The Alpha's Progeny [The Alpha's #3]

MALIK VLADIMIR

“Can this wait till the morning?” Anastasia groaned from where she was cuddled up to her mate, her eyes closed. “Penelope is asleep right now and when she sleeps, I sleep.”

“I truly wish it could,” Malik sighed as he moved around the sofa to sit in front of them.

“What’s going on, Malik?” Marcellus asked in a concerned tone, tightening the arm he had thrown over his mate’s shoulder. “Is this something that we need to be worried about?”

“I would usually say no but this is kind of urgent,” Malik frowned. He paused to take in a deep breath, inhaling sharply before he told them everything that he knew; everything that he had come to learn these past few days. He started from the very beginning when he started to suspect what his father was doing, all the way to a few days ago when he had found out the complete truth.

“I knew something had to be going on but I didn’t think it would be anything like this!” Malik growled, fisting his hands and clenching his jaw. “I didn’t think that he’d return from jail and straight away revert back to his old ways.”

“You need to tell me all about his old ways,” Malik all but demanded of his uncle, aware that Stassie was still very much speechless right now. “You need to tell me what he was like, what he used to do, how he was with my mum, everything. You need to tell me everything about him,” he continued to demand of them both. When neither of them budged, his frustration grew and rose up to the surface. “Everyone tells me that my mum committed suicide and up until recently, I thought that was the truth. And don’t think I’ve not noticed the weird way that you both can get sometimes. Like you’re about to tell me something but then you hold yourself back.”

“I guess this has gone on long enough,” Anastasia sighed, finally snapping out of her daze. “Trust me, Malik, we wanted to tell you the truth several times but I know Thea wouldn’t have wanted it. She always wanted to keep you away from this world.”

“That’s when I was a child, literally a baby,” Malik pointed out with an unimpressed look on his face, very suspicious of the two sat in front of him. “I’m an adult now. You don’t have to keep secrets from me anymore. And frankly, you should have told me all of this a long, long time ago.”

“Perhaps but we were doing this to protect you,” his aunt sighed with a fallen expression on her face, as if she had finally given up. “You know how I was the surrogate for Justas and Raphael?” he nodded when she paused. “Well, that kind of put a target on my back.”

“What kind of target?”

“The kind where Orpheus and his little gang kidnap her as well as other she-wolves that aren’t quite full wolves but can give birth to werewolf pups,” Marcellus snorted.

“What does that mean?” he asked in a quiet voice, a confused expression on his face as he struggled to decipher what he had just been told. “Why only she-wolves that aren’t full wolves?”

“Because most of them don’t have mates,” Anastasia sent him a pointed look.

“And not having a mate means that the ability is wasted?” Malik questioned, not quite sure of his answer.

“I guess, kind of,” Marcellus shrugged. “To be completely honest, I’ve not spent much time thinking about why Orpheus and his little gang did all of this. Well, not as much as time as I’ve spent thinking of him to be the worst wolf to have ever walked this Earth.”

“Why did you never tell me?” he asked in a quiet voice, his eyes wide with disbelief.

“The council locked him away. I never thought he would be out in our lifetime and if he was released, he would be far too old to do anything,” Marcellus’ growl swallowed up the last few words. “Imagine my shock when you told me that after fifteen years, he came strolling home. I have no idea why the council released him. I asked my dad but since he’s not on the council anymore, he wasn’t very helpful.”

“So, let me get this straight,” his voice trailed off before he cleared his throat. “My dad was part of a kidnapping group that stole wolf-pup-fertile she-wolves…but what for? Breeding?” he couldn’t help but cringe at his particular choice of words, but still couldn’t think of a better one.

“Yes, exactly!” Anastasia nodded and sighed. “Like I was saying before, not long after I gave birth to Alistair, I was kidnapped by this group. I was locked up in this dark room along with another woman.”

A brief moment of silence passed between them as he glanced between the two, waiting for one of them to continue until finally, understanding dawned on him.

“My mum was another woman?” Malik questioned, his lips parted in shock.

Marcellus nodded while Anastasia continued. “Mars came to rescue me and there was no way that I would leave without Thea. So, we managed to escape them but there was no evidence that led back to Orpheus at the time. We didn’t even know he was the one that was behind it all.”

“Let me get this straight,” Malik groaned, raising his hands to rub the exhaustion out of his eyes. “This group took females that could give birth to wolf pups but technically, wouldn’t be missed as they didn’t have mates? And they planned to use them to give birth to pups which they could sacrifice for Lord Erebus?”

“We only found out about the sacrificing today. All this time, we thought it was child trafficking,” Marcellus told him. “And the worst thing is that that’s not even the end of it.”

“There’s more?” Malik asked, not sure if he was going to laugh or cry at everything he was being told. “How could there possibly be more?”

“Trust me, Malik, there’s so much more,” Marcellus sighed before turning to face his mate, as if prompting her to take the lead.

