I had to force the French fry down, my mouth was suddenly that dry.
“He was the first man to break your heart. He told you he’d never let anything happen to you and that’d he’d never leave you. But he left anyways,” Romeo said.
Jay tapped the table. “Stop.”
Romeo nodded. “Sorry. Sometimes the reading-someone thing just happens.”
“I take it you’ve got a little something more than lycan in your mix there, huh?” I asked, though the answer was obvious.
“Yeah. A little bit,” replied Romeo.
Romeo continued to eye me as he sat across from us in the diner. I knew he was still reading me. I also more than knew he probably couldn’t stop, even if he wanted to.
“Say it.” I stared at him, my temper even. I wasn’t upset with him. My past was something I didn’t enjoy discussing, but I knew Romeo wasn’t digging to be cruel or to pick at old scabs. “I see the wheels in your head spinning. You’ll only tell Jay later when I’m not around.”
Jay caressed my inner thigh, making my body heat.
Romeo shifted awkwardly in the booth. “Something horrific happened when you were little, and people assume you were too young at age three to fully remember it. They’re wrong. Until your teens, you thought it was a dream, a nightmare, but you remember enough that it still haunts you. When you came into your slayer gifts and learned what was really out there, you realized it might not be a dream after all. That what you remembered happening, could very well have actually happened. Trusting Jay was a major step for you. Even more so than trusting your friend’s father who’s a vampire.”
I simply listened to him. He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. Oddly, I felt removed from the emotions of it all. As if at some point over the span of my life, I’d developed a coping mechanism, and it was avoiding my emotions in connection to events of the past.
I eyed Romeo. “Are you planning to tell him the rest, or would you rather I excuse myself and go stand in the restroom, so you can say it without worrying if I’ll break down and cry?”
He sipped his soda, looking as if he were in a trance of sorts as he stared glassy-eyed at me. “You were so scared when you woke up, and everything in your life turned upside down. You didn’t understand what a slayer was, let alone what was happening to you. Your friend helped you. She told you the truth of what was out there, and the entire time she told you, your chest was tight—not because there’s more to the world than humans know about, but because it meant your memories of your childhood may not have been invented. And if they were real, that meant your mother’s death wasn’t quick or natural. So much so that you didn’t share your memories with anyone—not even your best friends.”
He was right. It had been a confusing time in my life. One I didn’t care to go back and repeat again. I still wasn’t sure if my calling was a blessing or a curse. It was all I had so I went with it.
Romeo spoke again. “You went on instinct to start with as a slayer. You hadn’t met another one or been trained at all. You killed whatever you came across—aside from your friend and her family. And that haunts you. Were they all bad? Did you mistake any of their intentions? Would you have killed Jay when you’d first met him, had you known he was a shifter? Would you have ended him without even getting to know him?
“You don’t trust easily and let very few people in. To date, you’ve let two men under your armor as an adult. The first broke your heart as well—walking out without any real warning, just like your father had. And just like with your father, you made no attempt to stop him or to search for him later. You simply shut down your emotions and carried on with life.”
My thoughts went to Samuel, and how much it had stung when he’d decided he wanted more than I could offer. He’d done as Romeo had said and simply announced he was leaving and that he was done. That was that. I’d not seen or heard from him again. It didn’t haunt me. I didn’t actually think about it at all. I understood it was because I didn’t want to feel the hurt of it all again.
“Jay is the only other man you’ve let in to that point,” said Romeo, his gaze fixated on the table. “But you aren’t even sure how that happened. You just know that it didn’t take you long to accept him into your daily life, which surprised you. And since meeting him, you can’t stop running your earlier kills through your head. You have guilt because you think you could have hurt him without knowing him—maybe even killed him while on slayer automatic pilot. You sit up at night, running the years before you met him through your head, wondering how many innocent supernatural lives you’ve taken.”
I ate another fry even though my stomach was starting to protest.
“None,” said Romeo.
I stopped chewing.
“You didn’t take any innocent lives, Gina,” he said slowly. “Part of our line of lycans is the ability to sense or smell death on others. Not in the way you think. Someone who’s taken the lives of the innocent has a certain feeling or scent about them. You lack it. If you’d have told Jay about your concerns, he could have told you the same thing and saved you all these years of worrying.” He offered a soft smile. “As much as you’ll deny this, you’re a good person. You have a pure heart. A heart you pretend not to have, but it’s there…broken and battered, but there.”
I eyed my butter knife, considering using it.
He snickered.
Jay nudged me, and I put my head against his shoulder.
“You can stab him if you want. If you don’t, I’ll do it later because he brought this up,” said Jay.
I kissed his shoulder and paused, wondering why I kept doing random acts like that with him. “Nah, I kind of like him. And what he can do doesn’t freak me out. It’s familiar. Kind of. But that part of my life is closed now.
Romeo leaned back in the booth. “That’s not really true, Gina. The fact you never once killed an innocent supernatural says you didn’t close it all the way off, even though it was your end goal.”
That made me tense. “I can’t do it very well anymore.”
“What?” Jay asked. “You? You can read others like Romeo?”
