I looked up at Shaw. “What did she find out?”
His jaw tightened. “She told me her mate had not only found her location again, but confirmed he’d learned of our daughter. Learned that my wife had not only betrayed him by taking another to her bed, but a child had come of the union. And that the child could be a match for him one day—or close enough to one that he could use his magik to make it so. As I’d done with his mate, he planned to do to my daughter.”
I cringed for him. If I had a daughter, I’d never want Reynaud around her.
“I’d never met the man, and I dinnae think he was that big of a threat. I thought my wife was overreacting. I cast protection spells over the wee one so her sleep could nae be interfered with by outside sources and continued to sit with her at night, just in case. By that point, she was so scared of sleeping that she fought it with all she had.”
Mason smiled a bit. “She was obstinate. Like you, Shaw. How many times did you have to sing her to sleep?”
My chest tightened as I thought of my father singing to me. Just thinking about it filled me with warmth.
“I should have listened to my wife and her warnings. I thought everything was fine. That the danger was no more,” Shaw whispered. “I even used my gifts to assure my wife carried another child. She’d been against it at first, but I swayed her thoughts on the matter. She had warned me that Reynaud had shown her in dreams that he would use those she cared for against her. I dinnae think that possible.”
I stiffened, and Jay perked, his attention locked on Shaw. “Did he?”
“Aye. I believed myself all powerful. That as alpha, I could handle anything and that no vampire would ever dream to harm my family, that they’d nae want the force of the pack against them,” said Shaw before sipping his coffee again, his other arm going over my shoulders as he stood next to me. “He is able to bend the will of some. Not all, but enough. He bent the will of a man I trusted fully. My daughter’s godfather. He was to be watching over my wife and wee one while I tended to pack matters. In the end, I found him sobbing outside of my house, staring at his hands that were covered in blood, trying desperately to figure out why he’d done what he’d done. And when I entered my home, I saw the devastation Reynaud is capable of.”
He closed his eyes and tears dripped freely down his cheeks. “My ego and arrogance cost me my wife and unborn babe. And in the end, I lost my daughter as well.”
I twisted on the stool and slid my arms around his waist, hugging him and putting my cheek on his chest.
He squeezed me gently and sighed. “Reynaud went to ground for years and only recently resurfaced. I believe Reynaud is hunting for the one he sees as a possible mate. We’re here to try to put a stop to him before he can do any more harm.”
I couldn’t stand seeing him cry.
“You said he saw your daughter as a possible match,” said Jay, his gaze sliding to me.
“Aye.”
Jay stiffened. “Shaw, does Reynaud have access to your daughter now?”
“No. Well, I do nae think so,” said Shaw, his voice barely there. “We’ve nae had contact in a while. It was for the best. Though, it killed me inside. I had to make the hardest decision of my long life.”
Christian swallowed hard. “It wasn’t one you made lightly.”
“No, it wasn’t,” added Mason. “And we were all there with you. We made a choice together, as pack, as family.”
“You did what had to be done, Shaw,” said Christian. “Even though it killed a piece of you to do what you did.”
I released my hold on him. “What did you do?”
Shaw’s tears came faster. “I assured she’d be far from me, and that I’d nae know where she was or who she was with. I dinnae want to risk Reynaud somehow reading my thoughts and finding her through me.”
I tensed as emotions from my past surfaced. My father had done the same thing and it hurt me to hear about another repeating that mistake. “You gave your daughter away?”
“Aye,” he said, choking back a sob.
Hurt that he’d do something like that, I moved off the stool quickly and found Jay there, sweeping me into his arms. He held me to him and rocked me in place.
“Lass?” asked Shaw.
I couldn’t even look at the man. I knew what it was like to be on the other side of that. To have a father hand me to strangers and banish from my life. It wasn’t fun.
23
“Jayson,” said one of Jay’s men as he came rushing into the kitchen. “We’ve got nearly every wolf affected by the vampire back to themselves except one. He’s demanding to talk to you and your mate. But, Jay…it doesn’t sound like Jesse. When he talks, there’s a heavy French accent. He’s from Texas.”
