The omega’s eyes widened but Assa kept his gaze steady.
“You know what happened to me?” Zinn asked quietly.
“Some.”
“But not until a few weeks ago,” Wes clarified. He marveled at how sanguine Assa was, but followed his lead. “When we originally adopted Ryde, the agency said his birth parents insisted on a closed adoption. Everything went very fast after that.”
“What changed a few weeks ago?”
Instead of answering, Wes asked, “You’re Zeller Parkenson, right?”
Zinn hesitated, then directed his response to Assa. “Yes…in another lifetime. I’m Zinn Parker now.”
Assa’s thumb rubbed small, encouraging circles over Zinn’s skin. Zinn leaned closer to him.
As his husband soothed the omega, Wes glanced at Calder, communicating,you’re seeing this too, right?The alpha nodded subtly.
Zinn continued, “Zeller was the naïve man who gave birth to your son. Zinn is the man who has spent the past eight years mourning him.”
“Eloquently stated,” Assa said. “Even if it’s incredibly sad. And thank you for referring to him as our son.”
“It’s the truth.” Zinn’s tone contained only the barest hint of bitterness. “We’ve agreed not to speak in code, so there’s no use pretending it isn’t entirely obvious that you’re wonderful parents, and that Ryde is a happy, curious kid. I’d be the worst person in the world not to be thankful for that. I won’t deny that it hurts, but it would hurt way worse to find out my baby had been with assholes.”
Wes’s heart lurched recalling the terrible injustice Zinn’s family had perpetrated on him. It brought him back to the omega’s earlier question.
“What happened a few weeks ago was that your brother showed up on our doorstep to warn us you might be searching for your son. That was when we found out about you.”
“Asher came here?”
“Uh-huh.”
For the first time, Zinn’s face showed genuine anger. His fists clenched as he turned to Calder. “See!? I told you so! He always knew more than he was letting on. The entire time, he knew the Pashuks had adopted my baby.” He shifted his focus to Wes. “Right?”
Wes nodded. “To be fair, he genuinely believed your parents might hurt you if you tried to find us before you could legally leave. The story he told us…everything they did to you. It’s easy to imagine why he was so worried.”
Zinn rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated breath. “I am so sick of other people deciding to keep things from me in the name of protecting me.”
“I hear you,” Assa said, raising a sardonic brow at Wes.
“Asher had no right to decide what I should and should not know. He watched me wither away for years. Years! And the whole time, he could have set my mind at ease.”
“Maybe you can talk to him, get his side of the story,” Assa said carefully.
Zinn ran a hand across his jaw. “I’m too mad right now to even think about that. This distance has been good. I’m not sure what’s left for me with him.”
“You don’t have to decide right now, sunshine,” Calder said.
Zinn turned back to Assa. “My parents weren’t with him, were they?”
“No. In fact, you might be surprised once we explain what he told us,” Wes offered. “The short version is that Asher knew who adopted your baby. Your fathers did not.”
Wes and Assa relayed Asher’s story. Zinn was dumbfounded to discover that he hadn’t given birth in the hospital, and that his parents had created a fake birth certificate for his son when they’d changed his birth date.
The Pashuks also told Zinn that his brother had taken a job in Bellwether Province hoping to find him, but they promised not to disclose his whereabouts to Asher.
The only unanswered question for Wes and Assa was the identity of Ryde’s alpha father. It was obvious that Calder knew, but Zinn did not want to tell the couple. At least not yet.
“I’ll get there eventually, give you that story, but this is a lot for me without addinghimto the mix,” Zinn explained. “At some point, I suppose I’ll need to seek him out and tell him about Ryde. But right now, I’m not ready to find out why he didn’t stay for me and our baby.”
