Defying His Fate

by Caitlin Ricci

  "Tad?" he asked me.

  "Yeah."

  I caught him looking at me through the rearview mirror. He had the address and I'd already paid him.

  "It's nice to have a werewolf in with us. I've heard about you. Pretty much all the vampires in Seattle have. If you need anything, let us know. Or let the council know. You've got friends here."

  I needed to hear that. I was nervous about seeing my dad again, and here was this complete stranger vampire telling me that he was glad I was there. "Thanks," I mumbled as I tried to hold myself together. I couldn't look like I'd been crying right before I met with my dad. "That means a lot to me."

  "Sure. Still going to the diner off of Ninth and Hurley?"

  It was good to be back to business with him. "Yeah. That's the one."

  "I'll have you there as soon as possible."

  "Thanks."

  I settled in to being a passenger. I didn't mind not being able to drive. It had never come up in the pack either and vampires seemed to have their car services and car rentals all figured out. Vallen didn't own a car even though he could drive. I figured I didn't even have to learn how to drive. Not right away anyhow. Maybe not ever. I was okay with that. I had more than enough to think about right then, like what I was going to say to my dad.

  I still didn't have anything figured out even though I'd tried to come up with something for days. I couldn't get past the fact that he still refused to use my name. If he wouldn't call me Tad then how could I assume that he would do anything else? It was a problem I didn't have an answer for, and that was the most frustrating part. I wanted to do well for the council, but I felt like I was failing at every turn. Or maybe I just wasn't seeing the whole picture. Either way, I felt like I was screwed and going no where fast. It wasn't a good headspace for me to be in right then. Especially not when I was about to be meeting with my dad.

  He was early. I saw him sitting there in the diner with a cup of coffee already in front of him when I pulled up ten minutes before noon.

  "Here you go," my driver said.

  I nodded, but I didn't get out right away.

  "Is anything wrong?"

  I met his gaze through the rearview window. "What would you say to someone who didn't want to try to understand who you were?"

  He smirked. "I'd say 'bye'. I may only be a few years old in my vampire life, but even I know that there's no reason to let negative people hang around me. Toxic people are a cancer. You can't argue with them and you can't reason with them and eventually if you play their games they're always going to win. So the best thing is just to walk away, preferably while giving them the middle finger."

  I laughed and wished that it was that simple for me. "Thanks for that. Hopefully I'll see you around."

  "Of course you will. It's not that big of a community. Maybe by then you'll have figured out what you're going to do about whoever is giving you crap."

  "Maybe. See you." I slipped out of the car and straightened out my sweater and my pants before I stepped away and headed into the diner.

  My father's disapproving glare was instant. "You cut your hair. You should be ashamed of how you look now. Pants and short hair."

  And there it was. What a good female pack member was allowed to do, and what she wasn't. "Hi, Dad." I kept my voice calm. I wanted this to go well, or if it couldn't go well, I would settle for us being civil to each other. Maybe I should have asked the driver to wait a few minutes.

  "Caroline--"

  "Tad," I corrected him. I also didn't look down or away. I didn't give him that power. "My name is Tad."

  "I named you the second you popped out of your mother. Your name is Caroline."

  Well that was a lovely image to start lunch off with. I was regretting more and more not asking the driver to wait. I heard Ronald's voice in my head, telling me that I had to demand respect from the alphas if I was going to get it. To that end I lifted my chin and I sat back. I didn't cross my arms over my chest. I wasn't pouting and I wasn't a child. I was simply a man who wanted his father to give him one ounce of respect.

  "Caroline, I--"

  "Yes, Novak?" My tactic was different, but my point was the same. I would give him respect, when he earned it from me. Otherwise we were going to continue this tense dance.

  He seemed to change tactics as well. His shoulders slumped a little. "Are you coming home?"

  "No. I don't live with the pack anymore. I live with Vallen and we're pregnant."