Everyone in the kitchen hurried to follow the man as he raced through Jay’s massive home. Right before we were about to head through a large door, Jay spun and grabbed me. He looked to Shaw. “Keep her far from him.”
My expression was murderous. “He’s doing this to your man because of me! I’m going in.”
Shaw braced himself. “Lass, remain here with Christian and Mason. Gonzales and I will enter the web Reynaud weaves.”
Seeing that I wasn’t going to talk the two alphas out of anything, I nodded, letting them believe I’d listen. One would think Jay would be smart enough to realize my compliance meant I wasn’t going to obey.
He ran through the door and down a large set of steps. Once they were through the door and gone a good five minutes, I glanced at Christian and Mason. “I’m going too. Want to end up hurt trying to stop me, or do you want to see if we can all finally find a way to stop this dickwad?”
They shared a look and sighed.
“I’ll lead, you follow,” said Mason.
I shrugged. “Works for me.”
We emerged from the staircase area into a huge basement. There were cells along one side, and I had to wonder what the hell Jay needed with a holding chamber under his house. I’d have questioned it more but shouting from the end of the hall demanded my attention.
I followed Mason as he ran down the hall with Christian close on my heels.
We found Jay and Shaw there, pacing in front of a cell as a man with dark hair stood perfectly still within it. Romeo watched Jay and Shaw as if they might end up being the real problem.
He was probably right.
“Bring the slayer to me,” said the man, sounding almost identical to Reynaud. “I sent you a message already, wolf. Did you not get it? I sent it through her—that I can reach her and your men at any moment, and with but a thought I can rip her away from you.”
“You fucking touch her and I’ll—” Jay clenched his fists as alpha poured off him.
“Bring her to me now!” Jesse, or whatever was controlling Jesse, demanded.
I pushed past Mason and Jay grabbed for me, yanking me back from the cell bars.
At the sight of me, a slow smile slid across Jesse’s face. It was the same smile Reynaud used on me before. “Little slayer, good of you to join us.”
I stepped out of Jay’s hold. “What do you want, Reynaud?”
“So young and so bold,” he said, unblinking and unmoving. It was as if Jesse were a marionette, not a real man.
“Is Jesse hurting with you controlling him?” I may not have known Jesse personally, but no one deserved to be body-jacked. Let alone body-jacked by an ancient blowhard.
He rotated his head in a slow manner. “No. Not yet. But know I can make him snap his own neck if I so choose.”
My hands went to the cell bars. “Don’t. You have nothing to prove. I know you’re powerful. And they saw what you did with the wolves here. This isn’t necessary.”
“But it is amusing,” he returned.
I curled my hands around the bars. “Why haven’t you taken over me? Or Jay—beyond my dream? Even Romeo. Why Jesse? He doesn’t know me. I don’t know him.”
Something flickered in his eyes, telling me he couldn’t.
“You s
howed me in my dream that you could make Jay hurt me.” I leaned in against the bars more. “Do it. Make Jay hurt me.”
“What?” Jay shouted, while he grabbed me back from the cell. “Are you insane? Don’t taunt him so he makes me hurt you.”
Shaw came to my aid, standing by my side, folding his arms over his chest. “Aye, make Jay harm her. Make me do it, even.”
In the next second, Jesse grabbed his own head—and something deep inside me broke free.
One second, Jesse was there in the center of the cell, preparing to snap his own neck, and the next, he was flung against the back of the cell. His hands and legs were pinned out against the wall.
Reynaud looked to Shaw. “Interesting, you were unable to do this to me before.”
Shaw looked at Jay, and then Christian and Mason. “It was nae my doing.”
“Romeo?” asked Jay.
“Not me either, boss,” said Romeo, sounding stunned.
Reynaud stared at me from Jesse’s eyes. “This is a twist I did not see coming. Your mother was unable to wield magik. Her gifts only extended to slayer abilities, and while she was very skilled, she paled in comparison to you. I watched you kill over twenty of my men—and they were not low-level vampires. You took them out in mere minutes…with a pair of high heels, of all things.”
