Who We Become

CHAPTER FORTY

DUNCAN

It was so hard for me to stay silent while Oscar ranted at his parents. I just wanted to back him up and tell them they were crazy for the way they treated him.

"Now leave." Oscar said as he looked at me and nodded. I smiled at him and kissed his head before moving out from under him so I could stand. I towered over the two of them as Zachariah and Theodora took a step away from me.

"G-get back demon. You can't hurt us, the lord protects." Zachariah said as he stood protectively in front of Theodora.

"Do you really think that the lord will protect you? You've spent the entire life of your child making fun of him and treating him worse than his brothers. Does the lord protect abusers?"

"We are not abusers!" Theodora gasped. "We love our children. We-"

"Save it. I don't care. I've spent the last hour holding back from screaming at the two of you for the sake of my mate but I'm done. The two of you will leave my land and will never come back. You won't say a word to anyone about what you learned here aside from your child disowning you."

"Children disowning them," Sam spoke up, causing Zachariah and Theodora to turn toward him.

Theodora glared at Oscar and said, "You just can't stop dragging your brother into these situations can you."

"Wait," Luke said as he looked at them surprised. I was honestly shocked that he could still be surprised with anything the two people said given what all we'd heard. "You mean that even though you were sitting here the entire time, you still blame Oscar for Sam disowning you? Knowing that he didn't talk to him at all?"

"Well, boys will be boys. It's Shiloh's job to look after her brother."

I growled loudly, "If you deadname my mate one more time, I will rip your goddamn head off. Get. Out." I shouted as I started to push them out of the door. "If you ever come back here again or even think about contacting the twins again, I will kill you." I slammed the door shut before they could say anything else.

I quickly made my way back to Oscar and buried my face in his neck to calm down. As I did this, Bryan spoke up. "I can't make a final decision for my family. But after taking them home, I'm going to talk to Jessie about cutting ties with them."

"But you love mom, you named Theo after her." Sam said in disbelief causing Bryan to laugh.

"We didn't name him after her. We just didn't correct anyone when they started thinking that. We named him after Theo from the Chipmunks."

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"Are you alright?" I asked as Oscar and I laid down in our bed cuddling.

"I'm fine, it's just kind of hard to believe that I don't have to deal with them ever again. No awkward Christmases at Bryan's, no more random calls, no more deadnaming. They're the last ones that still use my dead name."

"And that's good, no more people that know means no more people that may use it against you."

He nodded along with me and sighed, "I think, most of all, I'm just really tired. I feel like I yelled at them for an hour, my throat is so sore."

"Well, I can promise that you won't have to yell at anyone for a while, at least until Bun is ten." My joke had his face change into a serious one.

"We will not yell at Bun, ever. We can be firm, we're parents we have to be. But I will not have our child fear us, I won't stand for it." I smiled at him and nodded.

"Of course, they only get the best treatment."