  He curled his lips. I knew he wanted to say something. He probably wanted to shout his disgust at me. But he didn't. Surprisingly he held his tongue and he restrained himself for once. "Would you visit then? A lot of the kids have been asking about you. They miss you. It would be good for them if you came by to say hi. Just for a few minutes."

  I wasn't going to move back in with the pack, but a visit couldn't hurt anything. "Maybe after we eat."

  He nodded. "I assume you still like cheeseburgers?"

  "I do." It had only been two weeks. Who I was hadn't changed at all. I was just no longer pretending to be someone else.

  He ordered for us both, which I didn't appreciate, but he wasn't screaming at me either so maybe that was something. Maybe there was some hope for us after all.

  "How far along are you?" he asked me once our food had come.

  I touched my stomach. I did that all the time now. Really, whenever I was thinking about our child, I wanted to touch them. I couldn't wait to hold them and kiss them and share my life with them. "A little over a week. The doctors, the human ones, say I should still be due in about four months. Vallen's going to be a wonderful father, and so am I. I'm really excited."

  "At least you're not showing yet." There it was. He made that face again. His barely concealed disgust with me, with our child, and with my husband. I didn't know how to get him past that. I had no idea what to say that would make him see that my life was Vallen was everything I wanted it to be. That I was happy and taken care of and living as I was supposed to be. That even though I wasn't living in the pack and even though I wasn't living as he thought I should be, that things were still fine. That I was still fine. That everything would be okay.

  He was an angry, hateful man that I had no idea how to talk to but I needed to figure out a way if I wanted to please the council and have the life that they had promised me.

  "Have you thought about visiting?"

  He sounded like he was getting impatient with me, as if I was somehow stalling. I nodded. I had decided. "I'll come back for an hour or two, but no longer than that."

  He curled his lips at that. "Fine. I guess that'll be enough, if that's all you can spare for your family."

  He wasn't going to get to treat me like that and I wasn't about to be made to feel guilty for that. I had a family now. I was going to have a child and I had a husband who loved me. "That's all I plan to give the pack at this point." It wasn't worth it to me to argue with him beyond that. He didn't need to know that I didn't consider him part of my family at all at this point. I was pretty sure that would just cause more issues between us and we already had enough of them as far as I was concerned.

  When we were done, I went into his car with him. I was tense, but so was he. It wasn't too different than how we'd been before I had left the pack. I wasn't comfortable around him, and it seemed that he wasn't all that comfortable around me either. That was fine. We didn't have to like each other in order to be civil to each other while I was working on getting the vampires and the packs together.

  He pulled up to the main house within ten minutes. I didn't know how to feel being back there. I was nervous, sure. And maybe a little worried. Despite how many times I'd told Vallen that I was okay being around my father again, I didn't feel it right then. At that moment I just wanted to leave and go back to my house with Vallen where he'd still be asleep and we could watch the sun set over the water together.

  But instead of being back home with my husband I was getting out of the car with my father. My stoma
ch was tight and I felt unsettled, even though I was only visiting the place I'd lived in for the past twenty-one years. "Are the kids inside the house?" I asked. I suddenly wanted to get this visit over with. I had my phone. I'd just do a quick visit, say hi, probably answer lots of questions about why I abandoned the pack, and then call for a ride. I could go to the gas station down the street and wait for a while for the vampire to pick me up too. Maybe I'd even get the same driver. That would be kind of nice since he'd been kind.

  Pain burst from my temple and I fell to the ground. I hadn't even realized that my father had hit me until he had knelt down beside me and grabbed me by my sweater. His second blow caught me across my cheek and I saw blood on his knuckles. I tried screaming, but he clamped his hand down over my mouth. Kicking at him didn't work. Neither did scratching at him. He held me down and kept me quiet despite my muffled screams against his palm.

