her voice resonates outwards. "Grey came to my pack when I needed him the most. Things were very challenging for me there. When Grey and I meet for the first time, he affected me as if he was my mate. I thought he could be my mate. My wolf understood he wasn't ours, that didn't stop me from seeking out his company every chance I got."
Shamus sitting beside me straightening up, his shoulders are back along with mine because it's coming. The layers and layers of their history are peeling back from the beginning.
"We became friends." Uncle Grey's voice brushes towards my mother who shakes her head in agreement with his words.
"I don't want to hear anymore," Shamus rising from the bed, looking at his mother with pity.
"Sit down." Uncle Grey's voice holds a sharp edge to it.
Shamus sits back down, not happy. I can feel it sitting beside him, he's bristling up, looking towards his mother, who's entire focus is on the two sitting before us.
"We started to grow closer than friends." Mom's voice angled towards Dad but her voice carries to my ears.
"Grey became more to me, he was someone I could be myself, my true self without fearing ridicule, persecution. He let me be who I inside, he made me feel loved, feel so special-" She closes her eyes, tears breach those tight lids, falling down one by one. A deep breath in, another hard breath pulled into lungs that don't seem to want to breathe.
"We started to fall in love, I would call Fin and tell him about this female named Victoria that I met. Telling him how drawn I was to her, I left no detail out about our relationship, not knowing that Victoria was my brother's mate. My wolf knew, but I refused to listen." Uncle Grey's eyes on Dad, who is looking on in understanding, my father is always so patient with his understanding when it comes to his family. This must be heartbreaking for Dad and Aunt Meela to have to listen to this.
An elevation in heart rate. The beat quickening inside a chest that's taking in faster shallower little breaths of air. It's hard to swallow down what they are telling us.
"The night before Uncle Grey was going to leave, I went to his room. I closed the door behind me knowing what I wanted to give to him." Mom's eyes guarding against my stare that's directly boring into her.
"I took everything Victoria was willing to give and I gave her back everything I wanted to give her." Uncle Grey looking between the both of us. Shamus's posturing changing.
"I don't want to know anymore." My turn to stand with words spilling out of my mouth.
"Sit down, Charlie." My mother's voice angling upwards towards my face but I don't sit down. Shamus stands with me, "how could you do this to mom?" Shamus's voice rising, while the two remain sitting in front of us.
"You're always are telling me to wait for my mate, you hypocrite. You speak big words to me, yet you don't lead by example, father." A finger point accusation towards Uncle Grey's throat. Shamus's words making my mother flinch and Uncle Grey nod with and agreement.
Both of their eyes meeting our eyes in their truths of the past.
"Sit down the both of you." It's my Dad's heavy voice that pulls down our shoulders, it's spoken with a directive to listen to him completely.
Shamus looking at his dad as if he's not who he thought he was, while I do the same to my mom. It's a disappointment I hold towards my Mother, the way her head tries to angle itself down she must understand what I think of her.
"If the wolves knew then you both should have known as well that you weren't mates. Yet you didn't care enough to listen to your soul." Shamus speaking the hard words I'm thinking.
Judgment passing between father and son, while my eyes judge my Mother. She holds my eyes with those Blue's that everyone says I take after. There is a straight line across my lips, I hold nothing but disgust for what she has done, they have done.
"I don't regret it, what I regret is that it was Finian's brother. It was my Virtue to give away, no one else's and I don't regret that choice. What I regret are the consequences that act brought upon us. I never thought that my mate could be Grey's brother. I wasn't thinking about the ramifications of what was to come because of that." Mom's voice holding steady with an unbending force of her belief it wasn't wrong to give your Virtue away to someone else that wasn't your mate.
Uncle Grey and mom both stand and move away from the other, Aunt Meela nuzzles into Uncle Grey's chest while my Dad hugs my mother, kissing her mark before he takes a chair in front of the both of us, alone.
"I found out what happened that day. My Father and I went to the Eastern Territory to pick up Grey, when we got there Victoria was about to be punished by her father. I thought that she deserved to be punished for what she did to me." Dad shifting in his seat slightly before continuing his side of the history.
"I walked away from my mate that day, from my brother, from my family and pack, but looking back what I really walked away from was myself." His eyes fall towards my mother, his jaw shifting slightly before recovering.
"I hated your mother and your father for many years for what I thought they did to me. In those years I was not a male of worth. Taking all the Virtues that were given to me. Because at the time I thought that would punish my mate more. I wanted to hurt her, to make her feel unworthy because that's how I felt. All it ended up doing was to pave a thorn littered path for you to walk on Charlie." Dad's truth spilling out in great heaving breaths. Shamus stays quiet with his mouth open.
