THREE | CONTINGENCY PLAN
1707 Words
Morgan
A little before lunchtime, I was surprised to see Kade and Xander walk into the house; we weren’t expecting them back until tomorrow. I began to smile at him, but the stress was clear on Kade’s face. Something had happened.
“What’s wrong?” I walked to him and asked. He didn’t say a word. He just took my hand and led me upstairs to our room. His grip on my hand was so tight it was painful, and it was making me nervous.
“Kade? Baby, you’re hurting my hand. Please tell me what’s going on.”
“I’m sorry, Sugar.” He pulled my hand to his lips and kissed it but didn’t say anything else, not until we were behind the door of the bedroom. He then led me to the bed and gently pushed me down to sit, then sank to his knees in front of me and placed his head in my lap.
“I love you so much, Morgan, you know that, don’t you?”
Now I was really nervous. Kade never called me Morgan, ever. This was serious.
“Yes, I know. And I love you too.”
“Say it again, please,” he looked up and pleaded.
“I love you. Please tell me what wrong; whatever it is can’t be that bad. We can fix it together if you just tell me.” He grabbed my left hand and played with the huge diamond on my finger while he told me what happened at Canyon Woods. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; of all the possible things I’d expected to come out of his mouth, this was not on the list. When he was done, he sat back on his heels and hung his head. There were no words for me to say; I was speechless.
“I promise you; I’m not that little boy’s father. I can’t be.”
“You don’t know that for sure; you were drunk, and you can’t remember that night. You told me that yourself.”
“I know, but I know myself. I wouldn’t do this, ever. It’s not who I am; it’s not who I was. I was smarter than that.”
“So, what happens now? Where does this leave us?” I asked.
“What do you mean, we’re where we always were. In love, engaged, and trying to have a child. This situation doesn’t change anything.”
I got angry and snatched my hand away from him.
“But it does, Kade. Because I’m just a simple human, I couldn’t mark you. And because you couldn’t control your d**k, you could be a father. And now wolf law says you have to marry someone else. What does that tell you? It sounds like me, and you are not supposed to be together. Maybe that’s why after almost two years, I’ve never gotten pregnant. Maybe that’s why I can’t decide on one single detail for this wedding. We’re not supposed to be married; you’re not supposed to be mine.”
I saw that my words hurt him, but I wasn’t trying to. I was telling him how I felt, and at this moment, I felt hopeless.
“Please don’t say those things, you are mine, and I am yours; nobody else’s. You said you loved me, right? That we could fix this? Then have faith in me. Trust me when I tell you that I’m not going anywhere, please.”
I wiped a tear away that I didn’t even know had fallen. This was breaking my heart; what if I lost him? Where would I go? I couldn’t stay here in this room, in this house, and always be reminded of what we had. That would be torture.
“We’re not trying to have a baby, not until the test results come back. It wouldn’t be fair to create another life that you may or may not have to leave behind. I won’t do that to my child.”
“I understand.”
I began to pull off my ring, but he stopped me before I could.
“No! Don’t do that. You are still my fiancé. We can hold off on a baby, and we can put wedding plans aside for a while if you want, but you will not back out of this engagement. It would crush me if you did that. Please.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
He then rushed me and pulled me to him in a crushing hug, and I broke down. It didn’t matter what the test results said, just the thought of being without him was unbearable. It felt like I was going to die.
“Please don’t cry; it’s alright, Sugar. I’ll always be here; remember what I told you when I marked you? This is forever.”
***
Kade
The talk with Morgan was much harder than I expected it to be. I knew she loved me, but I also never hid my past from her. She knew that I slept with everyone I wanted, but she didn’t know about the “rules” I used to live by. No one did, so I could understand how both she and Xander were having a hard time believing without a doubt that I didn’t have a four-year-old child in Oregon.
Xander called an emergency meeting in his office as soon as I let him know I was free, which I was not looking forward to. I just wanted to be done with all of this; I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Alexi, Matt, Tyson, and I all arrived at the same time, and Xander got right down to business.