  Then the others came. Men I'd known all my life, men I'd trusted, who were suddenly grabbing me off the ground, putting a shirt in my mouth to keep me quiet, and then pinning my arms behind my back. Blood seeped into my eyes, blinding me. I was dragged into the woods. I knew the smells of the pine trees and young spring grass around me. By the time someone bothered to wipe the blood out of my eyes so that I could see, my hands had been tied around the base of a tree. I was kneeling there, in the dirt with blood smeared over my face, as men I'd grown up with stared down at me.

  My father joined us. He'd had no part in tying me up, but he was the reason I was bleeding. I glared at him through my pain. I hated him. I should have known he would betray me.

  "This is what we do to traitors, Caroline. Or did you forget that? Your home is here, with us. Two weeks tied to this tree will remind you of your place with us."

  I couldn't do two weeks. If it was just me, sure. I knew I could handle it. I'd done it before. Being tied to a tree in the woods for my crimes was nothing new. But now I was pregnant and I had to think about my child too. I didn't know what two weeks without me having food or water would do for my baby, but it couldn't have been anything good.

  Screaming against the shirt in my mouth got their attention, but they didn't let me speak. My tears seemed to work better though, because as soon as I started crying, someone pulled the shirt out of my mouth. "What?" my father snapped at me.

  "Don't do this. Not to my baby." I wouldn't have ever pleaded for myself. Not with him. But I would sure as hell beg for the life of my child.

  "You're pregnant?" one of the men asked.

  I nodded.

  My father stepped forward. "It doesn't matter. She screwed a vampire. Everyone, back inside. I'll come back in a week to check on her." He shoved the shirt back in my mouth, and then they were walking away from me as I screamed against the gag. I saw a few of the men turn back to look at me as they were ushered away, most of them the same age as me, but I knew they wouldn't stand against my father.

  I didn't stop screaming until they were gone, the trees blocking them from my view. I hated my father. I didn't want to work for peace between the vampires and the werewolves anymore. At that moment, as I knelt there in the forest with the cold beginning to settle in around me, the only thing that I wanted was to be able to get my baby to safety.

  By sunset my phone had started ringing. I was sure that it was Vallen checking up on me. I wished that I could tell him where I was and that I needed his help.

  I was almost asleep, exhaustion and pain finally taking me over, when I heard someone walking toward me. For a moment I thought it might have been Vallen. But there was no way that he would know where I was. I recognized the woman coming toward me, but only because she was a member of the pack. She was probably twice my age, and she didn't meet my gaze as she knelt next to me in the loose dirt.

  "Is it true that you're pregnant?"

  I nodded.

  She reached toward me, as if she thought she had any right to touch my stomach, but I growled at her, quickly sending her pulling back from me.

  "I'm going to let you go, but you have to leave this place, Caroline. You can't come back here. Not ever. Please."

  I easily agreed to that. As soon as she pulled the shirt out of my mouth I licked my chapped lips. "I'll definitely never be back. And my name is Tad."

  She said nothing more as she untied my hands, and then I was stumbling to my feet. I looked back at her as I rubbed my wrists, but she was already turning away from me and heading back to the pack. It was just as well. I was surprised any of them had had the guts to come free me, but I knew none of them would leave with me if I asked them to.

  I was dizzy, and as I walked my head started to bleed again. But I kept going until I was free of the pack's territory. I ended up at a small gas station, where I sat down on the sidewalk and called Vallen.

  "Hey," I mumbled as soon as the call connected. I'd apparently ruined my voice with all of my screaming over the past few hours.

  "Are you okay? I was trying to call you."

  Tears began leaking from my eyes and I rubbed at my cut cheek in a futile effort to get it to stop hurting so much. "No. I'm not. He..." There was too much to tell him over the phone. "Can you come get me? I'm at the gas station just south of the pack. Do you know where it is?"

  "I'm on my way. Will you stay on the phone with me?"

  I wiped at my tears. "Yes. I hate him, Vallen. I don't think I can do what the council wants."

  "We'll handle that together. There's no reason that you have to work for them if you don't want to."

