Page 15 of The Alpha's Second Chance Mate

“Yeah,” she muttered. “Mine’s on the account. Goodbye, Cole,” Avery said, and closed the door in my face.

As I stood there, staring at the closed door, I couldn’t help but think of everything I’d missed. My wolf didn’t want to leave. It took an almost physical force of will to turn away and walk back to my truck. Once I got moving, a new desire filled me.It flickered like flames on gasoline, scorching the earth itself. I needed to see my sister and ask her what thefuckwas going on.

My anger hadn’t abated by the time I arrived at her house. If anything, it had grown hotter. All I could do was think about how one secret had done so much damage. To me, to Avery, but most importantly, to an innocent kid. A boy who never got to have his father.

When I knocked on her door, it was all I could do not to pound on it or kick the damn thing down.

“Farrah! Open the fuck up!”

A few seconds later, the door swung inward, and my sister stared at me in confusion. “Cole? What the hell?—”

“Spill it. All of it,” I snarled and took a step inside, forcing her to back up.

The confusion on her face melted away, and the irritation in her eyes morphed into fear. She could see the fury on my face, and she was scared. She had every right to be.

“What do you know?” Her voice trembled in a fearful way that was not like her at all.

I slammed the door shut behind me, the sound of it like a gunshot that rattled the house.

“You know goddamn well what I know.” I pointed behind me. “I just got back from seeing Avery, where I met my son. A son Avery says you knew about.”

My anger was boiling over, and my wolf’s snarling and pacing in my mind wasn’t helping. I kicked a chair in the entryway,sending it flying down the hall. Farrah flinched. Rather than feeling ashamed of my outburst, I relished it.

“Tell me why, Farrah. That’s all I want to know. Why did you lie to me? You told me Avery married some douchebag she met in college. What the fuck?”

“Cole, please calm down,” she said, patting the air with her hands.

“How can I calm down?” I bellowed. “Do you understand what you’ve done?” my voice cracked, and the tears I’d held back threatened to spill. “I have a child. All these years, I could have had a family. I missedeverything, Farrah. I don’t even know where to start. Why?”

“Dad,” she said, nearly matching the volume of my own voice. “It was Dad. That’s why.”

I blinked at her, trying to process what she was saying. “What about Dad? What did he say?”

“It’s not about what he said,” Farrah said, walking away to her living room. I followed after her, and she collapsed onto her couch, digging her fingers into her hair. “It wasn’t my choice, okay?”

Pushing my anger down, I sat in the armchair across from her. “Explain.”

Farrah looked up at me, pure misery in her eyes. “Avery came to me, told me she was pregnant.” She pulled her eyes from mine, her cheeks flushing in embarrassment. “At first, I thought she was lying. She knew you’d vanished, and I assumed she was making up a desperate story to get you to come back. Then I noticed her scent had changed. Shewaspregnant.”

She rubbed her palms together, back and forth, side to side. It was a nervous habit she’d had since we were kids, and she only did it when she had something to say that she didn’t want to say.

“What did you do?” I growled.

She sighed and looked up at the ceiling, unable or unwilling to meet my eyes. “I may have… uh…insinuatedthat if she was pregnant, it might belong to someone else.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Farrah,” I hissed. “You know Avery would never have cheated on me with some other dude.”

“I know that, Cole, but for all I knew, she was heartbroken about you leaving and did something stupid. It doesn’t matter,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “She convinced me to tell Dad and you. So, of course, I went to Dad first. He was the alpha, whether we liked him or not. I was ready to leave Harbor Mills, too, remember? Dad said I needed to lie to her.”

“What?” I gasped. “He… what?”

Farrah shrugged helplessly. “He said he was angry you left, but that it was for the best that you’d left Avery behind. That was the reason you guys had that last big fight. Because he thought she wasn’t good enough for a pack alpha. He always wanted you with a shifter mate.”

“You should have told him to fuck off and contacted me. Why didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell me when I called you later on?”

Farrah finally tore her eyes from the ceiling. “Because, Cole, Dad was thealpha. He made me swear not to tell you, and to tell Avery you didn’t want anything to do with her. I even told her to get rid of the baby before it was born. He saw that you didn’t want to be in Harbor Mills anymore, and he was done with you.He figured if you knew you had a baby on the way, it would have kept you here. I think he was afraid you’d challenge him or something. So he gave me a story to spin to Avery and you. I couldn’t go against his wishes. Heforcedme. Do you get what I’m saying?”

Realization slammed into me like a punch in the gut. “He didn’t,” I said in disbelief.

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