Nathan Murray met up with Marilyn at the airport. He had no idea how she would react to seeing SeoHyun after all this time. Their old alpha had forbidden her going near the child at the time and now she longed to hold SeoHyun in her arms again.
"I can't believe I'm seeing that baby after all this time." Marilyn commented softly. Marilyn was old; she had been a slave in a Georgia plantation when she was turned and had used the time since to educate herself and now had a good paying job in the city. She had been talking about wanting to move to Aspen Creek for years but at the time she didn't want to leave SeoHyun behind. Now that SeoHyun was in Aspen Creek there was nothing to stop her from joining SeoHyun there. She knew that SeoHyun had been adopted by the Marrok's youngest son and, while she wanted to spend time with her, she had no intentions of disputing custody of SeoHyun with arguably the third most dominant wolf in all of North America. She figured that was a fight she would lose before it even began. Not to mention she had heard that SeoHyun and Charles were extremely close and she figured trying to take SeoHyun from Charles now would be the best way possible to destroy any hopes of rekindling her relationship with SeoHyun.
They watched as Charles and Anna exited the plane, and Nathan could feel Marilyn hold her breath as SeoHyun stepped out wearing a mint green sun dress with a light brown belt, and matching sandals. She looked healthier than either of them ever remembered her looking but they could smell her anxiety.
She saw Marilyn and bolted past Charles and Anna to hug her only to jerk back as if she had been burned when the smell of werewolf hit her nose. She couldn't believe her beloved Marilyn had lied to her all that time by not telling her she was a werewolf, didn't want to believe she stood idly by while she was abused and starving, but the evidence was too obvious to be ignored.
"Baby before you get angry with me let me explain. I couldn't tell you what I was before you were turned and after... After I was forbidden to go near you and I couldn't defy the alpha, none of us could and you above all should know that. I don't know that you could ever forgive me for deceiving you but I hope that you would give an old werewolf another chance."
SeoHyun listened and instead of a verbal answer she threw herself into Marilyn's arms and began to cry.
"It's okay, baby, I'm right here…"
Charles watched as SeoHyun cried on Marilyn's shoulder. He had known it would be an emotional moment for her but he had no idea how emotional until he saw it with his own eyes. Marilyn was a tie to everything SeoHyun had lost and it didn't surprise him she clung to the old wolf, clung to what was essentially her only lifeline to the parents that were ripped away from her.
They were escorted to Nathan's home.
"She doesn't even look like the same girl that left here that day; she filled out to a beautiful young woman." Nathan smiled wistfully. "So what brings you here?"
"She wanted to visit her parents' graves and I've decided that they should be moved to Aspen Creek." Charles said.
Nathan listened to what Charles had to say and realized that SeoHyun had been deprived of so much in the past few years including a tie to her own culture and heritage. Sure none of them wanted to recall the struggle her family must have endured to get out of North Korea but she was still Korean, and had not had a taste of the foods her homeland in over two years.
"I know I can't give you orders, far from it, as a possible representative of the Marrok I'm the one who would take orders, but can I recommend you take her to the local Koreatown while you're here? She deserves to have some taste of her own culture." Nathan handed him a slip of paper with the name of a restaurant and the address on it.
"This is the most authentic Korean restaurant I know of in San Diego, it's owned by a couple that immigrated here from Korea about a decade ago and their food would be the closest to what her parents would have made her when they were alive."
Charles nodded in agreement, he too wanted SeoHyun to have some tie to her own culture and language, and thus why he had her enrolled in a program where she spoke over the phone to people who were learning Korean to keep her proficiency as a Korean speaker up as high as possible. He didn't want her to forget where she came from and a lot of remembering that would be remembering the tastes of the foods from her childhood.
"Thank you, I'll make sure we make a stop there before we go back to Montana." He replied taking the slip of paper and looking it over. Sure he didn't know San Diego nearly as well as he did say Chicago or Seattle but he was sure he would be able to find a way to get to this restaurant for SeoHyun.
(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((A&O))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Marilyn had been shocked at the smell of fresh pine and other wilderness scents that clung to SeoHyun, she had known Aspen Creek was a rural community but she hadn't anticipated SeoHyun taking to the outdoors the way it seemed she had.
Marilyn was surprised to learn that Aspen Creek had another teenage werewolf, a girl named Kara, who it seemed had become SeoHyun's best friend. She was happy that SeoHyun wasn't going through her teenage years without anyone who understood what she struggled with. Sure Kara was dominant while SeoHyun was submissive, but that only meant there was an extra pair of eyes keeping SeoHyun safe from harm as she explored this new world. Little did she know Kara had a hand in almost getting SeoHyun into more trouble than she ever helped get her out of.
Everyone had been shocked to learn that Charles Cornick had adopted SeoHyun to raise himself. Most didn't know Charles very well as they only saw the Marrok's enforcer, a lone, silent killer. Not the caring side that he had to lock away for the sake of his own sanity; the side of Charles that only a select few ever got to see.
(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((A&O))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
The drive to the cemetery was quiet, interrupted by a stop to pick up flowers to put on the graves at SeoHyun's request.
Charles and Anna kept their distance at first to allow SeoHyun a moment to reflect on everything she had went through since her parents' deaths, but it was extremely hard for them no to step in and scoop her up in their arms as she broke down into a fit of sobs. She was theirs as much as she was the child of the two people buried in the graves in front of her, and they wanted nothing more than to take away her pain even though they knew it was impossible.
She stood and returned to Charles and Anna, leaving the flowers propped against the headstones. She didn't protest when Charles decided to carry her, she was emotionally shattered and just wanted to cling to him and Charles was more than willing to accommodate this. He knew that this visit to the graves would be hard, painful in a way SeoHyun never anticipated, but it was something she had felt she needed to do thus he was willing to stand by and let her have the moment to visit their burial site and express some of the pain she tried to hide away.
Anna spent a moment at the graves to promise SeoHyun's biological parents that she would always be well taken care of and well-loved before she followed Charles and SeoHyun back to their rental car.
(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((A&O))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Kara had been worried about SeoHyun when she learned that SeoHyun was returning to San Diego. She knew that town held so many heartaches for her friend and she wished she could be there to help comfort SeoHyun in her time of need. She also realized that this was likely going to be a journey that SeoHyun needed to take without her. These were SeoHyun's demons to fight and as much as Kara wanted to help SeoHyun face all of her fears, she couldn't do much more than cheer her on and that revelation was what had Kara at the Marrok's house seeking reassurance that she had done the right thing by not going with SeoHyun when her every instinct screamed that she should have.
To Be Continued…
