Fated To The Alpha (Ezra, Katya)

Jonah POV

Family filled the courtyard to celebrate Lucas’s first birthday. Dominic went way overboard,

the kid wouldn’t even remember it, and despite only wanting a small family gathering, it

somehow

turned into a huge party in honor of our son. Ezra, Mateo, Dad, and Dominic had spent

weeks planning it. Though as much as Kyan complained and whined about having so many

people here, I knew he secretly enjoyed it. So we let them go, Marabella was doing better,

and she and Kat seemed closer than ever. 2

Everyone seemed happy, except two people. Casen and Eziah sat by the huge tree,

watching. Casen watched Rose, who, as usual, was the life of the party, a scowl on his

face. They still hadn’t patched things up, though I do know they were now living together

despite my mother’s protests.

Dad had had enough of her attitude, mum and her clashing sent him up the wall. Rose

was to take over the pack; she needed to learn what it was to be on her own, even though

with Casen, she was never alone. She always had a shadow. Unfortunately, that seemed

to make her

worse. She wasn’t troubled. She wasn’t a bad child. She was suffocated; I get it. She grew

up thinking one thing only to find out all along her mate was right beside her to witness

everything. So that must have been a bit of a shock, and then to find your mate killed his

twin brother for her, the guilt, I guess would be terrible.

Wandering over to them, I sit on the bench between them, and Casen leans down to the

cooler at their feet and pulls out a beer handing it to me.

Eziah sipped his beer, his eyes shadowed with dark circles, and I knew his nightmares or

visions or whatever it was he suffered from had gotten worse. He had stayed a few times,

and I had awoken to him stumbling around blindly in the house like he couldn’t see. I

usually steered him back to bed, but last night he managed to wake up Dominic after he

walked into the hall stand and broke a vase.

Dominic, at first, didn’t say a thing, just stared with that intense gaze he sometimes gets,

a peculiar expression on his face.

“When all you know is darkness, how would one handle the light?” he said in a n eerie

voice. I glanced at him before asking what he meant. He seemed confused and claimed he

said nothing. Dominic was also an odd man, intense, but I knew it was from the shadows.

We put Eziah back to bed, and I watched as Dominic had stolen his dream and plucked it

right out of his head.

“That is one thing he shouldn’t relive, one thing that hurt her but doesn’t need t o hurt

him,” he said before slipping out o f the room. I had no idea what he spoke of or saw, but

the look on Dominic’s face kept me from asking

“You alright, bro,” I ask Eziah, nudging him.

“I will be, I always am,” he says, watching Marabella and Kyan help open Lucas’s presents.

“I expected the shadows to leave him. Baby’s eyes change over time, and he never did,”

Eziah says.

“Yeah, Dominic has a few theories about i t. Kat did tell us, though, that he has a wolf, an

actual wolf. He isn’t Lycan like Kaif,” I tell him with a shrug.

“Does it worry you?” I shake my head. He was a happy boy for the most part though we

had all worried because he never cried. Only the day he was born but hadn’t since.

Marabella expected to be woken to feed him like a normal baby. After the third night, she

started setting timers. That was when we realized he was waking during the night. He was

just silent. She would find him staring blankly at the ceiling or smiling or sometimes

babbling in the dark. But he never cried. 2

“And you?” I ask Casen.

“It is what it is,” Casen says, tipping his beer bottle to his lips.

“And what is it?” I ask.

“Rose rejected me. She doesn’t want your parents to know, though,” he says with a

shrug.

“And you accepted it?” he shrugs. “Well, I didn’t reject her rejection, nor did I accept it, so

it is what it is,” he repeats.

“So you are both pretending to be mates? “I ask. Casen sighs.

“Well, what else am I supposed to do? She hates me,”

“Over Vince?” I ask.

“Kinda, but not really. She understands why I killed Vince. It’s the others she doesn’t get,”

he says while standing up, I wanted to ask what he meant, but his eyes locked on my

sister as she wandered

inside with one of Kyan’s warriors and her friend. She didn’t appear to be doing anything

wrong, but Kyan also looked after her when Casen stormed off past him after her. 2

“He won’t want to start anything here,” Kyan mind links before I heard it open up again.

This time Kyan was talking to the warrior she walked off with.

“Stay away from my sister-in-law. She is off-limits, McKellen, so move away from her,”

Kyan warned.

“Huh? I’m not doing anything,” I heard him reply, but regardless a second later, h e came

back out the doors this time alone, and Casen glared at him as he walked inside looking

for Rose.

I shake my head, and Eziah slaps my chest with his hand. “Come on, Dad’s brought out

the cake, and I want to get photos with the birthday boy,” Eziah says, dropping his empty

beer bottle in

the cooler. I chug mine doing the same and head over while Eziah fumbles for his phone to

take pictures. Mara and Kyan wave me over, and I jog over before Mara passes Lucas to

me while she and Kyan clear a spot for the cake on the table.

Everyone starts singing happy birthday, and Lucas giggles clapping his hands while I hold

him close to his cake. He smacks it, sending icing everywhere, making me chuckle, and

when everyone stops singing, Lucas tries to blow out his candle, his attempts sending

slobber and spit all over the cake. Probably much to Dominic’s horror before Kyan leans

down and helps him.

Lucas claps, his fingers covered in icing, and holds his finger out to Kyan, who then grabs

his little wrist and licks the icing off the finger that Lucas held out to him. Silence fell as we

watched the man who hated getting dirty play with and munch on his son’s sticky hand

like he macht anbela.