Valerie dropped down into her chair. "It wasn't because she was a girl. It's because she wasn't a... a..." She couldn't even force herself to say it.
"A dog," Tyson finished for her. "By the way, it really pisses them off when you call a wolf a dog."
"And you think Mitchell is a... wolf... too?" The fact that her baby would turn into a wolf sounded like something out of a horror novel.
"That's my guess. He said that you wouldn't be able to handle your son if you had him. He's also using him as a hostage to get you to come back."
"I'm already past my deadline, at least as far as he's concerned." Tears welled in her eyes but she refused to waste another tear. "Why me? Why was he so focused on me, just to cut me out of his life anyhow?"
"A challenge? A conquest? The fact that you told him no? He doesn't seem like the type of guy that hears that very often."
"He's not." She dropped her head in her hands. "How could I not know something like that?" She suddenly looked up in horror. "They always went on hunting trips. Do you think they were hunting humans?"
Tyson shrugged. "I don't know what they do. If I had to guess, their prey wasn't human, but I can't say that for sure."
"And my baby will be like that. Eating things in cold blood."
Tyson's anger seemed to evaporate. "You really didn't know."
Hers increased. "I've never lied to you, Tyson Hale. I may have left without a word, and I may have taken my sweet time telling you the whole story, but I have never lied to you."
"I'm sorry." He pulled her into a hug. "It was just a shocker that we're pretending to be drunk college kids while this asshole knew who we were the entire time. And then to smell their stench. It caught us all off guard."
"You think you're shocked. I still can't even comprehend what you're telling me."
"It makes no sense." Tyson sat in one of the chairs. "Usually when the alpha takes a mate, she's the luna and runs the pack with him. You were more just like a..."
"Breeder?" she supplied. "Obviously I was just along to have children."
"He needed an heir but hadn't found his mate, so he played the system. If none of the others tried to get along with you, they knew you weren't in a respected position in their alpha's life."
"Comforting." She said and leaned her head backwards and covered her face. "Now what?"
"Honestly, I don't know." He reached over and took her hand. "I would love to say that we just pick up where we left off, forget the last many years except for the kids, and start over. But, I'm not going to lie to you either. It's going to be a whole lot more complicated if Mitchell is a wolf. He's still really young, so he may not have learned all the bad habits, but to have a wolf in a dragon's world would be complicated."
"But it's just your family. No one in town is a dragon."
He glanced at her sadly and squeezed her fingers. "But my family is the one that matters, and if we ever got to go back to the Sacred Gardens, Mitchell would be forbidden."
She turned to look at him. Tyson hadn't mentioned that since she'd been back. "Do you think that's going to happen?" It broke her heart all over again to think that her son would be ostracised on any level.
He shrugged. "Eventually someone is going to find that idol that my dad was accused of stealing, and when they do, he'll be exonerated and they'll have to let us back in." He held up his hand. "I don't know that we'd ever actually go back permanently after the way we were treated, but I know Mom would like to go back and see her old friends and family, even if it's just to tell them off. But whether for a visit or to live, Mitchell wouldn't be able to go at all."
"We'll have to cross that bridge when we get to it. First I need to get him back."
Tyson stood and reached for her hand. "I'll go fill the others in and see if anyone has any ideas. And remember that if Mitchell has been with his grandparents instead of with the pack, they may not have forced any of their training on him yet."
"So he still may have a chance to not be an evil... dog."
He laughed and pulled her into a hug. "Exactly. And if we're right and Mitchell has the gene, I don't think you have anything to worry about as far as Randall hurting him. He wants his son; he just wants to be able to torture you because you stood up to him."
That comment hung with Valerie after Tyson left, and it emboldened her to the point that she picked up her phone. Randall knew about Ty, and he knew where she was. She really had nothing to lose by defending herself a little bit.
"Your time is up." No greeting, no question. Just a matter of fact.
"And yet I'm not there."
"You sent your little dragon friends to test the water."
