by M. L. Briers
“She was my daughter long before she was your mate.”Jerome made his feelings clear and simple. Petra was the daughter he never had, but always loved from the moment she stepped into his life with her mother. He would kill to protect her, even her own mate if necessary.
“Step daughter.”Jill muttered and Jerome gave Petra a lopsided grin of fondness that he’d never bestowed on another living person.
“Mine in all but genetics.” Jerome assured her.
“What happened to my mother, why didn’t you protect her?”Petra saw the wince of pain that appeared on Jerome’s face a moment before he pushed it away.
“The coven was having trouble with the local pack. The Corbin witches wouldn’t bend to the alpha’s will to stop the magic that they were undertaking. The more power the coven harnessed the more they wanted, but that power was draining the Lycans strength, something that your mother figured out, and she went to the circle that night with her sister in the hopes of throwing a spanner in the works and stopping the circle from performing anymore harnessing spells.”
Jerome knew to go into detail about that night wouldn’t do anyone in the room any good. It was ancient history, nothing that could be undone, even with the best will in the world. It would only hurt Petra more to hear the details of how her mother’s coven was slaughtered, and he couldn’t bring himself to ever cause her pain.
“The pack had already been ordered to end the coven by the alpha. When they attacked the witches tried to fight back, and many were lost on both sides. But the coven was completely wiped out.”Jerome soothed her as he spoke. He could feel the emotions that swept through her, sadness, anger, disbelief, and rage, and he held her gaze and poured water on the fire of her emotions as each surfaced. She would have to come to terms with this in her own way, but right now, she needed him to guide her.
“But my mother was trying to help them…”
“They had no idea of that, sweetheart. I take part responsibility for what happened. I should have intervened, gone to the alpha, but there wasn’t time. She didn’t let me know what was happening until that night. She made me vow to look after you and she left for the circle. I shouldn’t have let her go alone. I failed her and you.”Jerome felt the deep chill within his heart. It had frozen over on that night he had lost his soul mate and had never heeled. Now he felt that pain more than ever. Seeing Petra in front of him, looking so much like her mother was a torment he could never had imagined, and yet somehow comforting, as if he had honoured his mate by keeping their daughter safe.
“I’m still here.”Petra offered him. Through the swirl of emotions that were playing within her she managed to find a kind of comfort in the fact that he had loved her mother. “But why don’t I remember you, or her?”
Jerome winced again. It was a decision that he had pondered on every night for eighteen years. Protecting Petra from the pack had seemed an easy thing to do back then. He would take her away and never return, but he knew nothing of raising a five year old girl. If she had been male, perhaps he could have faced it…
“Forgive me, but I took your memories away. I sent you to live with your friends Coven and I sent Wesley to watch over you.”Jerome felt the shame of what he had done. It wasn’t in his nature to second guess himself and yet he had done nothing but since that night.
“You didn’t want the reminder…”Petra nodded her understanding, but Jerome shook his head adamantly.
“I didn’t want to fail you or your mother. I could have kept you with me. Raised you in a house with vampires, but I felt you needed the kind of life that your mother would have offered you, and I couldn’t give you that.”But oh how he had wanted too. Even after he’d sent her away he had been torn as to whether to go to her, take her away with him, but Wesley had told him how she had settled with her new family, how she was flourishing, and he knew it would be pure selfishness to take her from that.
“How didn’t I notice him before?”Petra nodded her head towards Wesley who grinned back at her with something of a smug smile.
“I’m stealthy.”He teased. He’d followed her every footstep for so many years he probably knew her better than she knew herself.
“Because your pretty self sufficient, like your mother was. You didn’t need him, much.”
“Much?”Both women said together. Jerome clamped his lips together tightly, as if he’d said too much and wouldn’t continue with that line of questioning. It was more the small stuff in life, troublesome boys, disapproving teachers, and a mugger…
“I used my best judgement, and I was always very subtle.”Wesley found his own amusement in what he knew, but like his cousin, he had no intention of sharing his little interventions in her life over the years. He was around, that was all she needed to hear right now.
“So who killed my mother?”Petra felt the need to know, stupid really, she thought, but it seemed right somehow to find out. Perhaps somewhere in her mind she was considering vengeance, perhaps not. This was all so overwhelming she wasn’t actually sure which way was up right now, as if she was submerged in the vastness of the ocean and couldn’t follow the bubbles to find her way to the surface. But maybe it would bring her closer to understanding.
“He’s dead.”Jerome got to his feet and turned away from her. She knew what he was, and how he lived his life, and right now he probably seemed like some kind of supreme benefactor that had taken care of her. What he didn’t want to see was the look in her eye when he informed her of what came next.
“Your mother was my soul mate. I had a right to challenge the one who took her life. I did. He lost.”Jerome’s eyes flicked to the alpha. He didn’t know if the alpha knew that part of his history with the pack, but there seemed no surprise on Dale’s face so he assumed someone had filled him in on the details, probably when he became Alpha.
“Why was I in danger?”
