3. Chapter Three
Chapter Three
Isadora
H e had no way of knowing.
Anders drove the car like the evil robot he was, his arms in the perfect position gripping the wheel, and I faced the window, afraid to give too much with one look.
Anders was… gorgeous. There was no other word for a man like him.
He had the most incredible crystal-blue eyes, soft blond hair, and a blond beard too.
He was at least six foot two, since he looked at least a foot taller than me.
And if being that tall wasn’t enough, he was also double my size shoulder to shoulder.
And I wasn’t a small girl. The double Ds were heavy, and my cleavage was notorious. I had a soft tummy and thick legs. I was a big girl, but I looked like a little doll beside him.
Anders was a full man, and I couldn’t say I wasn’t a little proud for sticking up for myself even when I had to crane my head back to look him in the eye.
The landscape changed as the farther we went north, the green turned into tall trees as close as we got to the mountain.
I tried to ignore the man beside me and thought about Dad instead.
This was the place he came from. As the image of my father came to my mind, so did tears to my eyes and warmth to my heart.
He was a good man who loved me dearly. He was hardworking and honest. Nothing Anders could say would make me less proud of being Karl’s daughter.
“We’ll stop by the house first, and I have to talk to the pack. Explain the situation.”
I rolled my eyes and refused to look his way. That didn’t stop him. “Don’t say anything. I can handle them.”
That was all I could take with my mouth shut. “You’re acting like you’re doing me a favor! I’m not some dog you found in the street, and you have to… to…” I waved my words away.
This was going to get annoying soon. Dad always made sure I could speak Swedish, but since his passing, I stopped practicing. After all, who am I going to talk to? But I didn’t like to be limited like that. I needed a full vocabulary if I was going to tell Anders off like I wanted.
“You’re not some dog I brought in,” he replied between his gritted teeth. “But Karl is a sore spot for many people. Especially for the pack.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but he cut me off. “It doesn’t matter what you think and what you were told. Karl left his pack, which is not something people accept around here. There’s a lot to unpack, and you have to be respectful of how we do things.”
Anger coursed through my veins. I had to close my eyes and count to ten because, while I didn’t like it, he was right. It wasn’t right to disrespect their culture. But man, it was hard to be understanding when I knew very little about what had happened.
For that alone, I took a deep breath and swallowed my preconceived notions before carefully speaking again. “Can you explain to me how this whole thing works?”
A beat of silence went by. Anders glanced at me and back at the road. “Karl never talked to you?”
I shook my head. “He was sick,” I said, hating to talk about that time in our lives. “I thought he was delirious for a while. Then I found a few of his memories—”
“Memories?”
I nodded and looked at the window and the beautiful countryside stretching in front of us. “I found a small box with pictures and stuff. And a picture of my grandmother and her… husbands?”
Anders nodded. “They still live there. You can meet them if you like.”
I had no idea how to answer that. I didn’t even know their names. Dad mentioned a few stories, but they were distant characters in a book; there were never any palpable details. It was only when I held that picture in my hands, a woman with the same shade of hair as my dad and four men around her.
Mom and dads.
The plural of that sentence took me for a loop, and for a whole week, I was convinced it was my Swedish that was bad. I got it wrong, but at some point, I had to accept that my grandparents were polyamorous. So I had four grandfathers? That was a lot to take in.
“Dad never talked about anything until the days before his death. He said about alpha and omegas, but I really didn’t think it was true. But then I found the picture… and then you called.”
He said nothing. The silence made me fidget, my heart beating fast and hard, and I ended up looking his way just to find his brows knitted close and his knuckles white from gripping the wheel.
“What’s the problem?” I asked.
He shook his head. “You don’t want to know.”
I liked to know everything. “Just tell me. I can’t just come to a new place, and on top of everything, not know what’s going on.”
“It’s not about anything.” He let out a long breath. “It makes me angry that Karl hid from you what you are. I know he could tell you were an omega. If not at your birth, then after puberty.”
“What difference does it make?”
If looks could kill, I’d be dead now. Lucky me, his stare was quick, and ended in a second when he was back looking ahead to the highway.
“Omegas are rare these days, and he knew that when he left. That’s why he left,” Anders offered.
“What do you mean?”
“Did he ever tell you why he left us?” he asked. I could tell by the cords in his neck that he hated this conversation as much as I did.
“He said he wanted more out of life.”
It was fair. Why would anyone blame someone for leaving their small town?
My dad didn’t want to live and die in the same place.
He traveled a lot, and it was during his travels that he met my mother.
We used to go to many places and enjoyed life until my mom died when I was ten.
After that, Dad tried, he really did, but traveling wasn’t the same without her, and I agreed.
Soon, every hotel, every new restaurant wasn’t an adventure but torture for us both.
“It wasn’t that,” Anders spat, interrupting my thoughts. “There were no omegas anymore. Everyone was mated, and Karl knew we were going to be alone for life. That’s why he left.”
His words were cutting, but I still couldn’t understand why. I shook my head. “What is wrong about that? He didn’t want to be alone for life.”
Rage vibrated through Anders’s body. I could feel the tension inside the car.
It wasn’t my dad’s fault that Anders wanted to stay.
I looked at him, really looked at him. Yes, he was gorgeous, but the lines on the corners of his eyes didn’t lie.
He was about my father’s age. That meant he stayed, and he was still single after all this time. Alone.
“I know you don’t understand, but I’m telling you the situation is more nuanced. People don’t just leave their pack. A pack is bonded first. He was one of us, our brother, and he left. There’s a lot of resentment when it comes to Karl.”
The words in defense of my father were threatening to come out, but I swallowed them back again.
Sometimes traditions are wrong. If being bonded with your pack brothers meant you had to live in misery for the rest of your lives, I’m proud my father walked away.
I didn’t say that to Anders, of course. Instead, I nodded and looked away from him for the remainder of the drive.