Auctioned Mates Revenge
Chapter 98

My ears were ringing.

My mother's video had answered a lot of questions, but not enough. My mother and Mordecai were mates. Due to some political issues on the west coast and Ben's military force around Warhammer territory, Sharon had to make a decision: the people of Warhammer or her mate.

Sharon hadn't rejected Mordecai, but the distance and the ruse of pretending to be Ben's mate wore on them both. Mordecai had been dying long before Sharon died, and if Ben had waited just a few more years, he wouldn't have had to have her killed. Sharon and Mordecai had shared one night together after Sharon and Ben were married. That was the night she conceived Joel and I. She had me and Joel registered in Midnight when we were three, just after Ben came home with Sonia to protect us because she figured that Ben would realize they were mates and start to suspect that we weren't his sons. That was the same time that Mordecai found out that we were his sons.

Soon after, Ben sent her to the mental hospital and had her killed.

Joel's accident was more complicated than I remembered it to be. I don't know if because the grief had just been too much or if I had been told something different. I remembered Ben yelling at me for hours at a time about his death, but there was nothing he could say that cut as deep as my guilt.

To be told that Joel was afflicted with an illness that would have taken his life young was horrifying. All of Joel's medical records had been in the file, certified copies scanned that I could check against Midnight records. He'd been receiving treatments since we were three years old.

It had been a miracle of science that he made it to the age he did. Joel hadn't died from the fall. His heart had stopped mid-climb. Based on the autopsy, he was dead before he even hit the ground.

The Asra family was descended from the alphas that made up the majority of the old stories about the power of an alpha. Part of that was the affliction of werewolf twins. Mordecai's twin brother, Emmanuel, had died when he was five years old. His medical records were on the flash drive as well.

If that wasn't bad enough, Mordecai's records against Ben were there too going back as far back as their twenties when Ben first had designs on Warhammer's territory.

He'd compiled the list of people involved with Sharon's death, Ghost Paw's trafficking efforts, and every other underhanded thing Ben had done that Mordecai had uncovered. He'd been slowly collecting them in captivity for years and killing them off as he pleased. Most recently, he murdered the nurse who confessed to poisoning my mother and covering it up by slashing her wrists.

I met three of them before I left the house. They were cowering against the wall in the back of the basement. I didn't know whether or not to let them go, have them killed, or report them, so I left the decision to Stephen and headed to the hospital. Mordecai had always planned to take

I found myself driving oddly slow to the hospital where Mordecai was being treated. The nurses said that I would have to speak to his doctors to get any concrete information, but their faces didn't give me any hope that it would be good news.

I got to his room and took the seat beside his bed, listening to his breathing. He was on life support.

"I thought I understood you," I said. "I thought you were the same kind of son of a bitch that Ben was..."

I lowered my head, defeated and confused, "Why didn't you just... tell me?"

Would I have believed him? Would I have accepted any of this?

Would I have believed that he planned for Club Heave to be a front to help catch Ghost Paw and all the other traffickers? How would I have reacted knowing that Mordecai always knew who Glenda was and still let her be abused and eventually sold to Midnight? Would I have believed that his schemes against Felix were about Felix's deviance from the plan?

I didn't know for sure either way.

"All this time... we could have..." I took a deep breath. "Were you trying to protect me too in some f****d up way? Have you any idea how much easier it would have been just knowing that he wasn't my father?"

The self-loathing may have remained, but it wouldn't have been the same. Being the son of a seemingly cruel and violent man who had never turned a violent hand to me was different than being the son of the man who killed my mother either through betrayal, neglect, or assassination.

"It's f****d up that you're that strong and have been knocking on death's door for over twenty years," I said, thinking back to the way he popped the lock on the storage door so easily. "All this time, I thought her diary entries were about him, but there were so many things that didn't match up."

The strength and raw power, how much she admired his restraint and gentleness, the painful longing that was on every page had been so confusing. It had infuriated me that she had felt like this for the man that had put her in the mental institution. "I... took a trip to the Warhammer Estate and found her older journals."

His eyes fluttered and cracked. His breathing didn't change. His glowing red eyes shifted and looked at me. I felt his wolf, Azrael, gazing at me.

Lucas surfaced. I felt him staring through me into Azrael's eyes.

"She loved you to her last breath," I said. "I... don't understand it all, but you've done enough."

His eyes seemed to flicker. His breathing changed. His hand twitched and I slid forward, placing my hand on his.

"I'll be fine... You've been more of a father than... Ben ever has been. You've done enough. I don't know what else to do but forgive you about Glenda. I don't know what else to do in the face of everything but tell you that you've done enough." His hand twitched. His lips twitched and he looked at me. I felt Mordecai wanting to say something to me. I felt his mind reaching out to me, and I let it happen. I had never had a mind-link with anyone but Joel. I felt his presence as strongly as I had in that restaurant. I felt it easing something in me I hadn't ever realized was tense.

Was this what it was supposed to be like to have a patrilineal bond?

Son.

The word shook me. It felt too heavy to be such a simple thing. It was too tender, too longing, too big for this. My heart felt like it was in a vice. I didn't know if I could do this, but there was no way out of it.

The stubborn bastard would drag himself back from the edge of death if he felt he had to. At least he would try and that isn't what my mother would have wanted for him.

It wasn't what I wanted either.

"Stop," I said. "Stop fighting. Stop."

Son.

"Mom is waiting for you."

His eyes welled with tears.

"She's been in pain long enough. You've been in pain long enough. Ben is dead. You've done enough. I'll finish the plan with Uriel." My jaw trembled as the tears spilled over the edge of his eyes. "I don't know what to think anymore... I thought you were just this blood thirsty, greedy, cruel creature with an odd soft spot for me, but mom's words about you... Is that the truth?"

Both.

I laughed, "Right. Me and mine versus the world, right?"

Son.

"... Dad." Mordecai's eyes fluttered closed. Tears streamed. "Go. She's... She's waited long enough."

Love... Son.

I cursed. Letting the tears come as the EKG let out a long flat tone. I felt the last of his presence leave my mind and the link broke like a pane of glass and scattered into nothing. I heard the door slam open, but I held up a hand as doctors and nurses rushed in. "Leave him," I said, my voice tight. "Let him rest. He's been in enough pain."

I heard them hovering. I felt their hesitation, but the doctor's voice came through clearly. "Time of death: 5:46 pm."