“All females from the coven’s bloodlines were taken, so a new coven couldn’t be formed in the future.”Jerome informed her. Those were dark days and ones he would never want to see repeated again. “A blood feud was enacted by the alpha and that was the end of it.”
“But not quite. I’m still alive, which means the pack still has to take their vengeance on me, right?”Her eyes were firmly on her mate when she spoke and she saw the rush to anger within him. Could he reach out right now and snap her neck? Take out her throat with his claws? He certainly looked like he wanted too.
Petra found it within her to push up from the sofa. Her legs might have been trembling beneath her but they would hold her up, she’d put everything into insuring it. With a tilt of her chin upwards she eyed her mate with disdain for a long moment.
“What are you waiting for, Alpha?”She challenged him with her eyes, dared him to come for her. There was a part of her that wanted that so badly that she could taste it. But she wouldn’t go silently or helplessly. Her magic was boiling like molten lava just under the surface, ready to be unleashed, and she was more than happy to use it. It would be the sweet release of something so potent that she could lose herself within its power, if she let that happen.
Dale had heard her words. But he’d also heard Jerome’s, and for the first time he knew both sides of the story. He hadn’t known that the Blackwell sisters had tried to stop the coven, that part of pack history, if it was even known, wasn’t spoken about. Only that the coven was taken down because they were a threat, all females put to death under a blood feud, and by all rights he should end her now…
Dale took a slow walk towards her. His dark eyes fixed on the fire in her green ones. He’d know the moment she rallied to strike at him, just from the look in her eyes, the subtle change in her body language, and he’d be ready. The fact that the vampire had moved a step closer wasn’t lost on him as he continued towards his mate. Nor the way her friend readied herself for what was to come next, but still he was lost in her eyes as he came to stand in front of her.
Dale gave her a long moment to get used to him being that close to her bef
ore he leaned in and took in her scent. Fae and flowery. If she ran from him he’d be able to track her forever. She could never get far enough away because he’d be right on her heels.
“You are my mate.”His words seemed to caress her skin as his breath fanned across the delicate flesh. One swipe of his claws could end her and he thanked the Gods that she had not be destined for that fate all of those years ago. Nor was she now.
“And a Corbin witch apparently…”She managed to push the words from her lips. Even with everything that had been said, that she now knew about her mother and his pack, her body stilled betrayed her. She still wanted to reach out and touch him, and she cursed fate for being so damn cruel.
“Your mother tried to help my pack. The blood feud will not extend to her kin any longer.”Dale resisted the urge to move his arm, reach out and take her hand in his. She was raw from what she had heard. He could feel it within the emotions swirling inside her. If he touched her now she might break.
“That’s…”Petra caught the emotions within her voice. She wouldn’t be broken, not for anything or anyone, and certainly not here tonight. “Big of you.”She added with a slight hiss of the disdain she felt for him, for his pack. Her mate, a man she wanted nothing to do with.
Dale kept his eyes locked on hers. He didn’t need to see the pain that resided there he could feel it come from her in waves. That and more. Anger, disgust, hate, more hate than he’d ever felt from another person in his life before. He could understand it, given what she had found out, but it broke his heart to feel that hate directed at him.
“Petra…”He couldn’t make it right, it was a part of his packs history and not something he could change, even with his alpha status. But he could see to it that she could reclaim her family name, her family history, and be in no danger from his pack.
“I reject you, Alpha.”Her eyes didn’t blink once as she delivered her verdict on their lives. “I reject you as my mate.” The acidity of her tone told him that no amount of wooing was going to achieve anything here now. Those words might have been the hardest thing for a mate to hear, and yet he understood them completely.
Jill got to her feet and wrapped her hand around Petra’s arm, giving her the extra strength that she needed to stay on her feet and not collapse in a pile onto the sofa behind her. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“I understand.”The gentle growl that underlined his words reached deep within her very psyche and waved the white flag. Petra rallied every last bit of her willpower to turn that white flag into a red rag as she sneered at him.
“You have no idea.” She delivered those words wholeheartedly. Her whole life she had imagined the truth about her family, about where she had come from and why she was alone, but she had never imagined such a heartbreaking conclusion. She hated him with the fire of a thousand suns and she never wanted to lay eyes on him again. Mate or not, he was her heartbreak.
“Perhaps you should leave, Dale.”Jerome offered with as much diplomacy as he could rally. His step daughter was finally home where she belonged and she was in pain. If things had been different he would gladly have handed over her care to her mate, but this mate was part of the source of her pain, and he needed to put Petra above everyone else.
Without another word Dale turned away from his mate and stalked back the way they had come. He’d been here often and he knew his way out. The sound of heavy feet behind him let him know that his beta was on his heels and he turned and shook his head.
‘Stay with your mate.’ He offered quickly before he took off for the front door. He needed to leave now before wild horses couldn’t drag him away from her side. Jerome would care for her, of that he was sure, and with two vampires and a beta there to protect her he had little worry that she wouldn’t be safe. It just galled him to know that it wasn’t him taking care of his mate. That was his job, but she’d rejected him. He only hoped that was a gut reaction and not an end to the matter.
