His Innocent question
1229 Words
Alpha Braham’s POV
The moment that woman…Martha…ran upstairs, slamming the door behind her, silence wrapped around the house. Heavy. Tense. Charged.
But Millie didn't look at me.
She stood stiff, one hand gripping her child's…our child's…hand so tightly I could see her knuckles whiten. The boy shifted his weight, glancing between us with those unnervingly perceptive eyes.
I took a step forward. "Millie," I said, voice low, steady, "we need to talk."
Her shoulders lifted, defensive. "Not now. I need to get him settled."
"That can wait."
Her head snapped toward me, and for a split second, I saw it… the flash of the girl who was broken that day at the hospital, who wanted so badly to get rid of the pregnancy and run away from me and everything else.
"No. It can't."
That sting…her shutting me out… shouldn't have cut as deep as it did. But four years of silence had sharpened every wound she left behind.
Still, I kept my composure. For her. For our son.
"Millie," I tried again, "four years is…"
"Not long enough," she interrupted, "for you to think you can control my life and act like nothing happened."
I exhaled slowly. Vorn clawed beneath my skin, demanding I close the distance, demanding I make her understand. I shoved him down.
She was ice. Controlled. Untouchable.
But I had lived long enough to know that ice forms around fire.
Lionel tugged her sleeve and whispered, "Mamá… why is he looking at us like that?" His voice dropped lower, uncertain. "Is he staying?"
The boy's voice…small but steady…hit me deeper than any blade. Deeper than the day she left without a word.
I stepped closer, unable to stay away. "Mill—"
She held up a hand, and I stopped. Not because she commanded it, but because the look in her eyes begged me to.
"Don't start with the child," she said quietly, but there was steel beneath it. "I'm not ready to talk about him with you." She warned like she knew what I was going to say.
"He's our…"
"I said I'm not ready."
My jaw clenched. I forced myself to breathe through the rising frustration, the ache of being shut out from something that was mine. Someone who was mine.
"You don't get to run from every hard thing just because…"
"I'm not running," she snapped, and there it was… the fire breaking through. "I came ready to fight. For myself and my child. I don't need your help, your protection, your interference. I didn't come back for you to play Alpha over my life."
The accusation stung more than it should have.
I stepped closer… slowly… stopping a breath away. Close enough to smell the faint, familiar sweetness of her hair, something floral and warm that I'd never forgotten. Close enough to feel the electricity she pretended wasn't there. Her pulse jumped at her throat.
"I know you're strong," I murmured, and I meant it. "I always did. But I will never… never…stand by and watch anyone bully you in my presence. Not a human. Not a wolf. Not even your family."
She glared up at me, and for a moment, the years between us dissipated… I saw the woman I spent the best night of my life with.
"Get used to disappointment," she whispered.
My chest tightened…not with anger. With something far more dangerous. Something I thought I'd buried the day she vanished.
Before I could speak, the child stepped forward.
And for the first time, he looked directly at me.
Not a glance. Not a curious peek. A full, assessing stare that reminded me of the way I sized up threats in council meetings.
Those eyes. Golden rings around deep hazel. My mother's eyes. My eyes.
The curve of his cheek was all Millie…soft where mine was sharp. But his brow, the set of his jaw even at this age, the way he held himself despite his size…
A strange, instinctive certainty settled in my bones, ancient and undeniable.
He opened his mouth. "Mamá… who is he?"
Millie froze, her breath catching audibly.
The boy tilted his head, studying me the way wolves study the moon. "Why does he smell like me?" His nose wrinkled slightly, processing. "And why does he look like me too?"
My breath faltered.
The world didn't just pause… it stopped. Every sound, every scent, every sensation narrowed to this moment. To him.
Millie's fingers tightened around his shoulder, but he slipped from her grasp like water and stood closer to me. Close enough for our scents to mingle. Close enough for me to catch it beneath the sweetness of Millie's scent that clung to him, beneath the soap and the outdoors, there was something else.
Something that belonged.
Vorn surged forward, nearly breaking the surface. The urge to shift, to claim, to protect roared through my veins.
Mine. Ours. Protect.
"You're… very observant," I managed to say, my voice rougher than I intended.
"What does that mean?" he asked, head tilted in that way curious children do, but his gaze was sharper than any child's should be.
"It means," I answered quietly, crouching down to his level so we were eye to eye, "you're intelligent. More than most."
A small smile tugged at his lips, and my heart clenched.
Millie moved as if to separate us, but he dodged her with the easy grace of someone used to slipping past his mother's reach.
"Mama," he called, louder now, turning to look at her with a child's unshakeable certainty, "I think I like him."
I felt something inside me crack open. Something I'd kept locked away since the day she left.
He continued with the same innocent conviction, turning back to me. "He talks nice… and he listens." A pause, then brighter: "Can I show him my drawings?"
Millie jumped in, her voice tight. "Lionel, we're not…"
"Please?" he insisted, those eyes…my eyes…widening. "Can I draw him too?"
Millie frowned, and I caught the confusion beneath her worry. "I thought you only drew dragons and objects. Not people."
Lionel turned, staring at me with those wolf-clear eyes that saw far too much.
"He's not regular people," he said simply, as if it explained everything. As if he could sense what I was, what he was, even if he didn't have the words for it yet. "I like him."
Silence crashed into the room like a physical force.
My throat tightened. My hands curled into fists at my sides to keep from reaching out, from pulling him close, from scenting him properly the way every instinct screamed at me to do.
Vorn pushed harder, demanding recognition. Demanding I claim what was mine.
This boy…
This boy was mine.
Then he reached up, tugged Millie's hand with small fingers that trembled just slightly…brave, but still uncertain and asked with the kind of crushing innocence that only children possess:
"Mama… can we make him my daddy?"
The air left the room.
Millie went pale, her lips parting but no sound coming out.
I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't do anything but stare at this small, perfect wolf-boy who'd just torn down every defense I had left.
Lionel looked between us, waiting for an answer that neither of us could give.
And in that suspended moment, I knew with absolute certainty that nothing…nothing…would ever be the same again.
- Writer
