The Alpha's Missing Mate

Chapter 23

23.

Angel and Rebecca spent the time waiting getting to know each other. Angel told her about being adopted, about her mother's suicide attempt, about the foster care system, and finally, about Jared. She left out the part about the group home. She didn't feel the need to horrify her mother with the whole truth.

Rebecca, in return, told Angel all about her childhood, about her parents, about meeting Derrick for the first time. She told her about all the vacations and holidays she had spent learning to lead the pack alongside her father. She even told her about Robert's betrayal.

They held each other as they cried over their losses. They cried for all the time that had been stolen from them. They cried for the struggles each one had to endure on her own. And they cried with joy that they had finally been reunited.

"I'm so sorry, baby," Rebecca said as she hugged her daughter again. "I wanted to be there for you. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, leaving you in that hospital. But I had been able to keep my pregnancy hidden from Robert. I knew that if he knew about you, he would only lock you away and use you to torture me." The tears that she thought had finally dried up poured down her face as she finally admitted to Angel the reason she had been left to grow up as an orphan. "I was able to escape two days before you were born. I ran as fast and as far as I could, but I knew Robert's enforcer was close behind me. I finally got to Columbus, and couldn't go on anymore. You had decided you were ready to meet me.

"I stopped at a motel on the outskirts of town to get a room, but Nathaniel had picked the same place. When he stopped in the parking lot, he caught my scent and followed it to the room. He found me sitting in the tub, and forced me to go to the hospital." Rebecca took a deep shuddering breath before she continued. "I held you, you know. You were so tiny, but you looked at me, and I knew that you would be better raised by strangers. Nathaniel watched me the entire time you were in my arms, and I couldn't tell the nurses or doctors who your real father was for fear that he would tell Robert. I sent you to the nursery, but oh, how I wished I didn't have to!

"I knew that if I just left you, they would call in child services, and you would be taken care of. You would be safe."

Angel wiped tears from her face as she listened to her mother's story. She could sense the fear and anguish that still radiated off of her, and her heart broke for the woman that had given her life. Robert had stolen so much from her, she vowed that she would stop him before he could take anything else from her.

"It's okay, Rebecca," she said. "Everything has worked out, and we'll be out of here as soon as Jared and Derrick get here. We still have so much time left to get to know each other."

Rebecca took another shuddering breath and wiped her arm across her nose. "I know, baby. I know. After I sent you to the nursery, I waited about half an hour before I ran again."

"Only half an hour?" Angel asked, shocked.

"We're wolves, Angel," Rebecca said with a short laugh. "We heal considerably faster than the humans. A normal human woman would have needed a couple days before she felt well enough to leave the hospital. Sure, she might have been able to walk around before that, but she wouldn't have been able to really move around the way we can after only a few hours. I still ended up leaving early. I didn't want Nathaniel to take you back to Robert. So I waited until I could walk, and then I snuck out of the room while he went to grab something from the cafeteria. When he came back, he had to decide. Chase after me again, or take you back to Robert.

"I knew he couldn't risk me getting away and getting back to Derrick. Robert didn't even know about you. If he had come back with only you, he knew that Derrick and I would have brought not only our pack's wolves, but those of every other pack's as well. It would have been a slaughter, and he couldn't risk harming his 'alpha' that way."