I nearly laughed at him. “You knew my mother? Right.”
“I did,” he returned, still not blinking. “She was stunning. And the feel of being inside her was like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Though, I could have done without her screams. That did taint the moment.”
I took a deep breath, refusing to let the sick bastard get under my skin. He didn’t know my mother, he just wanted me riled so I’d stop asking him questions he didn’t want to answer. I’d seen many bad guys try something similar. Though, none had claimed to know my mother before.
“You are taller than she was. Not by much, but enough,” he said, looking anything but human with his unnatural stillness. “Your breasts are bigger as well. More to hold on to.”
Jay and Shaw growled.
Reynaud liked the response he evoked in them.
I glanced at Romeo. “If Jay continues, remove him from the level. Christian, do the same with Shaw.”
“I’m not fucking leaving,” said Jay.
“Aye, neither am I, lass. And if he speaks of yer…womanly parts again, I will crush him. I do nae care if he is in a fellow shifter.”
I spun and glared at both Jay and Shaw. “Reynaud knows how to get you both going. He feeds off your anger and your hate. Stop playing into his hands.”
Reynaud laughed. “So smart and so young. And so beautiful. As your mother was. I took no real joy in ending her life, but she left me no choice.”
Something tugged at my gut that warned me he might not be lying as much as I thought he was.
“She did not heed my warnings. She did not surrender to me. I asked more than once nicely,” he said, his gaze never wavering from me. “Even when I bent her will, she still would not remain with me. The moment I lifted my hold on her, she returned to her lover,” he said, his gaze hardening as it slid to Shaw.
My temper began to rise, and with it came a clawing feeling in my gut. “To be clear, you had to use your vamp mojo on some woman you keep saying was my mother to get her to sleep with you? Reynaud, I thought you were better with the ladies than that. I mean, they all seemed taken with you at your club. Did you have to force yourself on her because she got to know the real you? The one who made some sort of deal with darkness?”
“Little slayer, I sense you doubt of the truth of my words. I have no reason to lie to you,” he said softly. “And I had to bend her will because she took a lover and had the nerve to have a child with him—they went against nature. Against destiny…to have you. I nearly had her killed when I learned the truth. You were in her womb. Something told me to wait. That perhaps killing her before you arrived was unwise.”
The urge to throttle him was great. But hitting him would only hurt Jesse, not Reynaud. “Should I thank you for being insane and obsessed with a woman who clearly didn’t want you? Do you do this a lot? I mean, Shaw told us what you did to his wife. Make a habit of stalking women and killing them? No wonder you can’t get any to commit. You’re insane and sick.”
He licked his lips. “I permitted her to birth you. I even allowed her to raise you for a few years. I thought perhaps she would see the light and realize the error of her ways. When she came back to me, I thought it was for good. But she only wanted to borrow power from me to have another child with her lover. He didn’t know she’d come to barter with me.”
I stiffened. “You made her be with you on her own, without influencing her, didn’t you?”
“How can one force what is meant to be?” he asked, grinning like he was the Joker staring down Batman. “And she left with more than my power.”
I drew back slightly.
Reynaud focused on Shaw. “She left my bed carrying my child. She was to end things with her lover. Her fake husband. She did not obey. And my child growing within her made her resistant to my influence. I would not permit a dirty animal to raise my child. And my mate’s betrayal could go unpunished no longer.”
I stiffened.
His gaze moved slowly to Shaw before returning to me. “Tell me, Regina, do you still remember her screams when your father’s best friend ripped her apart in front of your very eyes? I remember them—as I was the one controlling the man who tore her to pieces. She died believing you were next. And you would have been, had the man I held in my power not had great love for you. He pushed me out, but not before my mate was dead. Consider this tale a cautionary one. Leave your wolf and return to me, or I will have him kill you…or I could simply force your father to do it, now that he’s in your life once more.”
