Fighting with Fire #2 ✔

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟒 - 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐨

The word came out of my throat in a strange, croaked way so I said it again, "Dad?"

"DAD?" Ember and Ryder yelled behind me in sync.

"It's me, Theo." My dad's mouth turned up at one side, in that sideways smile I always remembered him having.

"But, I — the fire..." I was speechless.

"I know." He wrapped his arms around me in a tight embrace — a tight embrace that I'd been needing for the past seven years of my life.

My chest heaved as I blinked back tears; my dad is alive and I've spent the past seven years thinking he was dead...

He'd barely aged, gone a little grey, sure, but he was still in good shape for mid-forties.

"Mom...?" I asked, eyes hopeful as our embrace ended.

My dad's eyes glistened as he shook his head. "I... I tried."

"I don't understand..." I frowned, as a single tear slid down my cheek.

Then I remembered that night terror a few weeks ago, in which Chris Woodman had stabbed an arrow through my heart: "I bet you don't even know the truth about your parents..." Was that the truth? That my dad had survived whilst my mom hadn't? Or was there something more? Was there something bigger going on here?

"I don't understand," Ember spoke up, her voice bringing me back to the present.

"Erm, right." I shook my head, trying to shake away my thoughts, "Ember, Ryder, this is my dad, Jonathan Oakenbank. And Dad, this is Ember — she, erm... She helped me when I was in the UK. And Ryder, he's in my pack."

Oh shit. He doesn't know what I am.

"Dad," I addressed him as he shook hands with Ember and Ryder, "Something... happened to me just before the fire. I can explain everything, I just—"

"You don't need to." He held a hand up. "I know everything. I spoke with your Alpha, Jason, before coming here. Didn't you think of how dangerous it is to have the entire pack living in the same ranch?"

"Wait." I took a couple of much-needed deep breaths. "You know everything?"

"Yes." He nodded. "Your mother was a shape-shifter, and I've known all about this world ever since I met her when we were young."

"What kind of shape-shifter?" Beyond curious, I could scarcely find the words to say, never mind speak them much louder than a whisper.

"Your mother was the descendent of an ancient family, that originally came from Egypt," he explained, "A family in which all the women possessed a fire within them, a fire that could grow uncontrollable."

"No..." Ember's attention and interest were instantly spiked. "What was your wife's maiden name?"

"Melbourne," he told her. "Why, does this mean something to you?"

With a dry throat, I told him, "Ember comes from a similar type of family. She also possesses the fire."

"Are you saying that Ember and Theo are... related?" Ryder asked, speaking for the first time with my father present.

Related. My blood ran cold, I felt sick; what if we were related? What if I'd had sexual feelings, incestual feelings towards a member of my family?

"No, not directly, not by blood," my dad responded, eyeing each of us in turn. "Theo's mother's family had always been complicated because even though my wife was adopted by the Melbourne family, the fire still passed onto her."