Palms starting to sweat, heart rate accelerating with how wobbly my father's words are.
"When I met your Aunt, your mother." Dad looking at us now, "I felt drawn to her, it's unexplainable. I didn't want to feel that way towards my brother's mate but I did. I was jealous once again of Grey for getting a mate like your Aunt, she was perfect in every way I thought back then. That started to change slowly but in the back of my mind I was still drawn to her, and if I think about it I actually never gave your mother a real chance, she always had to compete against what I thought was perfection." When Dad looks at Mom, her top lip is held tight with a noticeable tremble. Dad closes his eyes, a little tick of muscle in his jaw, keeping it clamped shut.
There is a distraught sound that comes from my throat that can't be cleared away with a cough. A hand going to my mouth, while the tears start to fall. Shamus has his emotions clamped up tight. He does put a hand on my shoulder giving it a squeeze before pulling it away from me.
Aunt Meela now comes to sit by my father who shifts himself slightly away from her body. I've never seen them sit so close to one another before.
Shamus is simmering, the makeup of him is starting to heat itself up. There are signs that I can't help pick up on. The way he's gripping onto the bedsheets, his thighs jumping like spasms with each word of truth being revealed. Shamus is usually very calm but right now, Shamus is a mess.
"I've felt drawn to Finian as well, it's a soft, subtle pull towards him that I can't be explained. I'm unable to tell your father apart from your Uncle without touching them. I just can't tell the difference between them. But if I was to touch Fin, to me, is a current of warmness, while Grey is that scorching heat. That's how I can tell the difference." Aunt Meela looking at us solemnly while my father opens his mouth to speak again.
His mouth closes while his hands grip together on his lap, as if he's trying to draw strength within himself to proceed on with the history we are learning today.
"There was a bear attack, your father was hurt very bad protecting me. If it weren't for your father I would have died that day, Shamus." Dad regarding Uncle Grey in love, the way he always looks at Uncle Grey his best friend.
Aunt Meela now is visibly upset, her whole body starting to vibrate with great tremors of hard emotion that she tries to hide unsuccessfully. Shamus's character unwinding with a flash of teeth posturing to everyone that he soon beyond saving, his Nature winding up with eyes of the wolf starting to take over from his silver pulsing orbs. They are being eaten away slowly with all the words that are being spilled.
"When the attack happened, both Victoria and Meela gave birth, you lived Charlie and your Aunt's male did not. It was a stressful time for all that were involved. Victoria was still in her healing sleep and Grey was in an induced sleep with massive injuries. There came a day when I took advantage of your grieving mother and gave into myself. I understood exactly what I was doing, how wrong it was and I still did it. We did not mate but I did give into my fantasy that I always had about her. It was wrong."
"How could you do this! My father was injured, they were mated, you were marked and mated with a pup." Shamus rises slowly with a calculation in his step, my father also rises meeting Shamus chest to chest.
Both males locking onto one another's eyes.
"I kissed Finian, I knew he wasn't your father, but I kissed him anyways." Aunt Meela looking at mom both of them with tears in their eyes. There is no hostility to the females, but a look of deep understanding friendship that has moved beyond the history of this. Aunt Meela grabs Shamus's wrist bringing this big male to her eyes, "I kissed him, it was me that initiated it. I was marked and fully mated, I was just as involved as Finian was in that kiss. If Finian wouldn't have stopped us, I'm sure more would have happened that day between the two of us.
Again the silence between us all holds worlds of unspoken feelings.
"Your father forgave me." Aunt Meela saying this out loud to her son who is lost within himself.
"This happened, the four of us have made our peace with it. We never wanted to keep it from you but you were too young to understand all of this. Now you know." My Aunt's voice speaking for the four of them.
"I forgave your father, Charlie." Mom's voice getting closer to me until she sits down, her shoulder touching mine.
Distraught
Disturbed
Distress
Looking at her, at my father, my Aunt, and Uncle. Everything that I was taught to believe in, thought I believed in is crumbling.
Doubts deep sinking hold twisting within my marrow, Shamus takes his hand away from his mother's grip, walking out the door. Not one word is spoken by him. His breathing coming out hindered, a heart pain gripping the inside of him, which I can tell by his eyes because they are leaking out his corrupted emotions out.
Getting up, grabbing my shoe's following Shamus out, I'm not really sure there are words to say to this revelation of history.