Kyra
And finally, after all those hours and minutes and seconds, Derek came to find her.
He probably had come to tell her to leave. A few of the other shifters had tried, at first. But she hadn't budged. And finally, Tristan had yelled at all of them, "Just leave her alone. Derek doesn't want you all harassing her. If she starts doing something weird, let me know. But otherwise, lay off."
Tristan was apparently acting as the second in command while Derek was recovering, and she was grateful that he’d intervened.
But now Derek was here.
She felt him before she saw him. She jumped up, running straight to the gate. There was no point in pretending she wasn’t waiting on him.
"Lyra,” he said. She bit her lip, hardly able to believe that he was there. And that he would come find her.
"Have you come to tell me to leave?" she asked. If he told her yes, she would respect that.
His eyes darkened. "Has the pack been bothering you?"
"No. They've actually been very tolerant, considering what happened,” she said.
"Okay, because I gave them very specific instructions not to give you a hard time."
"Thank you. But I don't understand why." She really didn’t. After four days, she was also having a hard time believing he was really there, standing right in front of her.
“Come on, let's take a walk." He motioned for her to walk beside him.
“Are you sure you're okay? Should you be up?"
"I'm fine. I've been fine for several hours. They were just hovering over me like mother hens,” he said.
“I don’t blame them.” She longed to tuck her hand into his, but that was no longer something she could do. She pushed her hands into her pockets instead.
"I want the whole story,” Derek said. “Start from the very beginning.”
"Which beginning?" she asked.
"The beginning of your life. I want to know everything. Clearly there were some salient details that I was missing."
"Well, I had tricked you. So it was hardly your fault."
He lifted one shoulder in concession. "That may be true. But I want to hear everything from your side. Give me the truth, no matter if it's good, bad, or in between. If it paints my pack in a bad light, I want to hear it. If it paints Roman’s father in a bad light, I want to hear that too.”
So she told him. She started at the beginning. She explained about her father first.
She felt her mouth turn into a crooked smile. "He was a lot like you. He loved traveling the world. He loved adventure. And he loved learning new things. He would have been thrilled to move to Anchorage. When he was younger, he actually spoke to Roman’s father about being allowed to be a part of the human world a little more. Roman’s father was not agreeable. So my father tried to go on and be a good shifter. But he just couldn't stay put. He went to the neighboring town and when he was only eighteen, he met my mother. She was the same age. But she was different. She was human."
Derek stopped walking. He turned to face her. "Are you telling me that your mother is a human?”
She nodded. “Yes. She was a human. So, I'm half human, half wolf shifter."
“And you knew this all along?" Derek asked. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I didn't want you asking too many questions." She rolled her shoulders, trying to alleviate some of the tension that was building. “The idea of her being a human didn't go over very well with Roman’s father."
"Tell me,” Derek said, a little too harshly.
"My father asked his Alpha, Roman’s father, for permission to date my mother." She blew out a breath, trying to keep her voice steady. Talking about it had not gotten any easier. “I'm sure you can imagine what he said."
"I'm sure he was quite emphatic in his response."