It felt nice to be back home.

As I walked around the pack, people greeted me with smiles and welcomed my return. Apparently since having Celia join us has helped people calm down, and I didn't doubt that Reo's spontaneous return was also playing a huge role.

The pack still didn't officially know about Reo's plans to switch, and that was another hurdle I'd have to overcome, but that wasn't the focus of my return today.

As I walked through the pack, I made my way to a house that sat in the heart and unlocked the door. Immediately upon entry, pictures covered the wall. Some were images of a couple—a man and a woman smiling broadly; another was the same couple proudly holding a newborn baby in their arms, then there was one of them with two young boys, and they were all smiling, looking like a happy family.

That was my family.

The house was one that used to belong to my parents. After their death, it became hard to live in the house every day, so Reo and I moved. The house stood as if it was frozen in time. Nothing had changed after Reo, and I left. Neither of us had returned to it—until today.

Reo had chosen to meet up here for reasons I didn't understand. When I tried to pick a different place like my home, he flat out denied it. He wasn't willing to negotiate, so I found myself returning to a place I never thought I would.

I took a deep breath and entered the house. Reo was sitting on the couch with a picture in his hand. I recognized it to be the first picture Mom and Dad had taken of him after they brought him home. The image itself wasn't taken until weeks after he'd come since they didn't want to overwhelm him, but it was one that they loved dearly.

"Do you remember this day?" Reo asked me, and I could see the faint smile on his face. "How happy they were?"

"I do," I confirmed. "I remember how happy they were when you smiled for the first time, the joy they felt the first time you called them mom and dad, how excited they were for our first shifts. I remember it all."

I also remembered the sadness that filled me when I learned of their deaths, how Reo broke down into tears, and how the pack couldn't even look at us unless it was with pity.

"What did you need to talk about?" I asked, forcing the thoughts out of my mind. "And why here, of all places?"

"I needed to see it. To see and remember them."

For the first time since I'd arrived, Reo looked up at me. It was only then I could see his eyes that were filled with tears. Instantly, I moved to his side and took a seat, pulling him against me.

"Reo, what's wrong?" I asked him.

This didn't feel like he was just crying over Mom and Dad—there was more involved.

"Tatum, I—I'm..."

He didn't finish speaking, but he didn't have to. I knew what he was going to say: he was pregnant.

"You're positive?" I asked him.

"I've done every test available; I'm pretty positive."

"Do Archer and Boston know yet?"

He shook his head. "Fuck, Tate. I can't be—I just can't."

I knew Reo enough to know that pregnancy or children altogether was never something he wanted, so I knew this had to be both bothering and scaring him.

"It doesn't make sense. I took all the necessary precautions—"

"You're also a hybrid, Reo," I reminded him softly. "Some things aren't going to work as well—"

"It doesn't make sense!" Came the angry response. "I didn't ask to be a fucking hybrid, I didn't ask for two mates, and I sure as hell didn't ask for a baby!"

His body shook with both anger and fear.

"I know. I know that you didn't ask for any of this. I know this isn't how you expect life to go. Believe me, Reo, I know. But you aren't going to be doing this alone. Talk to Boston and Archer. You know they'll be there, and you know I will too. You all have your families to be there to help also."

Reo's eyes dropped back to the picture he desperately clutched, and it all made sense. This home was the first place he'd felt the love of a family; it was the place where he grew up, the place where all his happy memories resided.

That was what he meant by he needed to see and remember. He needed to see Mom and Dad's faces. To remember the joy they felt about being our parents—the joy they felt about raising him as their own.

I glanced over at the broken face of my brother, and I sighed and ran my hand through his dark hair as he cried. There were only a handful of times that I'd actually seen Reo cry, and I hated it. This time especially. I wanted to take away his pain and replace it with joy. I wanted him to be happy, but the growing cries told me that I couldn't do as much as I wanted to because that was reality.

"Everything is going to be okay," I promised him, but as his cries grew louder, I knew that this marked a change in his life forever. What I said didn't matter; it was something he'd have to come to terms with and accept on his own.

And when I looked at it from that perspective, I wasn't quite so sure if I genuinely believed my words anymore.