His Scarred Luna

Chapter 4

Before dinner, Lyle insisted they go out and check on the car. Donovan elected not to go, citing that it was too much trouble to get his wheelchair in and out of Lyle’s truck.

They weren’t far down the road before Lyle asked the question he’d clearly been holding back.

“So, why are you home?”

“You know why.” Lyra had spoken to her father many times over the years about her plans for herself and Donovan, but he had never agreed with them.

“Lyra,” Lyle sighed. “You and Donnie belong in this pack. This is your home.”

“No one has ever treated us like we belong,” she snapped. “I don’t know why you insist we should keep putting up with that.”

“We’re protected here. Alpha Christian always looked out for us.”

“Yeah, out of guilt,” she shot back. The former alpha had always been a sore spot between them. “You seem to forget that it’s his fault I have my scar.”

“I haven’t forgotten.” Lyle’s voice softened. “I know what he did. But he regretted his choices. He did his best to take care of us after and made sure we had what we needed. And Alpha Jake has continued to support us when we needed help.”

She scoffed. “Holier-than-thou Jake. The boy who was too good to be seen inside our house. Remember how he used to sit out in the car when Alpha Christian and James came over?”

“He was a boy,” Lyle said, his tone strained.

“And he didn’t change when he got older. Even in high school, he saw how people treated me. He saw what they did and he did nothing. He just watched. Sometimes he laughed along with them, like it was just a joke.” Her face flushed with the memory, heat crawling up her neck.

Lyle was quiet for a long while. The truck rumbled beneath them as they left town, the road narrowing under a canopy of trees.

“I’m not going to defend him,” he finally said. “You’re right. He didn’t stand up for you. He didn’t want to be seen at our house. But… you want to know what I think?”

Lyra folded her arms and stared out the window. “What?”

“I think he might’ve hated what he saw. But he didn’t know how to go against it. And maybe that made him weak. Or maybe it just made him a scared kid trying to fit in and trying to be what everyone expected him to be.”

“That’s not an excuse,” she said, though her voice had lost some of its bite.

“No, it’s not,” Lyle agreed. “But it’s the truth. And people change, Lyra. Sometimes they grow up.”

She wanted to believe that he had. That the man he was now wasn’t the same boy who’d laughed while her tray hit the cafeteria floor, or who turned his back while her locker was stuffed with garbage.

“I didn’t come back to argue about Jake,” she said quietly.

“Which brings us back to my first question,” Lyle replied. “Why did you come back?”

“Donovan needs more care than this pack can give him.” Lyra watched the trees flicker past. “I’ve been studying human medicine for eight years. There’s so much out there. There are treatments, accessibility options, jobs…He could live independently. The human world is more accepting of people like him.”

“Donnie belongs in this pack.” Lyle’s voice went firm.

“Donnie’s not a werewolf, Dad. He’s fully human, just like Mom.”

Lyle’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel, but he said nothing as the road hummed beneath them.

“You could come with us,” Lyra offered. “There’s always work for a good handyman.”

“I’m not human,” he bit out. “And neither are you.”

“What about Donovan? What is he?”

Lyle’s jaw flexed. “Donovan is my son.”

“Of course he is. But he’s not a werewolf. He never got a wolf. He can’t shift. He can’t even walk. Do you remember when he was in fourth grade and those older boys dumped him out of his chair? He was stuck on the ground until a teacher found him. He couldn’t get help, couldn’t do anything for himself.”

“I remember,” Lyle said, his voice rough, eyes fixed ahead.

“That’s when I knew I had to get him out. I had to save him from this place. This pack will never accept him the way he is. Werewolves are supposed to be strong, fast, fierce but Donnie can never be those things. He needs to live in a world that was built for people like him.”

The silence stretched out between them, heavy and raw. Lyle’s face was flushed as he pulled off the road, where Lyra’s old car sat abandoned in the gravel, a little more forlorn now in the fading light.

“I know life in the pack hasn’t been easy for either of you,” Lyle said as he cut the engine. “I just… I can’t imagine not having you here. I can’t stop you from leaving. But I don’t want you to take him. Your mother gave her life to bring him into this world. You and he are all I have left of her.”

Lyra’s heart squeezed painfully as she looked at her father, his face worn down by time and grief. “I don’t want to take him from you, Dad. But he wants to go. He doesn’t want to stay here. Has he told you that?”

Lyle shook his head. “Not directly. But I can see it. He hardly ever leaves the house. And when he does, most people look past him like he’s not even there. Only Russ and Meg really talk to him. Callan too, sometimes. He’s… a good guy, honestly.”

“That’s good,” she said softly. “Meg deserves someone good.”

Lyle nodded. “I know you two are going to leave. And maybe… maybe it really is for the best. But Goddess, Lyra, I don’t want to lose you both.”

“You could come with us,” she said again, gentler this time.

He sighed, a long, tired sound. “I’ve got no place in the human world. I was born in this pack, and I’ll die here.”