“No,” Romeo and I answered in unison.
“It’s not the same,” he said. “I feel it and just sort of know. Gina used to see it and feel it. When she closed her eyes at night, things would just come to her, and during the day, knowledge she shouldn’t have would niggle at the back of her mind. It still does from time to time, especially when she’s in life-or-death situations. It’s when she tends to shut off and let that sixth sense help guide her.”
“Slayers don’t possess anything above added strength, agility, healing, and immortality,” Jay said.
Romeo grinned. “Guess she has a little bit more than just slayer in her mix, huh?”
A slow smile slid across my face. “Yep.”
12
“Were your birth parents supernatural?” asked Jay, his head resting on mine as I continued to lean against his shoulder.
I nodded. “Yes. I have very few memories of my mom. My hair is the same color as hers. That much I know. When I try to think about her, I just feel this overwhelming sense of love. And then I remember…I remember details about her death, but some of it is fuzzy. I do remember my father telling me that she was fierce, and he knew I could be too. It was in my blood.”
“Was she a slayer?” Jay rubbed my knee.
“Honestly, I don’t know.”
Romeo watched me. “Tell Jay what you remember about your father.”
I shot him a hard look and then let out a long breath. “That he was more than human.”
Romeo lifted a brow. “That’s it? Really? I know what you know. Try another one.”
I threw a fry at him.
He laughed.
Taking a deep breath, I pressed closer to Jay before speaking. “He was always surrounded by a lot of men. They were almost always at the house. Some lived with us full time. The rest came over a lot. Some all at once while he’d s
tand on a raised area of a big room to talk with them. Two of the men were always with me when my father had to leave for work. I didn’t understand why they were always around but there was no reason to question. It was how it had always been. Looking back, I understand now.”
Romeo nodded. “They were there to protect you. You remember them being kind to you, playing with you, always being there for you, and you loved them like they were uncles.”
“Yes, but their faces, like my parents, are so hard to remember now that I’m older. I just remember the feel of them—that I was totally safe with them. And I remember…” I glanced at Romeo.
He nodded. “That they could change into wolves, like your father.”
Jay gasped. “Wait. Your father is a wolf shifter? No. I’d smell that on you.”
Romeo caught my attention and motioned to Jay. “Tell him what you remember even if you’re not sure the memory is real.”
A shaky laugh escaped me. “I’m not sure any of it is real. So, you’ll have to be more specific.”
“The time you were swinging in the backyard and something bad happened,” prompted Romeo.
I thought about what he meant and then nodded. “We were somewhere else. Not home. I remember that I couldn’t stay home with my mom, but I don’t remember why. My dad and his men were hunting something. I don’t know what. They never let me know any details. We were all staying in a big house that wasn’t our home, and we didn’t stay in it long, but it had a swing set that I really liked out back,” I said softly.
“I was allowed out back alone, and they were all just inside. They could see me, and I could see them. I remember waving at my father as he spoke to the men with him, and him stopping to wave back. Then when he went back to talking, a huge wolf came over the fence and landed in the backyard with me. I wasn’t afraid of him. Why would I be? Everyone I’d ever known until then had been kind and caring.”
Jay tightened his hold on my leg slightly.
“I was excited. The men and my dad were my only playmates then, so his men would often shift and play-chase me. I’d pretend to chase them too, and they humored me. In my mind, the newcomer was there to play. I ran to the wolf because I wasn’t very good at telling them apart then. There were just too many around all the time. This one looked at me differently though. Not like the ones I’d grown up with. And when I tried to pet him, he snapped at my hand. I tried to kiss him to make him less angry, and he knocked me to the ground and opened his mouth wide, putting it over my throat and pinning me there. I still thought it was a fun game, so I was giggling, having the time of my life.”
“Christ, I’m going to throw up,” said Jay, looking pale.
I lifted a brow and glanced at Romeo. “Spoiler alert. I lived. Should we ruin the story for him and tell him as much?”
Romeo grinned and winked. “How is it you were fine, Gina? What happened? How is it your father could get you safely away from a shifter who had his jaws around your tiny throat?”
I took a deep breath. “I heard my father yelling for the wolf to release me at once. He warned it, telling it what he’d do if it didn’t. That only made the wolf growl more and he actually started to pull me by my neck in the grass in the direction of the fence. Again, I thought it was the best game ever, and I couldn’t understand why my dad sounded so angry. He’d never yelled at anyone for playing with me before.”
I sat up and stared at my plate of food, the events of the past rushing over me. “Then all of a sudden the sky got dark, and there was a huge boom of thunder that scared me enough to make me cry. I couldn’t see my father very well from where I was. When I tried to turn my head to see him the wolf’s teeth pressed harder on my neck. It hurt, so I just lay there, scared of the pending storm, but not of the wolf who was going to tear my throat out.