  He made it sound so simple. I was just thinking about all the things I was giving up. Like college and a good job. And a way to belong in a society that had been so accepting of me right from the beginning.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Vallen

  With Ainsley driving I was able to focus on Tad, and on keeping him calm, despite how worried I was about him. I had so many questions about what had happened in the past seven hours since I'd said goodbye to him at our house, but those questions could wait until I saw him again and had him in my arms. When we got to the gas station I spotted him there on the sidewalk, bloody, bruised, and tear stained. I charged out of the car, and wrapped him in my arms. We were back in the car within seconds with Tad across my lap.

  "We're okay," he mumbled against my neck.

  I brought my hand to his stomach and closed my eyes. "Thank you."

  "He tied me up. It's common practice in the pack, two weeks without food or water, but it's never done to someone who is pregnant."

  I was barely restraining my anger. I'd go after Novak. I knew that. But I wouldn't do it right then with Tad in the car with me. I didn't want him seeing that. I caught Ainsley's gaze, and his nod, as if he could read my mind and know what I was thinking right then. He would help me, when I decided to go after Novak.

  Ainsley took us back to my house, and he stayed while I got Tad to bed. I laid there with him, my arms wrapped around him, as I thought of all the ways I wanted to kill his father.

  "You're tense," Tad whispered.

  "I'm angry." There was no reason in denying it.

  Tad turned his head and I met his gaze. "At me?"

  I couldn't believe that he would even think that. He'd done nothing wrong. He'd only trusted his father not to be a piece of crap, again, and that wasn't his fault. "No, I'm not mad at you. Never at you."

  I kissed his shoulder, and then his cheek. Tad rolled over in my arms and I sighed. It was good to know that he was safe again. I touched his stomach, as I often did, and then he smiled at me.

  "It's good to be back."

  I gave him a soft kiss. "I'm glad you're back too."

  We laid together until Tad fell asleep in my arms. I waited until I was sure that he was asleep and then I backed away, carefully slipping out of the bed. I closed the bedroom door behind myself as I left the room in search of Ainsley.

  I found him in my office, working on my computer. He turned and looked up at me when I came in. "Is everything okay?"

>   I nodded. "He's fine." I closed the door behind myself, hoping to cut off as much sound between us and Tad as possible. I didn't want to risk him overhearing what I had to say to Ainsley. "I plan to go to the council to get their permission before I go deal with Novak. He risked the health of both my husband and our child and I can't let that stand."

  Ainsley didn't look surprised by my decision. "I heard what Tad said about his dad too. I sent them a text message to let them know that Tad had been taken, and then recovered. They're expecting your call, when you're ready to talk to them."

  My eyebrows shot up. "That was efficient of you."

  "I do try to be efficient," he said with a quick shrug. "If it matters at all what I think--"

  "You know it does," I reminded him.

  He smirked. "In that case, I think you should go kill Novak. Strap him to a tree for a few months. I doubt he'll last that long, but it would be good for him to feel like he made Tad feel."

  I liked the way he thought, but it wasn't bloody enough for me. "I'll take that into consideration. Now I'm going to call the council."

  "Good luck," he called to me as I made my way out to the deck where I could have a bit of privacy without bothering either of them. I was paying Ainsley to work and Tad needed his sleep. He definitely deserved to have a good night's sleep after everything he'd been through.

  "Hello Vallen, we're glad you called," the councilman said as he answered the phone.

  "I assume Ainsley has told you everything?" I didn't want to waste time repeating information that they already knew.

  "Yes, we believe that he has. How is Tad? And your child? Ainsley said they were both well, but the three of us would feel better hearing it from you."

  I leaned against the deck railing and tried to find some comfort in the still water. It had worked for me for decades, but tonight I was too restless to stand there for too long. I wanted to strike out at Novak in a way that would actually hurt him. "They're both fine. I'm calling to let you know that I want to kill Novak."