She hadn’t known that either. She said so to her.
“It was a looong time ago. Your father was hunting a rogue and he stayed with my pack-”
Wait. “Your pack?” Caia interrupted in confusion.
Ella leaned back in her chair amused. “I was born into a different pack, Caia.”
“Huh.” She shook her head in amazement. “I didn’t know that either. Or that my dad was a Rogue Hunter for that matter.”
It was unfair that there was all this history, their history, her history, and she knew very little of it.
Damn The Hunter.
Ella frowned at her tone. “Irini didn’t tell you much, did she?”
“It upset her too much to talk about the pack.”
“Hmm.” Ella was frowning again into her coffee, seeming lost in her thoughts, but Caia was eager to get more information about her father out of her.
“So you were in a different pack?”
“Hmm?” Ella blinked. “Oh. Yes. A younger pack. I met Rafe and we dated when he was with them. After he left I had a falling out with my family.”
“What happened?”
“Well.” She sighed heavily. “My father wanted me explore the possibility of mating with one of the males in my pack because he had the dominance of an Alpha, and they thought he might become Pack Leader. I hated the guy, so I ran away... to Rafe’s pack.”
Caia smiled, thinking of the result of that. “And you met Albus.”
Ella chuckled, resting her chin on her hand, her eyes twinkling at the memory. “It was instant. We just wanted to be with each other. I laughed at first when I told my parents I’d mated with another Pack Leader... but... we never spoke again.”
Having never been given the opportunity to know her own parents it seemed like a crime against nature that Ella’s parents had, in their own way, made her as much of an orphan as Caia was. She mumbled an empathetic ‘sorry’.
“Don’t be. They were never the family this pack has been for me.”
Caia nodded, letting that sit for a moment. And then... “So what happened with my dad?”
Ella smiled patiently, seeming to understand her curiosity. “Albus and Rafe had never been close. Albus really only trusted Magnus, and Rafe’s father hadn’t had the best reputation.”
Caia took a breath, her mind spinning. “My grandfather?”
Ella nodded. “Yeah, he was quite the trip. He tried to take Albus’ father’s leadership from him.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, but your father was nothing like him. I soon got Albus to see that, and they eventually became great friends.”
“How...” Caia trailed off, wondering how her father could have been friends with them after having dated Ella himself.
Again, Ella seemed to understand. “Your father and I were just friends when I came to him after running from my parents,” she explained.
“Oh.” Caia smiled softly, looking down at her bowl.
“What?”
“It’s just nice to hear something about him.”
There was a moment of silence between them before Caia was jolted from her musings by the sound of Ella’s chair scraping back loudly from the table. The Elder smiled down at her. “Wait. I have something for you.”