Found, ... at last

Chapter 22

Wesley shot her a questioning glance before he spoke.  “Who all do you want to see?”

Barry turned around and saw that everybody was still standing inside the door; half in and half out.  “It will most likely be best if all of you came.”

This time it was Gerald that spoke up.  “What; me too?”

“Yes.”  Barry sighed.  “You had better come along as well.  You are part of this mess too”

When they walked into the study Wesley noticed that extra chairs had been brought in; this had to be very serious then.  When everybody had taken a seat; Barry sighed, thought hard for a moment and opened his mouth.  And then shut it again.

Just as Jamie opened his mouth to speak; Barry looked at him.  “I understand; I honestly do understand.”  He shot a glance at where Bronwyn was practically sitting on top of Wesley, and sighed again.  Looking Wesley straight in the eye, he spoke once more.  “And I understand.  Really, I do.” 

Bronwyn could see that her dad was having some trouble with what he wanted to say, and for a small moment she felt utterly heartbroken at the sad and wistful expression on his face.

Barry sighed again and took a deep breath after exhaling.  “I understand … because your mother is my mate.  After centuries of careful breading to eliminate any shifter trait that could reveal who we are to the human world; that is the only animal instinct I have left.”

A silence so quiet that even Bronwyn could hear the grass growing lasted for a very long time.

“I don’t understand dad.  We are not shifters.  Are we?”  Jamie asked as he looked between his dad, Eric and Sadie.

As head of a very extensive family Wesley found Barry’s revelation troubling to say the least.  “What I am most concerned about is the reason your ancestors would have felt the need to take such drastic steps.  Why did they do that?”

Giving Wesley a crooked half smile Barry squared his shoulders and sat back in his chair; obviously preparing himself for answering a lot of questions.

“What else could they do once the animals they shifted into became extinct?”

Stunned disbelief was as clear as daylight on all their faces.

“Extinct?”

Barry flashed Wesley a rather smug look at his breathless query.

“Yeah; extinct.  There is quite a bit more to shifters than you young lot think; shifters go back a lot further than you can possibly imagine.”

“Holy hell dad!  How can you never have told us this?!”  Eric was too upset to think rationally.

Barry rolled his eyes at his son.  “Because I did not expect any of this” he swung his arms wide; obviously meaning the two natural wolves and the tigers, “to happen.”  Crossing his arms across his chest he glared at his son.  “Besides; it’s not like I just left you to fend for yourselves.  I was there when your alpha changed you and I was there to make sure your first shift happened as smoothly as it could.”

“Hey!”  Bronwyn interrupted Jamie before he could rant at their dad again.  “Has nobody even thought about what animal it was?!”

“I have.”  Wesley muttered under his breath soft enough that only the shifters could hear.  Bronwyn and Barry were the only ones who were totally unaware of what he had said.

“Yeah dad; tell us.  What animal was it; please tell me it wasn’t those hairy mammoths?”

The look of pure disgust on Barry’s face made everybody laugh wildly; and with that, the uneasy tension was broken.  “Hell no!  Haven’t you learned by now that shifters only take on the forms of carnivores?”