The Silent Alpha novel Chapter 23

"Agnes** * 

My little butterfly flutters around the room, its iridescent wings catching the light that filters in through the window.

On the floor, Kota watches a Disney film with Rio by his side, large headphones blocking out the rest of the world to him.

Rosalie types away at her desk, looking over hundreds of spreadsheets and developing promotional content for her pack's company.She is the Head Social Media coordinator in charge of the company's social media presence.

As she works, she instructs me to give her pup, Emile, a bath and put him to sleep.I execute the task with great care, preparing a warm bath with little bubbles.

Emile seems to enjoy the bath, his eyes widening as I pour a little water over his hair and his legs kicking frantically with excitement.

He likes the water...my wolf, Cynthia smiles.

Just like Archie.

An overwhelming sadness fills my heart as I look down at the small happy pup in my arms, seeing in him the little boy I had lost long before I became Zane's mother.

He's with his father now, Cynthia tries to comfort me but it's no use.

There would forever be a small hole in my heart...all because of My life as a Ravenstone wolf was by no means perfect.

Being deaf, I was always pushed around and made fun of for being unable to talk or hear.

While my parents never said it, I knew they were ashamed to have a deaf daughter and Alpha Tristan (Alpha Toran's father and former Alpha of Ravenstone) would not have hesitated to get rid of me were it not for the fact that my father was the gamma’s younger brother.I learned early on that it was best to stay out of the Alpha’s way and be invisible.

But Damon saw me, and he never stopped seeing me.

Growing up, none of the other pups understood me nor did they bother to try.I was too strange because I talked with my hands and made weird sounds whenever I tried to speak.

But as Moon Goddess would have it, I met my mate in a sandbox of all places.

He wanted to know why I played with the sand all by myself and never joined In on the games with the other pups.He wanted to know why I used my hands instead of my words.

When Damon realized I could not hear, he brought me a notebook and wrote down all of his favorite things to do in it so that we could do them together.

Hide and seek, tag, and mancala were among our favorite games to play together.

I taught him how to sign and he taught me how to hear with my eyes and feet.

His father was learned to stay vigilant, like relying more on my nose and my sense of touch.

I was devastated the day of my first shift when I realized my wolf was as deaf as I was.I had held onto the hope that I could hear in her form, but Moon Goddess did not grant me that gift.

"You are not useless,"Damon told me as I shifted back into my human form and burst into tears.

"You are just different."

Those simple words helped soothe my broken heart and I learned to accept myself as I was.

The day of Damon’s 18th birthday will forever be one of the greatest days of my life.

He did not hesitate to claim me as his mate, marking me that very same day.

I was only 16 but my parents were overjoyed that I would not spend the rest of my life in loneliness as they had expected me to.

With Alpha Toran's permission, I was allowed to move in with Damon as his wife despite not being a matured wolf yet.

Neither Damon nor I were ready to start a family, so we focused on building our home and becoming contributing members of the pack.

Damon became a hunter like his father while I finished school and worked at the pack library as a custodian.

Damon was overjoyed to be a father.

He got to work building the nursery, putting special attention to every corner of our pup's room and child proofing virtually every room in the house.

Despite the joy, I was nervous about being a mother.

"What if he is deaf like me?"

I cried one night "Then we will love him,"

He replied as he wiped away my tears.

"And he will know love like no other."

He quelled all of my fears with his kisses and his love, reassuring me that there was nothing wrong with my deafness.

Our pup came without trouble and he was the most beautiful boy my eyes had ever seen.

Archie's big blue eyes were shaded by a pair of thick long lashes like his father's and he had my dirty blonde hair.

No sign could describe the joy I felt when I held him in my arms for the first time.

Archie responded well to auditory stimulation like bells or the sound of his father's voice, asserting that he was not deaf at all.

Damon was a doting father, spending every second he could with sleep in the middle of the night.

"Go back to sleep," he'd sign.

"I've got Archie."

While our small family was not rich and we could barely make ends meet, our life was perfect.

Damon loved me and I loved him.

We had a healthy pup and a house to call our own.We had everything...

Until that fateful day Scarlet Haven attacked.

Scarlet Haven and Ravenstone were once close allies, but that all came crashing down the day Alpha Toran discovered Alpha Cyrus and Luna Bre's betrayal.

This would mark the beginning of a vicious and bloody war.

Alpha Toran was determined to see Scarlet Haven burn to the ground and he killed Alpha Cyrus.

When Cyrus's younger brother, Sebastian, took over, Alpha Toran wanted to send a message to young new Alpha, killing both his first-born son, Jonathan and then later his wife, Eleanor.

It was an unthinkable act, but Alpha Sebastian would go on to commit an even greater war crime a pack could ever undertake.

With Damon and I both working full-time, I was forced to sign Archie up in the pack daycare program.

On a day like any other, I it would be the last time I would ever see him.

That morning, four unlabeled packages were delivered to the daycare and at around noon, a large tremor was felt throughout the pack.