"You are using again," Michael holds his stash between his fingers before throwing it back on his desk. "These crutches are not good for you nor your wolf. You both need to get a better grip on reality."
"I am doing fine."
"No, you are slowly derailing, and if those fucks sniff it, they will come for you. They are already drooling to get you to do what they want."
"They can try. They know I am not only feral but bloodthirsty. I might give a little demonstration on how far I can go."
"They think you are almost maniacal, but we both know the truth. I am not admonishing you, I only want what's best for you."
"The best for me isn't pushing me to someone I will never love or even desire."
"It can be a business transaction between families."
"Are you on their side, too?"
Michael only shakes his head before sitting down. "You will have to give in eventually. Just marry an omega and keep him home. Doesn't need to mean anything. It can even be from another pack; take that pack and absorb it into ours. A win-win situation."
It starts right when he is about to go to his chair; suddenly, his legs give out, and he falls, gripping the desk for support.
A sharp pain like his insides are being pulled taut blooms in his chest all the way to his gut, leaving him breathless.
The first time it happened, he thought he was having a cardiac arrest, as strange as that was. But now he knows that it isn't, slowly understanding what is happening, the more these pains come and go.
Michael is quick on his feet, holding Travis before he falls on the ground.
"Son! What is going on? What are you feeling?"
Travis can't talk, still held down by the pain, and can only groan, holding his chest, unable to even open his eyes until it passes after a minute.
"I'm fine, Dad," he pushes up, straightening, but his body is still in the vestiges of the agony, so not so much. "It comes and goes."
Michael is looking even more concerned the longer he looks at his son. He has never seen something like that, except when he had to pick him up, at death's door, when he lost his mate. This looked almost like that, and he is trying hard not to panic.
He cannot lose his son again. He has just got him back after all these years.
"What comes and goes?" Michael asks, as Travis walks back to his deck and sits down, smoothing his jacket with a slight grimace. He rarely ever shows weakness, not advised at all, but this is his father.
His father has seen him in worse scenarios. His father cannot see this as a weakness and challenges him.
"the episodes. I am calling them that because I only have a vague sense of what's happening. It's not that serious anyway."
Travis was barely holding on during the meeting, even when the so-called episodes hit him right in his chest and he wanted to fall on the ground. Ever since last night, when he visited Day and got so close to him, he could taste him, he hasn't found a moment of peace.
Body and mind.
It's all coming back to him, fast and brutal, and the bind he thought was nonexistence? That is the one that is bringing him to his knees. It pains, bringing so much and pulling every once in a while, like it's remembering it exists and its awakening with such force that Travis' mind goes white whenever it happens.
"What's going on?" Michael sits on the chair and looks at his son, who sighs, looking exhausted like he hasn't slept for days. Travis rarely sleeps anyway, but he at least manages to keep his physical appearance show that he is resting enough.
Now he just looks haggard,
"I found day."
Not even a muscle move when that sentence was out in the open. Travis realizes that this is the first time he has said it out loud to someone else.
It still feels unreal.
"What?"
"Day is alive. I bumped into him and watched him to confirm that it was him. he lives on the fourth block after the Greens foundation. Savitt property. He is across the city right now as we speak."
Travis gives his father the credit. He is shaken and worried because he thinks that he is going through another manic haze where he sees day every day and everywhere. That first year really wrecked his family as he was fighting and trying to die, but wouldn't no matter how hard.
Day is someone everyone in his family knows very well. Not because they met him but because of what happened after his 'death.'
His name is not uttered out loud in king's home, but it lives there, haunting like a ghost whenever Travis walks through the doors.
So yes, Travis waits for his dad to ask him if he is losing his mind again, like he hasn't lost it already. But he doesn't.
What he asks surprises him.
"Is he okay?"
"I don't know," Travis says after a heartbeat. He was waiting to be told he is crazy. "he is him, but also, not. I couldn't feel the bond between us; my wolf recognized him even before I did, and that was what cemented the fact. After last night, I have been getting these … episodes. I think it's the bond between us awakening. I am not sure."
"Let's go to Florence. She will tell us what's going on."
"I don't want anyone to know about this."
"It will remain so. Especially now that those old geezers are looking for a way to overturn the tables," Michael looks contemplative. "How are you?"
"as good as I can be."
"This changes everything."
"It does."
"You aren't who you are supposed to be," Michael's brown mixed with crimson eyes, eyes like his, pierce him. "To be head alpha, you need to be alive. Awake. Not just a business mogul but a traditional wolf, the old way wolf. True to your nature. You have to be accepted and recognized by the gods."
Michael stands up.
"Now that you know the gods have not abandoned you, you need them on your side. If he is alive, you will need to be more than you are now. It's not going to be easy; you will have to do all that it takes to get your mate back to your side."
Travis stands up, and his father comes to stand next to him, hand on his shoulder.
"I am on your side, like I have always been. Now it's time to get the pack on yours. Mating was supposed to help; it was the forceful, harder route to get you where you needed to be. But now," Michael looks at the city in front of them.
"Now, son, you need the gods first. The ritual must happen before anything else."