Chapter three-The Truth
1001 Words
The room spins, and my fingers dig into the counter so hard I hear the wood creak. He’s lying. He has to be lying. But the voice inside me purrs, and for the first time, I realize that I don’t feel like myself. I feel the same way I did back then when I understood he’d left and a part of me…a part too alien to understand, howled with rage, fury, and agony at the loss.
“You’re insane,” I whisper, shaking my head before I manage to collect my scattered wits. “Mated? Dude, what the f**k are you on? I’m not an animal—”
“I marked you,” he says, cutting me off. “That night. You didn’t see it. You wouldn’t know unless someone told you. You were already—”
“Stop talking.” I hiss, my eyes growing round with horror when I look down and find the counter under my fingers…bent.
Nearly crushed. What the f**k. What the hell…
“Your body knows it. That heat you feel? The ache that doesn’t go away unless you’re—” he starts, smirking when I stumble back and shake my head even as my mind fills with thoughts so ludicrous, I want to scream.
“I said shut up!” I scream, grabbing the towel I used earlier and throwing it at him.
The two customers in the back scurry out like birds feeling a storm rolling in, but I can’t pay attention to them. Not when I feel like I’m losing my mind. I think I might scream—or cry—or throw something else at him when I hear the quiet voice from the back room.
“Mommy?”
Everything in me stills, and I whip around, my heart slamming into my rib cage so hard, my knees go weak.
Jackson. My son stands in the doorway to the kitchen, his soft curls sleep-mussed while he holds his little fox plushie and blinks wide eyes at Adam.
I feel Adam go rigid. The air changes. Thickens. He inhales once, sharp and hard.
And I know.
He knows.
Jackson blinks sleepily at me from the back hallway, rubbing one eye and dragging his stuffed fox by the tail.
“Mommy… why is that man growling?” Jacky murmurs, his gray eyes blinking open with a sleepy curiosity that makes my heart clench and turn over at the same time.
I turn just in time to see Adam standing there, fists clenched, shoulders squared, jaw ticking so hard I think his molars might shatter. He’s staring at Jackson like he’s seen a ghost. Or a bomb. Or both. And I get it because I remember exactly what I felt when the doctor placed Jacky on my chest and I met those startling gray eyes for the first time.
They were so clear, so sharp, as if he already knew what was happening. The nurses all gushed and went on and on about his eyes, but me, I was both in love and horrified by my boy because he looked so much like Adam, it brought everything rushing back.
I grab a dishrag and wipe my sweaty palms, trying to think, but nothing comes to me.
“He’s not growling, baby,” I say, my voice way too high. “He’s just… being rude with his breathing.”
Adam takes one step toward Jackson, and I lunge like a momma bear in a bad romcom, but I’m too late, and before I can stop him, he goes down on his knees and holds a hand out to Jacky. I almost faint when my son reaches out to take his hand and smiles brightly.
“I’m Jackson, but all’a my friends calls me Jacky.”
“I’m Adam. Fury. People call me Alpha because that’s what I am. I lead my people.”
“Like the Mayor?” Jacky asks, smiling when Adam nods and smiles. “That’s cool! I like the Mayor. He teached me how’ta fish on accounta I don’t got a dad.”
My stomach clenches, dropping straight to my feet, and I almost puke when Adam’s head whips up, and he grins, as if he knows I’ve never been with anyone.
The ring on my finger burns, becoming a shame that makes me blush, but I don’t have time to think about it because Jacky shrugs and, God love him, humiliates me all with one bright, innocent breath.
“My momma don’t got a husband on accounta she loved my dad.”
Oh, Jesus.
I almost pass out from that statement but for once Adam isn’t the asshole he always was and, instead of using that like the ruthless ass he is, he nods.
“I’m sorry to hear that, buddy. It was nice meeting you, but I’m sure your momma wants to keep discussing grown-up things with me, and that isn’t for your ears.”
Jacky nods, as if he gets it, and looks at me with so much confusion, I feel my chest cave in.
“Can I have waffles?”
I soften immediately, the anger, the rage, the turmoil all vanishing into a smile at my perfect son.
“Of course, baby. Go sit in the booth, and I’ll bring them over in just a minute.” I murmur, waiting until he’s out of earshot before I turn back to the towering growl-machine in a suit.
“Rogue—”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I hiss. “You vanish for five years, show up without a phone call, and then stare at my kid like he’s an alien? What’s your damage, man?”
Adam leans in, his voice low and steady.
“Because he smells like me.”
I blink.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“He smells like me, Rogue,” Adam whispers back just as furiously, making me frown and shake my head. "He's my son."
- Writer