Dale hadn’t taken the truck. He was too wound up to drive and he needed to leave it for Brad. What he needed to was to run, and run like the wind. Stalking towards the woods, Dale stripped off his clothing as he went, discarding them behind him and not in a neat pile so he could return to it later. He would run back to pack land, a good few miles between the vampires lair and his home, and if that wasn’t enough to cure the ache within him for his mate then he would run until it did.
He started on a slow run and shifted into his wolf in mid air. His paws hit the ground and he immediately sprung upwards over a fallen tree, digging his front claws into the earth to propel his body forwards, faster and faster until he could only rely on his instincts to know what was around him. The landscape disappeared into a blur of shapes. This was what he needed.
Petra had accused him of not understanding, of having no idea what she was feeling, but he knew only too well. His mother had been killed by human hunters when he was a baby and the pack had rallied around to help his father raise him. But the night of the attack on the Corbin Coven his father had been killed. He doubted very much if it was her mother that had committed the act, given what he now knew about the Blackwell sisters, but one of her kin’s coven had. No, he knew exactly what she was feeling. The only difference was she was finding out about it now and he had an entire lifetime to come to terms with it.
Dale picked up the scent in the air. A deer just downwind of him, but he didn’t change direction. Digging his claws into the earth he had no intention of letting his beast be sidetracked into a hunt. He needed to run, no distractions, not even the hunt would satisfy the way he was feeling inside. He could have lost his mate forever and he needed to prepare himself for what was to come if that happened. He would eventually turn rogue. Hunted down and killed by his own pack, hopefully before he did anyone any harm, and he needed to think it through, have a plan in place in case the worst happened.
Petra knew he was standing there. Like so many times in her life before she had felt his presence and yet this time, if she just turned her head, he would be standing there and not hiding within the shadows as she now knew he had been. But she didn’t want to talk, and to acknowledge him might just be to do that. Her guardian angel. Ha! That had to be a new one for vampires.
“We both know that you know that I’m here, little one.”Wesley grinned to himself. She had that same thoughtful crinkle over her nose that he knew so well. There had been times over the years when he’d watched her deep in thought and wondered what she was thinking about, her past perhaps? The family she didn’t know about. But he’d never really been close enough to be able to read her thoughts. He’d often wished he could reach out to her with words, but that would have undermined his ability to protect her.
“We do now.”She tossed back over her shoulder, still unwilling to acknowledge him with her eyes.
“I know you better than you know yourself.”
“Oh, do tell.” Petra held up her hand to silence him, not yet finished. “Don’t tell me you have something profound to offer me.”
“Well, that didn’t heap the pressure on me to come up with something, but no. Unfortunately not.”Wesley admitted and heard her snort her contempt for him.
“Then tell me, what good are you?”Petra wasn’t in the mood for this. This man, this vampire that had followed her around her whole life, how and why he did it didn’t concern her right now, just the thought that he had been lurking there and she never knew it. He’d seen her at her most vulnerable, her happiest, her saddest moments and she didn’t have a clue right then what they were, but he probably did, and that was kind of freaky.
“You will forgive him, he’s your mate and it wasn’t his doing.”Wesley offered.
“Would you?”She didn’t even know why she was bothering to enter into this conversation with him. And yet, since the alpha had left, her mind was finally finding some sort of clarity.
“Turn the other cheek doesn’t work for me.” Wesley offered and he heard a slight sigh escape her lips.
> “How about sod off and die, that work any better?” She wasn’t mad at him, per se, or maybe she was. He’d been like a peeping tom in her life and that thought niggled at her. Not to mention the fact he’d apparently interfered, she still had that particular bone to gnaw on with him.
“No not really, you could try offering me a tasty snack though…”He teased, knowing the thought of being fed on by a vampire wasn’t on her to do list, just one of many things he’d overheard from her life.
“Go ahead, push your luck, you might already be dead, but you still feel pain and I have a need to hurt something. I would have said someone, but you don’t really fall into that category now do you?”This time she did turn her head to take him in. He had the typical vampire look, a look she would know anywhere, which was probably why he kept his distance for all of those years. It was kind of hard to blend in when you’re the only dead guy in the room.
“I could snap your neck in a heartbeat…”
“Too bad you don’t have a heartbeat to judge that statement by.”She tossed back, easily falling into her default mode. When in doubt, use sarcasm as a tool to push others away. Only she doubted it would be that easy with this guy.
“I’m getting the sense you really don’t like me.” She saw him pout, but it was theatrical, and a moment later he was smirking at her.
“Whatever gave you that idea?” She aimed for sweet and innocent, but she couldn’t have felt less of either.
“Your oh-so-friendly attitude, and let’s not overlook the she-devil look in your eye that says you’d like to spill my blood.”
“Darn, you got me, and I thought I was being subtle.”She turned back away from him. Shouldn’t she feel at least some gratitude to this vampire for having her back through all of those years? Even if she hadn’t needed his protection, he’d still been there.
“Like a knife in the back…”
“I’d like a knife in your back too, but I’d prefer a stake through your heart.”That wasn’t true. She bore him no ill will, at least not right then. But she did so want to strike out at someone.