The Alpha's Temptation

Alrakis let out a shaky breath as he watched mother and son. Taiyi was looking ferocious while Eltanin was... blank.

"Don't you dare speak like that about Felis!" Taiyi growled, suddenly feeling overly protective about her son. "Yes, he is my son!" She was glaring in Eltanin's eyes like she would eat him up.

Eltanin was absolutely quiet. The revelation stunned him like thunder jolting in the skies. Every part of his body coiled with tension and dread. So many things became clear yet confusion rolled around his mind. He stumbled back as he continued to stare at his mother with his hand on his cheek. All of a sudden, his vision became blurry. His body felt like lead. He turned away from his mother and headed towards the door.

He had a thousand questions to ask, but his tongue felt like a swollen piece of flesh. He couldn't lift it to speak a word. His mind was incoherent. Nothing made sense and then everything made sense. There was no oxygen left in the room to breathe.

He opened the door of the bedchamber and stepped out. As soon as he was out in the breezeway, he leaned against the pillar and sucked in sharp air. But nothing was enough for him. He trudged ahead to find his sanctuary, to find Lusitania. The only woman who made sense to him. He reached his room and then closed the doors behind him. He leaned his body against the doors, feeling like a man whose throat had been squeezed so hard that there was no air left in his lungs. He took a long breath and wheezed.

Tania was sitting at the table, reading something. When she saw Eltanin, she rushed to his side. "Elty!" she called him. She took his arm and put it on her shoulders. "Elty!" She was feeling shaky seeing his condition. His blood had drained from his face and there were tears in his eyes. She helped him walk to the bed and then lowered his heavy frame onto the mattress. "What happened, Elty?" she asked as she sat beside him at the edge of the bed. She cupped his cheeks in his palm, trepidation crashing inside her.

He didn't say anything and gazed in blank space. He was still processing his mother's words. He wanted to stay back and ask her, but he couldn't. How could she and his father hide such a big secret? He felt... devastated. Did Felis know that he was his younger brother?

When Eltanin didn't speak, Tania crawled over to him and went to lie on his side. She placed her arm on his chest and her head in the crook of his arm. "Elty, please speak. You are scaring me."

But he remained silent. He just wanted to forget everything and revel in the closeness of his wife. The only person who didn't hold secrets from him. "Stay with me..." he murmured as he pulled her closer.

She gazed at his face which was like a slate of sadness and misery. She didn't know what was eating him inside. She decided to stay quiet because he had receded into a cocoon that he didn't want to come out from.

It was the first time that Eltanin was confronted with the possibility of failure and the feeling dug its clutches in him. Whenever he met with Felis, which was exactly five times, the feeling imprinted on him like an uncontrolled, ugly Hydranian tattoo each and every time. He didn't know for how long, but when he finally thought he could speak he said, "Felis, the King of Hydra Kingdom, is my... half brother." He knew that it was going to take him a long time to fully accept the fact.

Tania inhaled sharply, seemingly taken aback by his words. Her blue eyes fixed on his had pools of raw shock and disbelief. Licking her lips, she said, "How do you know?"

"Mother... revealed in her fit of rage..." His lips wobbled, his tone laced with judgment.

"Oh God!" she murmured.

"For years I have been Felis's target and targeted him. I have destroyed and killed his army and he did the same with me." He paused, clenching his jaw and trying to regain composure that was once again slipping from his fingers.

Blowing out a deep breath, he continued, "I have always hated him so much that my hatred for him is unfathomable. But now that I know that he is my mother's son who was born before me, I don't know--" He shook his head. "I don't know what to do..."

Tania placed her head on his chest. She stroked him softly. "You will do exactly what you were supposed to do."

"But he is my brother."

"I am sure that he knows that you are his brother. Did that stop him from capturing you five times and then trying to leash your beast?" she argued.

"No... But what is it that drives him to hate me so much?"

"That is a question that you must ask your mother. And I really suggest that instead of sulking here, you must go to her and talk about it."

"I can't!" he snapped. "I couldn't meet her eyes after she revealed that Felis is my brother."

"Why?" Tania asked, disdain lacing her tone. "This is how you think of her? Couldn't she have an affair with the demon king before she met your father?"

"What? Are you mad?" Eltanin berated her. "How can I ever think of her like that? It is just that she never revealed it to me. I do think that there is more than what meets the eye, but I can't bring myself to talk to her." He rubbed his chest as a tear escaped his left eye.

"I hate when you cry..." Tania said and licked his tear away. "You have to steel yourself and ask your mother as to why she hid it from you. I am sure things will be better after that."

"Tania... I..."

She placed a finger on his lips. Her right wing flared. It curled cocooning him.