“You and Thea started a new life after that. You joined a new pack but you visited a bunch of times. The both of you came back to stay for a while when Mars and I were hosting the Luna ceremony. Naturally, Orpheus was invited as he’s an Alpha too but like every other time, no one expected him to turn up. Well, anyway, he did and imagine our surprise when Thea already knew him.”

“Wait, hold up here,” Malik frowned. “I’m so confused here. I’m already born at this time?” The Alpha and Luna duo nodded. “Ok, so I’m already about and kicking at this time but mum and dad are not together? Why? What was going on there?”

Marcellus and Anastasia shared a brief look, both with grave expressions on their faces. Just by looking at them, Malik knew they were mind linking but each passing second of not knowing was killing him.

“Can you please just tell me what was going on? Did my parents fight? Is that why they weren’t together then?”

“No,” Marcellus murmured his denial. “It’s not quite that.”

“Then what it is?” he couldn’t help but growl out in frustration, desperate to know the truth.

“Thea already knew Orpheus at the time but they weren’t together. They were never together,” Anastasia told him. She then opened and closed her mouth but no words came out. “Thea met Orpheus while she was at college and then nine months after, she had you. She dropped out of college and that was that. Well, until she got kidnapped and then met me.”

“I would hardly describe their encounter as a meeting,” Marcellus snorted, a dark look in his eye.

“What do you mean? What are you saying?” Malik asked but neither of them answered his question.

The longer the silence went on, the longer the gears in Malik’s head were turning. He thought up several situations and scenarios that were made possibly by what Marcellus and Anastasia had told him already. But there was only one that stuck; only one sick enough to be true.

“He raped her?” Malik questioned, unable to hold himself back from getting choked up over the words. “Please tell me my dad didn’t rape my mum.” By this point, tears wet his eyes until they felt heavy and the first of many tears started to drop. “Please tell me that I’m not the product of rape.”

“I’m so sorry that you had to find out this way, Malik,” Anastasia sniffled, moving to reach over and pull him into her arms. “I know Thea never wanted you to find out and I never planned on telling you either. I’m so sorry that you had to find out.”

Malik wanted to get mad that his beloved aunt and uncle were keeping things from him, that they had been keeping all of this from him for years but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t bring himself to be mad. How could he when a part of him, a really big part of him, wished that they never told him all of this in the first place.

And to think that this wasn’t even all of it.

“What happened after that?” Malik asked, sniffling as he wiped away the tears. “What happened after mum saw him at your Luna ceremony?”

“She was forced to go back with him to the Apo to Chaos pack where she…” Anastasia’s voice trailed off as she got choked up over her words.

“Where she killed herself?” Malik hiccupped, barely able to get his words out.

“Except, she didn’t kill herself,” Marcellus snorted but at the way Malik’s eyes immediately zeroed in on him, he froze.

“What?”

“Fuck!” Marcellus swore before turning to him. “I really shouldn’t have said anything.”

“It’s way too late for that now,” Anastasia groaned. “We can’t continue keeping things from him anymore. Not when he’s already knee deep in all of this shit.”

“Well, that’s great but can you please tell me how my mum didn’t kill herself?” Malik continued to pester, desperate to know this answer.

“Technically, she did commit suicide as she was the one that stabbed herself. But it was Orpheus that pushed her to do that…” his voice trailed off before his face suddenly grew focused, as if he was forcing himself to be as truthful with Malik as possible. “He raped her for a second time. There was so many other things going on and then I ’m sure there’s was even more that we don’t know about but ultimately, it was Orpheus who forced her to do that. I guess it was the only way that Thea felt like she could escape him.”

Marcellus didn’t need to finish for Malik to burst out into tears once again. How was he expected to stay composed after everything that he had just learnt?

He was a product of rape. Malik didn’t even know that his parents weren’t together at the beginning and now, he had learnt that he was a product of rape. That he was born from something so disgusting and despicable.

But more than that, more than how he felt, he couldn’t believe that his mum went through all of that. That his mum was forced through such a fate by a man who was supposed to be her mate. The one person that was supposed to love and protect her, forced her to kill herself.

Malik was ashamed to admit that more than a few times over the years, he had felt feelings of annoyance and hatred toward his mum for killing herself. For leaving him behind. Sometimes, he felt it was selfish of her to choose the easy way out but now…now, he knew the truth. Now, he understood why she had done what she did and frankly, he couldn’t blame her.

How could he when her life was so torturous? When his dad had been the one to force her to do so?

When his dad had raped her? When his dad had ruined her and killed her spirit?

“Malik?” Anastasia called out to him in a quiet voice but Malik didn’t hear her.

He couldn’t hear anything right now. How could he when the true face of his dad has just been unveiled? When the truth was so much worse than he could have imagined?

-

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Layla Knight

20.08.2021