Slowly, I turned to look at Shaw and really saw him. The tightness in my stomach grew as I tried to picture him without the full beard and long hair.
Shaw, Mason, and Christian gasped so loudly that I half expected Reynaud himself had popped up behind us in the large hall.
In a flash, Shaw was there, practically throwing me into Jay. He put himself in front of me, blocking my view of Jesse—or the thing currently pulling Jesse’s strings. “I’ll nae let you harm my daughter! I will be yer end!”
“You can no more protect your daughter than you could protect my mate,” said Reynaud with a laugh. “Sleep tight, Gina. And keep an eye on your wolf. You never know when that temper of his will get the best of him.”
Jay’s hold on me bordered on painful, yet the pain slid away, and a strange numbness came over me. It took a minute for my brain to fully connect what Reynaud had said. Shock made it hard for me to think clearly.
Shaw spun and ripped me from Jay’s arms. He moved me to the end of the hall, near the staircase, and then cupped my face, his green gaze filled with moisture. “Regina? How did I nae see it? How did I nae know? You do nae carry my scent as you once did. How? You were just a wee one when I last saw you. Yer a young woman now. All grown. I should have seen through that. I should have known it was you. Baby girl, I’m so sorry.”
I just stood there, my arms at my side, my entire body still numb as my head struggled with all I’d heard. After what felt like hours, I met Shaw’s green gaze, realizing then how it was identical to mine. My brows met. “You’re my…?”
His tears came fast and hard as he nodded. “Aye, lass.”
I looked at Jay, like he’d have all the answers.
His eyes were moist as well. “Fiery One, he’s your father. At first, I didn’t put it together. I couldn’t understand why you’d run to him, a total stranger, in the pool house, instead of to me—your mate. And then his reaction when the lewd comments were made about you…it wasn’t rational. Not to mention, he’s been giving me a hard time about touching you.”
Mason stepped closer to me. He was crying too. “Look at you, Regina. All grown up now.”
Christian l
aughed through his tears. “I knew that stubborn streak was familiar. We spent a lot of years guarding you. We should have recognized it was you.”
I blinked several times before looking up at Shaw. “You left me. You took me to a hospital, and you walked away.”
He closed his eyes and tipped his head back. “Aye, and there has nae been a day that I have nae hated myself for that choice.”
“Shaw, there was no choice,” said Mason. “Reynaud would have found her much sooner than now if we’d have kept her around us.”
“How did he find me at all?” I asked, my voice low.
Jay cursed under his breath. “Exavier.”
I eyed him. “Exavier would never hand my location over to a madman.”
“No, baby,” said Jay. “I don’t think for a minute he handed Reynaud anything. I told you that six months ago, Exavier took it upon himself to talk to the higher-ups. He knew we were mates, and he knew my wolf side was screwed up because you’re a slayer. He fixed that.”
Romeo gasped. “And because she’s not actually just a slayer, it sent up a flare, alerting anyone who was looking for her where she was.”
Christian looked at Shaw. “Six months ago, you gathered the rest of the pack and told us we had to keep our ears to the ground. That you knew Reynaud was back and that he was hunting your daughter.”
His daughter.
The thought left me an emotional washing machine, all my feelings swishing around together, going nowhere, yet jumbled.
I backed out of Shaw’s embrace, lowered my gaze and went for Jay.
Jay sighed. “Baby, don’t shut him out. He did what he had to in order to keep you safe.”
“He abandoned me, left me to be put into the system, and left me to figure out my gifts on my own.” I sank against Jay. “I don’t know that man anymore. Actually, I never really knew him at all, did I? Because the man I remember him being wouldn’t have done that.”
“Regina,” Shaw said softly, his voice full of pain. “I do nae blame you for hating me. I hate myself. But I love you, baby girl. Know that. And the only way I could be sure Reynaud couldnae find you through me was to be sure I couldnae find you. I loved you enough to send you away. Knowing I’d never see you again.”
Bad Moon Rising: A Loup Garou World Novel (Tempting Fate Book 2) Page 16