Chapter 39

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Michael's POV

He wasn't the same.

I mean, I don't expect anyone to be the same after they rise from the dead two years after their death, but he was so different. He looked just as I remembered him before he was poisoned, but his being was different. He was brooding more than I'd ever seen him, doctors had run their tests to make sure he wouldn't end up back in the grave and when everything had checked out to their surprise, he'd locked himself in his wing of the pack house and hadn't made an appearance since then. That was a month ago, his parents assumed that this was his way of grieving for his family and everyone just accepted it, especially since our knocks and calls for him went unanswered.

A few weeks later though, that changed when he walked into the kitchen one day as Avery and I were feeding the twins. He didn't say anything as he stood there, he just seemed to home in on Nathaniel, transfixed as he watched the baby smack on the baby food that he'd just been fed.

I don't think he even realized that he was slowly moving closer to us as his eyes remained fixed on Nate, who'd finally noticed the large man making his way toward him as he reached out to him.

A look crossed his features that I'd seen rarely but I knew exactly what it meant.

"Hey, how about we go up and talk."

He just nodded and turned to make his way to his wing of the pack house.

"Can you handle them both for a few hours?"

Avery gave an encouraging smile and nodded.

"Yeah, I've got them, I'll call Ariel and Alana if I need any help. Go ahead and talk, he needs it."

I nodded and gave her and each of the kids a kiss on the head before I made my way up.

**

He was sitting on the couch, staring blankly at the wall.

"How did it happen?" He said lowly.

"Doctors said for Amina, multiple stab wounds, Steve from suffocation, and James from a- a broken neck. He sent them back after, in boxes."

I didn't have the heart to tell him that his family was sent back in pieces and were so unrecognizable that it took DNA tests and a full team of doctors to separate the parts and put them with the correct bodies. But as always, there was nothing that I could get past him without him knowing and calling me out on it.

"Tell me the rest, you're holding something back."

I took a deep sigh.

"When he sent them back, he sent them back in—he sent them back in pieces. They were unrecognizable, it took DNA tests on the blood that soaked into their clothes. They couldn't be put back together, but I did my best to make sure they were laid to rest properly."

He leaned forward and held his head in his hands

"And you never found him?"

"No."

He hunched in on himself and spoke so softly that if I didn't have enhanced hearing, I wouldn't have heard him.

"I didn't have enough time with them, they didn't have enough time to be free, to be happy. Amina went through too much in her life because of him and Steve and James, they never even got the chance to live, to be children that weren't always on the run and being hurt by a man that I should have taken care of the minute I laid eyes on him. So all of this? It's on me."

He rose to his feet, wiped the tears from his eyes and turned to me, his face hardened into that unreadable, hard mask that I hand seen since he found his mate.

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