Erika’s POV
I was in Derek's arms, but I found it difficult to fall asleep.
I was in a state of extreme euphoria and had a strong urge to talk.
Derek was already very tired. He yawned incessantly. But I kept talking to him to keep him awake. I wanted to tell him everything that had happened tonight, from how we had been attacked in the restaurant, to how Angel and I had accidentally broken into the Lumiere Pack with her gift, and how I had pretended to be unconscious and then sneaked into their pack house later.
…
“Yes, it’s amazing how you sneaked into the room your mother once lived in,” Derek said while yawning. I mentioned the coincidence about like ten times.
“By the way, have you done the paternal test?” Derek asked.
Right, the paternal test! Of course, I’ve done it. I haven’t got there yet. It’s another interesting story. I mind-linked him as my eyes shone.
“Sure. Sure. Tell me about it.” Derek yawned again.
I began to tell him the story of the paternity test.
You know that when in wolf form we can recognize our relatives by their scent. Of course, the result might not be 100 percent right because of the interference of the environment. So to be safe, Bentley and I used two methods.
We came to a clearing where plantation was sparse and few people passed by. There would be no interference from other scents. We both shifted into wolf form. Then he saw the wound on my right leg and immediately recognized me as the wolf messing around in their pack. He growled at me intuitively. Then I started growling back at him. We wrestled and fought. And as we fought, the smell of each other quickly brought us back to our senses.
We both realized we were related by blood. He was Alex's son. That would be my cousin. He was the first to stop his attack, then began to lick my wounds in a gesture of goodwill.
After the bite, he had wounds on his body too. So we did the second test. We fetched a basin of water and then each put a few drops of blood into it to see if they blended.
As you can surely guess, our blood blended very well. Only the blood of relatives and mates could blend so well.
After mind-linking Derek the whole story, I looked at him in expectation.
“That’s amazing. Erika, I’m so happy for you. But we still have many things to figure out after let me see … three hours. We’d better sleep now, or you’ll have a hard time getting up,” Derek said tenderly as he brushed my nose with his finger.
OK. I mind-linked him and closed my eyes.
He was right.
Waking up after sleeping three hours a night was like a hell.
He helped me wash up, dressed me, fed me breakfast, and carried me to the meeting room.
When Alex and Bentley both came into the meeting room, I was still sleeping in Derek’s arms.
Derek pressed his face up against mine and rubbed it gently.
"Baby, it's time for the meeting. They're all here." Derek whispered in my ear in an extremely soft voice.
Derek had never called me that before. I instantly got goosebumps.
I opened my eyes and looked at him suspiciously. It seemed that last night's big discovery hadn't just changed me. Derek had been greatly affected too.
At that moment, I heard Alex clear his throat. I turned my head and found both Alex and Bentley there. They both averted their gaze and didn't look at us.
Feeling awkward, I got up from Derek, pulled out a chair, and sat down with pen and paper in front of me.
We got down to business. Alex told me the story of my mother.
"Your mother, Baron, and I grew up together. Baron knew early on that Lucy was meant to be the alpha of the pack. When we played together as kids, Lucy used to promise him that she would marry him later. It was just a game, and Baron took it seriously. While we all chose to learn how to be warriors, he chose to learn how to run the pack as the alpha's mate. We tried to persuade him to change his mind many times, but he was very stubborn.
Lucy was later saved by your dad, the Gamma of the Fly Rock Pack, when she was out fighting. They soon fell in love. When their relationship went public, it brought a lot of pain to Baron, a Gamma descendant who could have been a Gamma. As I mentioned, he was determined to be an alpha's mate, which is very rare even in our pack, one of the most open-minded packs. Lucy was kind enough to give up being an alpha and join the Fly Rock Pack to avoid embarrassment and further damage to Baron. But her good intentions didn't pay off and she died in childbirth and the pup she gave birth to died of suffocation. Of course, this is wrong. You are still alive, but that's what we were told at that time. It seems that what happened needs to be reinvestigated.
Since then, the alpha at the time, our father, decided to close the whole pack because of sadness. The members of the pack were forbidden to fall in love with people from other packs. They could choose whether or not to leave the pack. Baron chose to leave. I hadn't heard from Baron until after we warned the Fly Rock Pack. Baron suddenly appeared and said that he was now relying on the Fly Rock Pack and asked me not to attack the Fly Rock Pack for old times' sake. I agreed and sold them some weapons.”