Screw My Childhood Sweetheart His Alpha Brother Marked Me First novel Chapter 77

“Let’s go inside,” Mason suggested.

“Could you just tell me right here?” I asked. I didn’t want to bring this inside. I just wanted it over with, whatever it was he had to drop on me.

Coby stepped forward, her eyes narrowing on me. “We’ll have this conversation where the alpha wants.”

Mason held up a hand to silence her. “Everyone in this pack is free to speak their minds, as long as it’s done respectfully.” He turned to me. “Ripping off the bandage?”

“It’s better than doing it slowly.”

Knox pushed in on one side of me, River on the other, and I could feel Vaughn’s heat at my back. Something inside me could sense that Anson and Caspian were here too.

“We know who your mother is.”

Mason said the words calmly and evenly, but I could feel the tension running through the others around us.

“There’s more,” I said. Not a question, but a statement of fact.

“She was a member of this pack.”

“What?” Knox barked.

Tears filled Lara’s eyes. “Now that I know, I can see the resemblance. Similar hair and eyes to Abigail.”

“Y–you know her?”

She stepped forward. “We were best friends.”

I noticed the use of past tense in her statement. “Where is she?”

“We don’t know. Your mother went missing eighteen years ago. No one’s seen her since.”

The world around me flickered in and out. There was a buzzing in my ears as someone guided me up the steps and into the lodge. I was settled between Knox and Anson, Caspian and River flanking them. And I could feel Vaughn’s energy prowling

back and forth behind the couch.

“What do you mean missing?”

Mason sank down on the couch opposite us, Sam and Coby on either side, while Lara and Greg took chairs in between us. “Eighteen years ago, Abigail went to Seattle. She said she wanted to go see an art exhibit. She planned on staying the night and returning the next day. I felt her link with the pack sever hours after she left.”

“D–does that mean she’s dead?” I couldn’t keep my voice from trembling as I spoke.

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Screw My Childhood Sweetheart–His Alpha Brother Marked Me First!

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Chapter 77

Knox squeezed my hand, hard. “No. A death feels different.”

“Anyone can sever the pack link at any time,” Mason explained.

“Or that sever can be forced,” Anson added.

River scowled at him. “Not helpful.”

I held up a hand to stop the arguing before it began. “No. I need to know the full picture.” I met Luc’s gaze. “Don’t keep things from me in the hopes of protecting me.”

His jaw worked back and forth. “All right.”

I turned back to Mason, silently encouraging him to continue.

“I sent enforcers there immediately to investigate.”

My eyes shifted to Sam in question. He nodded. “I wasn’t head enforcer then, but I was with the group who went. We found her car near the gallery and followed her scent inside. Then it was like she just vanished.”

“She must’ve been pregnant with me, right?”

Mason shifted in his seat. “We can usually scent when a female is pregnant, but there are ways to disguise it if the female wants to keep the news private for a time.”

“My father?” I croaked. “Do you know who that is?”

Coby scoffed. “Who knows. She could’ve been sleeping with anyone.”

Mason let out a low growl, and Coby’s head lowered.

Lara turned to me. “I knew she was seeing someone, but she wouldn’t tell me who. He wasn’t in our pack. But she told me she’d ended things with him about a month before she went missing.”

My stomach cramped, and my grip on Knox’s hand tightened. “He couldn’t have hurt her, right? I mean, I’m here. She gave birth at some point.”

Coby rolled her eyes. “You guys are glossing over the easiest explanation. Abigail probably slept with someone she shouldn’t have, a mated male. She likely ran to hide that fact.”

Lara sprang to her feet. “Shut up! You barely knew Abbie, and you were always competitive with her because of her gift.”

“Gift?”

Mason’s mouth curved into the slightest of smiles. “She was one of the most attuned empaths I’ve ever encountered and a great gift to our pack.”

River straightened. “I remember Mom talking about her.”

Lara’s expression softened as she looked at her son. “I so wish she could’ve mentored you. I think you two would’ve been two

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