THE ALPHA WHO COULDN'T HOWL

Chapter7

*THE ALPHA WHO COULDN'T HOWL*

*Chapter 7: The Mother He Never Knew*

"Hello, son."

Tyler's mouth said it, but it was not Tyler's voice.

It was soft. Tired. The kind of voice that sings lullabies when you have a fever.

My mother's voice. The voice I had only heard in one old video my father kept hidden in his desk. The video he said I was not allowed to watch because it would make me weak.

I froze.

Every part of me froze. Even my wolf. Even the silver light on my hands.

Elara grabbed my arm. "Kael?"

Rhys was already moving. He was between me and Tyler's body in half a second, claws out.

"Get back," he snarled at the thing wearing Tyler. "You don't get to wear his mother too, Hessa. That's enough."

Tyler's body — my mother's voice — tilted its head. Smiled with Tyler's small, bloody mouth.

"I'm not Hessa, North Ridge boy. Hessa ran when the white Alpha howled. She always was a coward."

My father, Magnus, made a sound behind me. A choked sound. He scrambled forward on his knees through the mud, past me, past Rhys, toward Tyler.

"Liora?" he whispered. His big Alpha shoulders were shaking. "Liora, is that you?"

Liora. My mother's name. Liora White.

Tyler's body looked at my father and its face — her face — softened.

"Magnus. You look old."

My father laughed. It was a broken, wet laugh. "You... you left me with a baby who couldn't howl. You left me and they told me you died because you were weak. You were not weak."

"I was taken," she said. Using Tyler's voice but so gentle it hurt to hear. "Hessa took me the night Kael was born. She needed a white mother to make a white Alpha. She kept me in the veil. Between. I've been watching. I watched him not howl. I watched him sit on that bridge every night thinking he was broken."

She looked at me now. Red eyes? No, now Tyler's eyes were white. Silver-white like Elara's. Like mine.

"There is nothing wrong with you being here," she said to me, using Elara's words. "There is everything wrong with what they told you, Kael. You were never broken. You were hiding. You hid your light because if you glowed, she would find you."

My knees gave out. I hit the mud hard.

Elara was instantly beside me. Hands on my face, cold fingers, silver eyes full of tears.

"Kael? Kael, look at me. Don't listen to it. That's not your mom. That's still the witch, right? Rhys? Tell him that's the witch!"

But Rhys wasn't answering. Rhys was staring at Tyler's body with his mouth slightly open.

"That's not Hessa," he whispered. "Hessa can't mimic white. White burns her. That's... that's really her. The veil opened when you howled, Kael. You tore it."

Sarah White, Elara's mother, stepped closer, her white dress now getting muddy.

"Liora," she said softly to Tyler's body. "Sister."

Two white wolves. My mother and Elara's mother. Sisters? Best friends? My father lied about that too?

Tyler's body — Liora — smiled at Sarah.

"You kept your promise, Sarah. You kept my son's mate safe. Human."

"I tried," Sarah whispered, tears of light on her face. "I tried but she howled tonight. Like you did."

Elara stood up. She was shaking again, but not from fear this time. From anger. That defiant Elara anger that I loved even when it scared me.

"Enough!" she shouted. "Enough of this! All of you are sisters and promises and white this and white that! My brother is sitting up dead talking in someone else's mom's voice and you are all having a reunion!"

She pointed at Tyler's body.

"That is my brother! Tyler Quinn! He is fourteen! He mows lawns! He asks for extra whipped cream! He is not a door! He is not a veil! He is not your son or your sister! He is my brother!"

The sight of her so homely and pretty and furious with silver eyes and blood on her apron made my chest rip open again. That cold black rage came back.

She was right.

I stood up. My legs were shaking but I stood.

"Let him go," I said to Tyler's body. To my mother. To whatever it was. My voice was low again. Double again. "There is everything wrong with you being in him. There is nothing wrong with him being dead if it means he is free. Let him go."

Tyler's body looked at me, and for a second, the white eyes flickered. Became brown again. Tyler's real eyes.

"Kael?" a small voice said. Tyler's real voice. Weak. Confused. "Kael? It hurts. My throat hurts."

"TYLER!" Elara screamed. She lunged.

I lunged too.

Rhys grabbed both of us and threw us back.

"Don't!" he shouted. "If you touch him while he's between, you'll be pulled in too!"

Tyler's eyes flickered again. White. Red. Brown. Black. Like someone flipping channels.

"Kael..." he whispered in his own voice, then in my mother's voice, "Save her... they are coming..." then in Hessa's old woman voice, laughing, "Too late, little white wolves..."

From the trees, the red eyes that had been standing still finally moved.

They ran.

Not toward us.

Toward the town. Toward the lights of Silver Falls. Where the humans were still gathered around the bonfire that was supposed to be for me.

My father saw it and went white.

"The town," Magnus whispered. "Hessa sent the bound ones to the town."

Sarah grabbed Elara's hand hard.

"Choose, Elara!" she shouted over the growling. "Come with me now and I can save Tyler! I can teach you how to close the veil! Or stay with him and watch Hessa take everyone you ever served coffee to!"

Elara looked at Tyler flickering on the ground. At her mother's glowing hand. At me, silver light still fading from my hands, on my knees in the mud.

"Kael?" she whispered. "What do I do?"

Behind her, the first scream came from town.

A human scream.

And Tyler's body, in the middle of it all, went completely still, eyes closed, and stopped breathing again.

For real this time.

No flicker.

Sarah whispered, "He's gone. If we don't act now, he stays gone."