Chapter 226

Randy’s POV

A fresh blanket of gloom had settled itself over the office area inside Juden’s mansion. I hadn’t expected Justin to come back for the day after he left to go to Helen’s appointment. We still had work to do, but it was early in the evening, after all.

Yet he busted into the office, all worked up, barely controlling his temper. He didn’t even have to tell me that anything was wrong. Simply by the way he was acting, I could tell that we weren’t through with the Huntsman. Something had happened during the doctor’s appointment with Helen.

My only question was what.

After I had asked Justin that very question and heard the explanation, I wished I hadn’t.

Knowing that Helen was carrying that beast’s child made me physically sick to my stomach. My first instinct was to tell him to abort the pregnancy. They could conceive another lycan child. Whereas they only had this one shot at getting rid of that part demon.

But it wasn’t my instincts that we had to follow, and Justin was torn. He unleashed on me, yelling about how he could barely stand the idea of that child even being born. On the other hand, the doctor had made a point about treating the demon child with kindness, that perhaps if they raised it correctly perhaps, being one-quarter demon wouldn’t have much impact.

My opinion wouldn’t make a difference. If the Huntsman’s child had been the only baby Helen was carrying, I think he might have suggested an abortion just like I would have. But since it wasn’t possible to go in and selectively abort one of the twins, it was an all-or-nothing deal.

It wasn’t until I saw the despair on his face when he mentioned possibly losing that lycan child that I realized how badly he wanted his baby. So then, how could I, as this beta, even go and advise him to get rid of them both just to get rid of the one?

Keeping the pregnancy meant that we only had about six or seven months to figure out how to love a part demon child as a pack and for Helen and Justin as the child’s parents.

I plopped down in my chair, resisting the urge to yank my hair. I’d probably pull it all out and go bald. Under my butt cheek, my phone chimed a message. I was so distracted I hadn’t even felt that I’d sat on it. I pulled out my phone and looked at the text. It was from Emily.

Do you want dinner? was all it asked.

I texted her back. Sure. You’re driving. Please pick me up.

I’ll be there in ten, she texted back.

Our previous dinner date had gone beyond my wildest expectations. If I hadn’t felt so weird about popping the question to somebody after one date, I probably would have.

It’s not that she and I didn’t know where this relationship was going. If we got along, which we seemed to, unless something weird came up, both of our wolves agreed that we were mates. To convince them otherwise, we would have to have a compelling reason. So unless one of us turned out to be hideous in the eyes of the other, either in behavior or lifestyle, our marriage was pretty much a done deal anyway.

At least when I was going out with Emily, I wouldn’t have to fake the way that I felt. She’d been in the room when Dr. Myles dropped the bomb on Helen and Justin. She wouldn’t need an explanation of why I was distressed, especially not if I told her that I knew.

This meant that, instead of having to salvage my mood, all I had to do was tidy up my office for the next day. I tucked away whatever material shouldn’t be left sitting out, locked whatever doors needed to be locked, and grabbed my jacket before heading out of the office.

I marched through the halls, determined to ignore the warriors that wandered about the rest of their business. I waved in return for their hellos instead of acknowledging them because the last thing I wanted was to have anyone question me at all.

I had to find a way to get a handle on myself before interacting with all of the people from the True Mates pack, regardless of how they served. Justin had a right to break this news to his pack the way he wanted to. But it wasn’t something we were going to be able to keep under wraps forever. Even if, for some reason, he decided to bury the secret for a while, which would be difficult because then I would have to find a way to bury my feelings for a while. Eventually, it was going to be obvious that his second child wasn’t a lycan.

If the child wasn’t a lycan, that would mean it wasn’t his child. It was common knowledge in the pack that the pups that Justin would have with Helen would be lycans, which would leave Helen and Justin with two choices.

Either they could say nothing and hope that people were smart enough to connect the dots. Some would be, and the rest would assume that Helen cheated. Or they could spare Helen’s reputation and throw their child under the bus by admitting that he or she was fathered by the Huntsman.

No matter what they chose, they were in a losing situation.

I held out only one hope for that child, and that was that maybe the Huntsman’s offspring would be born a boy. If he was born a boy and he ran wild, no one would think twice. If we tried to beat him back into submission, or if he ended up rough around the edges, so be it.

But if the Huntsman’s child were born a girl, anyone who tried to beat her down would be vilified. And if she acted out at all, she would just be labeled a demon bitch.

The last thing I wanted to see was Helen’s daughter condescended to in the same manner that she had been when she still had her multi-color coated wolf. There was such a huge bias against the multi-coats that I couldn’t imagine what harassment a part demon werewolf would get.

Or, the worst case scenario is Helen bore a part demon, part werewolf with a multi-colored coat.

The Huntsman’s pup had to be a boy. It just had to.

I shook off the worst of those thoughts. Regardless of the pup’s sex, Helen and Justin had some serious rebranding to do. They’d need to salvage the situation of the multi-colored coated werewolves by explaining their true nature to werewolf kind in as forceful a campaign as they could. Because boy or girl, lycan or part demon, if either of their pups came out with a multi-colored coat, they needed to have that bias in check.

These were all discussions that I would have to have with Justin, and very soon because if they were going to start a campaign to change the perception of multi-colored coated werewolves, then they were going to have to get started on it. And I’d be happy to help them in any way that I could. But the more time we had, the better for any child of theirs that came out with more than one color of fur for their wolf.