What Can’t Be Fixed

Chapter 6

Cronos POV

When we get there we make sure to leave a parking spot for Alex as Sarah and Mark are already home. We head inside, greet the adults, and head to my room. Fletcher and Stasia look around in amazement as if they just walked into a freaking mansion when in reality, my room was pretty simple. I had a tempur-pedic mattress, a shelf holding Zander and my books and a couple from the others, a desk with a swivel chair, and a couple of small decorations and toys from the others as I don’t really care or decorating.

“What's wrong with you guys? I have the most simple room ever and you're looking around as if you just entered a castle.” I say.

“Well it IS the first time I’ve seen your room, what did you expect me to do?” Stasia replies.

“True, well whatever. Feel free to look around.” I say.

Just then we hear a knock at the front door and I tell Nathanial to go open it, knowing it’s Alex. I hear them open the door and the most intoxicating scent of rain and earth comes to me. I can hear them talking at the front door, walking towards my room.

Shadow- That’s our mate, go to him.

Me-What’s a mate?

Shadow- It’s like a soul mate but better because their presence can calm you.

Kayden- Wait a minute, no one agreed to this, yes it’s alex but if he’s our so called mate and we will be bound to him for life, we can’t be with him. Not now or ever.

Shadow- Yes, we’ll be bound for life but he’s a werewolf, they are the ones who treasure their mate the most, he will love us, I can promise you that much.

Kayden- You can’t guarantee that! Anyone can leave at any time, nothing lasts forever.

Me- But maybe he will, we’ve known him forever and he coul-

Kayden- We can’t risk it! Mate or not, there has to be a way to get out of this.

All you can hear from Shadow now is whines of disagreement, just then we’re interrupted by a shout from the door, we all look up to see Alex.

“MATE!!! MINE!!!” Alex yells as he runs to me, even with being familiar with his touch, I still panic with what Shadow and Kayden said when he wraps his arms around me. 

I start to shake and try to push him away but since I’m panicking, it’s not really working.

“Alex! Stop! You're hurting him!” Fletcher yells. That seems to snap him out of it because Fletcher NEVER yells.

After he lets go, I finally calm down a little. I look up to see a confused yet apologetic Alex looking at me. I look to the side to see everyone elses confused faces.

“Welp, guess the cats out the bag.” Nathan says.

“Oh my god, shut the f**k up Nathanial. This is absolutely not the time for joking around. Alex, we need to talk, we both have some explaining to do. Everyone else, you can’t tell anyone about this. I’ll explain later. Nathan, Tell Mark and Sarah to meet me in the living room in 10 minutes.” I say in the most authoritative voice I can muster.

After everyone leaves I turn to talk to Alex. “So…?”

“So…?” he repeats.

“Do you wanna go first? I mean to ask questions first?” I say while resisting the pull I feel to him.

“Well, how do I have a human mate? Are you even human? Why didn’t I realize that you were my mate till today, I turned !8 like a month ago? Do you even know what a mate is? Why were you acting so surprised even before I had said anything? Are you a wolf?” He says, talking a million a minute.

“One question at a time! For starters, I’m not human, I barely figured that out today so that’s probably why you barely realized this, yes i know what a mate is,  was talking to my feline, followed up by that, I’m not a wolf.” I say, replying to all of his questions.

“Feline?’ He asks, confused.

“Yes, apparently I'm supposed to be an Alpha of a pride my Father left behind. He never told me anything about it though, wouldn’t expect him to though. I didn’t really believe Shadow, my feline, till we saw each other. Now I guess I have no other choice then to train.” I say.

“I have 1 more question, Can I meet him? Shadow, I mean?” He asks.

“Oh, well, let me ask him.” I say.

Me- Hey Shadow? Alex wants to meet you, is that ok with you?

Shadow- Yes! Let me meet our mate!

“He said yes let me just…” I say in a dazed voice.

As I switched over to Shadow I could feel the difference between how this felt and how it felt to switch to anyone else, it’s then that the reality of this all caught up to him. This felt different, it was as if I was no longer in control of my body and was watching a movie, kind of like 4D.

“Hello mate, what do you want to ask? I’ll answer as much as possible.” Shadow says.

“Is everything Cronos said true? You're really A cat-shifter. How does that work?” Alex asks.

“So basically it’s the same thing as werewolves except we’re separated by species,not ranks. Black panthers are the prides male or alpha as you guys call it, lions are second in command, or beta, and tigers are third, or delta. Then there are commoners, those are all other species of big cats other than the high ranker big cat forms, then the omegas are regular cats of all kinds.” Shadow explains.

“How did you know I was a werewolf?” Alex asks.

“I can smell you, Cronos hasn’t shifted so our senses aren’t shared yet but I can smell mutt on you, no offence.” Shadow says.

“Do you not like me because I’m a wolf?” He asks.

“Of course not! I don’t like the species but I’m not gonna judge anyone by it! Most wolves that I know just f*****g suck!” Shadow explains.

“OH!! Sorry for being quick to assume! Can you let Cronos back now, though? We still have stuff to talk about.” Alex says.

“Ya sure! Give me a sec.” I then felt in control again.

“You're a werewolf? When were you gonna tell me?” I ask.

“Right now, when I know you were gonna ask.” He responds in a deadpan voice.

“Oh, right.” I say with a blush starting to cover my cheeks and tips of my ears.

“Do you have any other questions?’ Alex asks.

“Where are you in your pack? Which rank, I mean?” I ask.

“I’m the alpha of Birchwood pack.” He says.

