Remy gestures to a dark-haired man sitting on the couch. “He showed up a few minutes ago.”
“And…?” My gaze darts from the stranger to Remy.
“And he claims he’s your father.”
I’ve been expectingsomethingto go wrong, but this… My jaw drops as my mind goes blank with shock. Every thought in my head deserts me, leaving me simply staring silently at the stranger with my mouth wide open.
In other words, I’m standing here looking like a complete dumbass.
I force my gaze away from the man on the couch and back to Remy. I stammer for a second before my brain manages to put words together into something coherent.
“He claims he’s my what now?” I glance between Remy and the interloper—who’ve I’ve never seen before in my life.
“He claims he’s your father,” repeats Remy.
“That’s impossible…”Butisit?Randall was pretty clear on the fact that I’m not actually his nephew by blood. But even if I accept this guy’s claim as truth, that still brings up plenty more questions.
Julien enters the living room, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and tugging me to his side as he glares at the man on the couch. His whole body is stiff with tension, but his expression softens when his gaze finds mine. He glances at his brother. “Remy, who exactly is this person you let into my house?”
Remy blows out a breath. “He says he’s Keir’s father.”
Julien’s mouth goes tight with irritation. “And you just took his word for that?”
Remy sighs and the stranger, perhaps realizing we’re talking about him, turns around in his seat. And I fully understand why Remy took the guy’s word about who he is to me. The man on the couch looks just like me. Well, analphaversion of me, anyway.
Same dark, wavy hair. Same blue eyes. His features are sharper, giving his face a masculine edge whereas I’m more on the ‘pretty’ side of the spectrum, but there’s a clear similarity in the shape of our noses.
The man dips his chin respectfully at Julien, then smiles hesitantly as he rises to his feet and holds his hand out in my direction. “Hello, Keir. I’m… Ben.”
I gape at him, frozen in place once again. My brain is still buffering as it tries to process the visible resemblance between us.
After a moment, Ben drops his hand and nods to himself. “I know this is probably a little strange for you, but—”
“Strange?” The word comes out in a half-choked snarl as an emotion finally breaks through my stupor. It’s anger, of course. Because with how my life has gone leading up to now, getting angry is the only thing that will keep me from freaking out entirely.
I narrow my eyes, ignoring the almost hurt look on Ben’s face. “Yes, this is very, very ‘strange’ for me,” I drawl. “But more than that, it’s suspicious. Where have you been for the past, oh,twenty-one years?”
Ben presses his lips together and moves his gaze to the ground. “There are things—”
“Of course there are things!” I yell nonsensically, having no idea what the hell I'm even trying to say.
Remy lets out a cough that sounds suspiciously like a laugh. I glare at him and he looks away, covering his mouth with his hand like he’s trying to hide a smile.
Ben opens his mouth, but I hold a hand up to stop him. “Look, I can’t deal with this at the moment. There are too many other things going on right now and…” I shake my head. “Just no. We can talk later. Or something.”
I move toward the stairs, intending to head up to Julien’s—our—bedroom to decompress. Before I head up, I turn back to Ben. As much as I don’t want to deal with him at the moment, there is one thing I’d like to know before I go stick my head in the sand for a little while.
“Why are you showing up now?” I ask. “What’s in this for you? Is it because of the whole omega thing? I mean, you didn’t seem to care much when you ditched my mom and—”
“That woman wasnotyour mother.” Ben hisses the words out through clenched teeth, his face twisting with pure hatred.
“Not my…” And I’m back to staring at him with my mouth wide open like an idiot.
Ben’s face softens and his hand twitches like he wants to reach out for me, but he’s holding himself back. “Karina said she had left her pack, so we took her in. She said she wanted to repay us somehow, so one evening we left her to babysit while we went out.” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “When we came back, Karina had left and taken you with her.” He blinks rapidly as a sheen of tears covers his eyes. “I didn’t even know you were alive until a week or so ago when one of my contacts at the triumvirate got wind of a male omega and passed word on to me.”
I think that over for a second, trying to piece things together. “But I don’t understandwhyshe’d do that. They always told me she died in childbirth and her mate, the guy who I thought was my father, wanted an alpha kid. Even though nobody knew I was an omega in the beginning, they damn sure knew I wasn’t an alpha. What was the point in taking me?”
“I don’t know,” says Ben softly. “We never saw or spoke to her again and when…” He swallows, obvious grief twisting at his face. “After that, I assumed…” He trails off, shaking his head.