“Then it sounded like there were thousands of wolves around me. I get it wasn’t that many, but I was little, so it felt like a ton. And my concept of pack was skewed. It was never called pack around me. It was called family. I fully understood that my family was there, around me. Deep down I knew it wasn’t a game anymore. That something was wrong, and they were all scared and mad. They wanted to hurt the wolf with me, but I still didn’t understand why still. They never hurt each other. They’d get upset with each other sometimes, and I’d tell them it’s not nice to hit, but they never felt like they felt that day—like they wanted to do far more than hit the wolf with me.”
“They wanted to rip the fucking asshole’s head off,” said Jay, as if he more than understood what was going through their minds, even without being there.
A soft laugh came from me. “I get that as an adult. But then it was so different for me.”
Romeo grinned. “Your father and the others like him never exposed you to the violent side of it all. They treated you like a princess, and they all wanted you safe and far from harm. It makes sense. Children are precious gifts in our world. And daughters are rare—very rare. The pack we’re in is huge, and to date, no females have been born to the mated pairs. And only a small percentage of the pairs have had a child. One pair has two boys, a set of twins. We’re all extremely protective of the young. And should one of us be blessed with a daughter I’d feel bad for her. She’d have hundreds of uncles standing between her and dating.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, I’m sure of it. Jay isn’t the best to deal with when I’m dating. I’d feel horrible for a girl in your pack. Poor thing would be put in an ivory tower, never to be exposed to the evil ways of men.”
Romeo glanced at Jay and then focused on me. “Gina, Jay isn’t like that with every woman he’s around. You’re a special case.”
“No, I’m not. He was like this with Lindsay. I’d say more so with her, even,” I said, telling the truth. Jay was very protective of Lindsay. He always had been.
Jay’s entire body tensed as he sat next to me. “Not true.”
Romeo cleared his throat. “You never told Jay how your father managed to safely get you away from the wolf.”
I thought back to it all again. “The sky kept getting darker and darker, and there was lightning with more thunder. I was scared of thunderstorms then, so it freaked me out big time. And it felt like it came out of nowhere. One second the weather had been beautiful out and then, bam, it was dark as night. My uncles, or my father’s men, were shouting at him to stop before he lost full control and ended up hurting me. They kept yelling for him to pull back on his power. I moved my head more, ignoring the pain of the wolf’s teeth and looked at my dad. His eyes were super green—glowing almost. And the storm worsened.
“The wolf didn’t let me go. He yanked me again, and this time his teeth pierced my skin. I cried because it hurt, and my dad roared, broke the other men’s hold on him, and ran at me. I remember him jumping high into the air, one arm changing with fur on it and the other normal. He pointed the normal one at the wolf who had me, and it cried out, clearly hurt. It released my throat, and I tried to help it. My father shouted ‘no’ at me and then I was suddenly up and off the ground, going backwards, but no one was holding me. No one was there. One of my uncles jumped up and caught me and cradled me against him before rushing into the house with me. I didn’t see what else happened but later that night, my father was holding me, and he apologized for scaring me with the storm. He also said that he’d set fire to the world to keep me safe.”
Romeo nodded slightly. “Your father was a shifter who also possessed magik. It’s not unheard of, but it’s not something you run into all the time. And none of us really talk about it outside of our packs.”
I’d never realized it was a thing until recently. I’d honestly thought I’d imagined it all because even when I’d come into my slayer gifts, I’d never been exposed to a shifter who could wield magik. “Meeting Exavier, my friend Lindsay’s husband, helped me to understand that what I remembered about my dad might not be wrong. It wasn’t until I met Exavier that I knew it was even possible to be both a shifter and a magik. He�
��s both. But he feels different than my dad used to feel. Like Exavier is more magik than a wolf. But my dad was more wolf than magik.”
“If that’s the case, it makes sense why his own men would try to stop him from using magik,” said Romeo. “They were probably afraid of his control over it. Afraid you’d be hurt by him without him meaning to.”
I took a drink and then bit my lower lip. “After that happened, my father made me sit and learn what every man who was always around us looked like in wolf form. And he kept telling me over and over again that not all wolves are good. He was very clear that I wasn’t allowed to run up and hug another wolf again unless I knew him. He was upset that I couldn’t smell differences. That I couldn’t do what he could.”
Romeo winked. “See? There is more to you than just slayer.”
I shook my head. “No. I’m just a slayer.”
Jay rubbed my thigh and leaned close, kissing the side of my head.
“Gina,” Romeo said, his voice low. “You know the day will come when you’ll have to face him again.”
He meant my father, and I knew it. Shaking my head, I kept my gaze averted from him. “No. It won’t.”
“You sound sure of yourself. Why?”
I ran my finger over the glass of the window. “Because he blames me for my mother’s death. Before he finally left me at some random hospital, he could barely even look at me anymore. He tried the single-parent gig for a bit, but he was done. I was put into the system straight away, and it was almost two years before I somehow ended up placed with a couple who later adopted me. It’s been over twenty years since I saw my father, standing there, unable to look at me before he walked away. As you can see, he’s not here.”
Jay pulled me against his large body.
“Have you ever stopped to think maybe it’s not you he blames, but rather himself?” Romeo asked.
Bad Moon Rising: A Loup Garou World Novel (Tempting Fate Book 2) Page 9