•Amara's POV
(Six years later)
The smell of pancakes filled our small kitchen as I flipped the last one.
"Mommy why is it that I am different from the other kids in my class?".
I kept my face calm even though my heart skipped a beat.
I turned to my son who was cutting his pancakes into perfect squares.
This conversation had been coming for months and I still wasn't ready for it.
"What do you mean, honey?" I asked while pouring orange juice into his glass.
My son, Milo looked up at me with bright eyes that were so much like Kade's.
"Tommy pushed me during recess. I nudged him a bit but he flew across the room."
I swallowed softly.
"Tommy doesn't eat enough, that's why he flew though you barely touched him."
Milo gave me a dirty look.
"But mom, what about that thing my eyes does always?" he pressed on.
He was not fooled by my deflection.
"When I get really mad, they feel hot and Jimmy said they flash gold."
My stomach clenched.
"It's not normal, is it?" He demanded from me with quirked brows.
Milo was already too smart and too observant at five years old.
The wolf blood in him was stirring and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
I sat down across from him and spoke, choosing my words carefully.
"Eyes play tricks in the light," I lied.
I forced a smile.
"Now eat your breakfast or you will be late for school again, today."
"But Mom-"
"Milo." I used my firm voice, the one that usually ended arguments. "Eat."
He sighed and took a big bite.
His questions were getting more specific and deflecting wouldn't work soon.
"If daddy was here, he wouldn't tell me to eat?" he mumured between bites.
And there it was, the words that always made my chest feel hollow.
"He wouldn't," I answered carefully.
His eyes lit up.
"Is daddy strong like me? Did he have gold eyes too?" He bombarded me.
My throat tightened.
I wanted to say.
I wanted to say that Kade was the strongest man that I ever knew.
I wanted to tell him that Kade's eyes could go from green to gold in a heartbeat.
I wanted to tell him that Kade would have loved you more than life itself.
That is if he had known of him existed.
But, I couldn't.
So I said only one word: "Yes."
"Why isn't daddy here with us?" He said with sad eyes and a pouting look.
Milo's innocent question hit me hard like a wicked punch straight to the gut.
How do I explain to a five year old that his father had rejected his mother?
How do you tell him that his father had chosen pack politics over love?
"Sometimes adults decide to make choices that will hurt people," I said softly.
He made a huh sound.
"Your father made a choice that meant he couldn't be a part of our family."
Milo nodded seriously as if he understood every word I had just said.
But I knew that more questions would be coming later-they always did.
My mind drifted back to that night six years ago that changed everything.
That night when I had walked out of that hall and Kade didn't follow me.
He didn't stop me when I had packed my few belongings that night.
He didn't come after me when I left pack lands at dawn with nothing.
I did take the silver knife and the braid he gave me during our mating ceremony.
And I took the most important thing,the secret growing deep in my stomach.
My exile wasn't chosen.
It was survived.
And survival meant raising Milo far from the man that had mercilessly burned me.
I needed my child far from the world where strength was measured in clans.
"Mom, you are spacing out again," Milo said, pulling me back to the present.
I blinked and realized then that I had been staring out of the window.
My coffee had grown cold in my hands.
"Sorry, baby. I was just thinking."
"About my daddy?" He asked just as he finished his last bite of pancake.
I laughed, grateful for his ability to pull me out of my dark memories.
He was always too smart.
"Tell me mommy," he pressed.
I ignored him and simply checked the clock on the microwave.
"We need to leave now or we will both be late for work and school."
He made a sound of horror.
"I don't want to be late or the classroom teacher will get cranky again."
I laughed as he jumped up from the table and ran to get his backpack.
I watched him go, so full to the brim with that soothing face year old energy.
My heart began to ache with how much he looked like Kade when he moved.
They had the same confident stride and the same way of holding their shoulders.
Like father, like son.
"Ready, Mom!" he called from the hallway as I grabbed my purse and keys.
I pushed the memories back into the locked box in my mind where they belonged.
Today was about getting Milo to school and myself to work at the diner.
Today was about the normal and almost human life I had created for us.
But as we headed toward the door, I could not shake that uneasy feeling.
I felt like our carefully constructed normalcy was about to come to an end.
"Come on, little wolf," I said, using his nickname. "Let's go face the world."
If only I had known how prophetic those words would turn out to be.