“You all already know what happened today at Canyon Woods; there’s no need to discuss it any more than we have to. It will be three weeks before we can put this behind us, but until then, we need to be smart. We have to have a contingency plan in place.”
“What do you mean? A contingency plan for what?” I asked.
Xander sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face.
“We have to abide by the law; none of us are above it. If, and I stress, if you are Cameron’s father, you have to step up and take care of him. You have to marry Marisol.”
“I already know that, but it’s not the case.”
“That why this is a contingency plan. You can’t run a business or a pack without planning for all possible outcomes. You can’t hold rank in two packs; it’s also against wolf law. When you marry Marisol, you will become Canyon Woods’ Alpha; and you can no longer be my Beta.”
“Whoa, what exactly are you talking about, Xander?” Matt asked.
“Restructuring. Alexi, you were born a beta, but because your wolf is gone, you cannot hold the position. Matt, you would vacate your role as Gamma and move to Beta. Tyson, even though you’re a bear, you’re still pivotal to this pack; you would become my Gamma. Alexi would remain Head Advisor.”
Everyone started talking and yelling at once. This was insane. I had no intention of ever leaving my pack; this was my family.
“Quiet! This is not up for discussion. Kade? You say that you can’t be the father, right? If that’s the case, then all of this was just a f****d-up hypothetical. But if it’s not, you will be excommunicated from Blue Moon. You will be stripped of your title, and your link to the pack will be severed. At that time, you will relocate to Canyon Woods to prepare to become their new Alpha. Am I making myself clear?”
“Can I respectfully decline the position? I have no idea what a Gamma in a wolf pack even does,” Tyson stated.
“No, you can’t. You don’t know how to be Gamma? Ask Matt; he can easily show you what to do. And Matt, I don’t want to hear you say s**t about being Beta. You’re a f*****g Alpha, so suck it up.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Matt quietly muttered.
“So again, I ask; do each of you understand me?”
“Yes, Alpha,” we all replied.
It was clear that our best friend and brother had taken a step back. The man before us was Alpha Xander Black; we could all feel it and respected it.
“Good. Now get the hell out, all of you.”
Alexi, Matt, and Tyson left the room, but I was rooted to my spot. I couldn’t imagine not being the Beta for this pack. “How can you do this, Xander? How can you make plans to cut me out?”
“I did this? Really, Kade? You did this! You f****d your way into this s**t, and now I have to clean up the mess!”
“By excommunicating me?”
“By protecting this pack, the pack you vowed to honor and protect when you became Beta. Would you rather we ignore the law and go to war? We’d win without a doubt, but some of our warriors would surely die. Are their lives that expendable to you? Do they mean nothing to you?”
“Of course their lives matter to me. I respect every one of them.”
“Exactly. So do I, so much so that I’m willing to lose one of my best friends and brother. I don’t want to do this, Kade, I have to. Please don’t make it any harder.”
“This f*****g sucks Xan and I don’t know what to do. I’ve never been surer of anything in my life, but at the same time, I’ve never been so scared. I don’t know how to be an alpha, or how to care for anyone but Morgan. Will they expect me actually to mark Marisol or love her? I can’t do that, and I won’t.”
“I know. But you’re confident about the results, and we all believe in you. This mess will pass, and soon enough, it will all just be a distant memory. So, for now, stop worrying; we’ll deal with it if or when we have to.”
I left the office and went to the back yard alone. How had this day gone so wrong? When I left, I was happily engaged and excited over my wedding and the child Morgan, and I would make. Now Morgan no longer wanted to have a baby with me, she barely wanted to look at me, and I was potentially going to be thrown out of my pack.
If I had known that f*****g around as a young dumb kid would cause all of this trouble, I would have stayed a virgin until I met Morgan. None of the chicks I’d been with before her were worth this headache, or worth the possibility of losing the best thing to ever happen to me.
These test results couldn’t come quick enough. I wanted my f*****g life back.
- Writer