“You’re the alpha?!” I yell.

“Yes, I’m the alpha” He replies.

“How do you do it?” I ask.

“What do you mean ‘How do I do it’” He asks.

“I mean how do you be an alpha, I don’t know anything about this world. I’ve lived my whole life as a human and all of a sudden I’m thrown into a world where I have to shift on my 18th birthday, and not only that, I’m the alpha of a pride I don’t even know! Speaking of, I still haven't met them! I don’t know anything about any of this, how do YOU do it?” I ask, lowkey going on a rant.

“Well I have my beta and delta to help, once you take the alpha position you can choose a second and third in command from you pack, or if they agree, from another pack. In your case, you can choose from outside of the pack, from your friends, but you would have to get them to agree and accept you because you would have to turn them into a were-cat.” He explains.

“I can’t do that! They’ll think I’m crazy or be scared of me, they would never want to be a were-cat. Hell I barely want to be one!!” I yell, starting to panic.

“Everything is gonna be ok, if you don’t want to tell them you can just pick one from what’s already there, you just have to get to know them because if you choose the wrong one they will be in charge while your gone and if rogues attack then your pack/pride will be killed.” He says with a serious tone.

“I can’t just pick anyone! Plus, how am I even gonna find my pack? Isn’t my dad the alpha right now?” I ask.

“Where is he now?” Alex asks.

“He’s still in jail, now that i think about it he’ll be out in 2 months.” I say, remembering how long he was sentenced.

“How long was he there for?” Alex asks.

“He was sentenced to 5 and a half years, so 5 years and 4 months.” I answer.

“How it works for wolves is probably different from cat-shifters but what I know is that if you're away from your pack long enough then the connection should be severed. When the connection was severed and his second in command should have taken over, but because you’re the rightful heir to his position you get to take the pack over. It might take some time to earn the trust of the pack and some might even leave because of what he did but it might not be a problem considering you’re the one who put him where he is.” He explains.

“Well how do I find the pack? You found me but if there were people in our school that were part of our pack they would have sensed me today.” I say.

“I don’t know, did your dad ever leave for long periods of time?” He asks.

“He never left for more than 4 hours at a time.”

“Ok, so I’m assuming your pack house is near this house. I don’t think they’ll be able to sense you until after you shift.” He explains.

“Well for now we still need to talk about the elephant in the other room.” I say remembering our friends that were here 15 minutes ago.

“Oh s**t, I forgot about them.” Alex says, I roll my eyes while thinking that was kind of obvious.

“Oh really? I didn’t notice, you seemed awfully worried.” I say with sarcasm dripping from every word.

“Well baby, it's ‘cause you’re here, of course i'm not paying attention to anything else.” He said without any hesitation.

“Oh my god, shut the f**k up! You're so damn cheesy! Well I already know that I have to tell them about me, what about you? Are we gonna tell them about us? About you?” I ask while my blush slowly fades away. I don’t know if he knows that I heard him calling me that.

“If you're telling them then so am I. i've been meaning to tell you all anyway since i was gonna turn you all into wolves if you were willing so i could make you all part of my pack.” he says.

“So we’re telling them? All of them? I haven't even told Mark and Sarah about me being gay. How do you think they’ll react?”

“It’ll be fine, if they don’t accept you then they were never meant to be in your life because being mates is destinee. Those people in the living room aren’t.” These words are enough to stop my panicking and help me calm down.

Kayden- This is why we need to leave you i***t! How long have we known the true hkm for? Less than 20 f*****g minutes!! If you're like this imagine what it’ll be like in a week! What happens when your dad comes back! You think he's gonna be there when that psychotic asshole gets here? If there's a way out of this, that's the first thing he's gonna do!

Shadow- No he's not! He's here to take us away from all of that PERMANENTLY! He wouldn't do that to us! The moon goddess made him for us and only us! He’s ours, ALL of ours! He was designed for all of us, even you! I know your ace and all but are you really? Or are you just trying to protect yourself too? You’ve been here since the beginning, I know that much. I don’t knlw what happened but just because you’re aromatic and asexual doesn’t mean you get to force the rest of us to not be with anyone ever.

I honestly don’t know why I pay attention to these conversations anymore considering the fact that they don’t let me talk at all.  This is my own body and i can’t even talk, *scoff* but even with these angry thoughts for some reason all I can think is that what Kayden said is true, Alex won’t stay when my father gets out of jail and the next 2 months would be an illusion. A lie. And with this thought i start once again listening to what they’re saying.

Zander- Can’t you guys just knock it off for once? If you couldn’t tell we came into HIS life so this is ultimately HIS decision. Kayden, whether you like it or not, this is also Shadows decision. He is C’s feline which means whether or not we were here today he still would have become part C’s life.

Kayden- You’re right but we should also have a say in this because, even though it isn’t Cronos’s fault, we’re here and we’re stuck here whether we like it or not.  As of now,as part of this headspace, I'm not allowing us to do ANYTHING with this prick. Not unless he stays even when things get messy.

By the time I start paying attention to my surroundings again I'm a whimpering, crying mess. Kayden’s right, I should end it now because if i don’t i'm just prolonging the inevitable. The question is, how do I end it? All I know is that we have to do this first. We’ll end it later. Ending it now isn’t the best idea.

“What’s wrong?” Alex asks lovingly while I wipe the tears off my face.

“Nothing, we need to go talk to them. They’re probably confused.” I say while getting up to go.

“Oh… Ok. Well we do need to talk to them i guess.” Alex says sounding hurt.