by Fay Walsh
Kiran...
He had always thought he knew his brother and that no matter what the situation permitted, he would have his back no matter what. They had made that promise to each other when their mother died, could that have been a farce as well?
No.
It had occurred to him several hours prior, but he didn’t want to believe it. Roan knew when it had happened, and it broke him to even believe he had been so blatant and thoughtless.
“Roan?”
Roan pulled his attention away from his wavering thoughts and found himself heading toward his car, Kai was getting off of his motorcycle.
“Kai, is everything alright?” A thought occurred to him and he feared the worst news. Since Harmony had left, that electric feeling had been going crazier of late.
“Yes, yes, don’t worry. I was calling you, but it seemed like your phone was turned off. I figured you were still interrogating the rogues.”
Roan sighed in relief.
“They haven’t cracked. My brother has truly corrupted them, or they see something justice-like in him. To tell you the truth Kai, I think they might be right.”
Kai’s eyes widened, surprised by Roan’s words and he took his friend by the shoulders to shake him.
“What? You can’t be serious, Roan. You aren’t anything that these mindless rogues are saying. You’re a good leader, a good Alpha. Kiran and the others have their own sense of immoral justice.”
Roan smiled sadly, glad that his friend was still loyal and supportive to him even still. “But you must admit, Kai, there is some truth to their words.”
“What?” Kai whispered. He dropped his hands from Roan’s shoulders. “What are you saying? Are you... Giving up your position as Alpha?”
“No. Nothing that reckless. I know my responsibilities and I know I have a Herd to run, to protect, but...” He looked into his friend's eyes to reveal his emotions, that he had never shown to anyone, but Harmony.
“When Celine died I did give up and I didn’t care about anything, human, the Herd, rogues, nothing. I was the shell of a broken man and every part of me blamed myself for Celine’s death.”
“But... that’s normal, we will always miss Celine, but that doesn’t mean you were weak Roan. You were like how any person would be.”
Roan gritted his teeth and balled his hands into fists.
“Kiran... He tried to snap me out of it, but I kept pushing him away. I kept shirking my duties on him and telling him to take responsibility for it. I have always been the older brother that he looked up too, but seeing me that way... It broke him too, changed him in a different way.”
“I don’t understand, Roan. What are you saying?”
Roan sighed and looked Kai in the eye. The sadness and truth could be seen in his vibrating amber eyes.
“I’m saying I caused my brother to have doubt in me and his belief that I could lead the Herd. He formed his own complex and it formed into what he believed a true Alpha should be, it merged and created a hateful persona that despised all Hunters, guilty or not. And when he came to me, on that winter night, he said he found a family of Hunters in a cabin. That he wanted to seek revenge, and you know what I told him?”
Kai said nothing and shook his head.
“I said, Do as you please. So Kiran was right. I am weak to give out such a callous order, he took the matter into his own hands.”
The crushing weight and guilt fell hard on Roan and tears ran down his face. He had been hiding it for so long, that he blocked out the memory so he could get back on his feet, in what he hoped to start anew, but he knew he was denying the inevitable.
He never thought he would fall in love again. He thought he deserved punishment, but in finding Harmony he believed that there was a second chance, but the way Harmony looked at him as she left… Roan started to believe that fate had done this on purpose.
“Alpha...” Kai was speechless, his lips were parted, and he had nothing to say. Whether his beta’s views were changed of him, Roan did not know.
“Well, what will you do now?” Kai finally asked as Roan headed for his truck. “Are you… What are you going to say to her?”
Roan’s hand rested on the door handle, but he did not look at Kai. Immediately, before he even spoke the words, his heart clenched, and he felt splintered pain. His eye twitched as he tried to restrain his emotions from making him falter.
“She should have never been brought into my world and exposed to this truth. I should have been the only one who should be punished —But I have to see her. I have to know if that look she gave me was true, if it was truly… it.”
Roan opened the door of the vehicle without another word and started the ignition to head toward the motel.
Chapter 13
The image of Roan changing – no, shifting – never left her mind and it was as if it was like a movie reeling in her head in slow motion, over and over. She didn’t know what to think as she jumped into her truck that Kai had driven for her. She just kept her foot on the gas pedal and didn’t bother to look back.
The last thing she remembered was Roan in bear form, looking at her, and it looked as if he wanted to say something to her, and Harmony couldn’t help but think she knew what he was trying to say,
I’m sorry.
The moment that Harmony drove back to the hotel, thankfully without an accident, she climbed up the stairs and Chrys tackled her with a hug.
“Chrys!” Harmony exclaimed, holding onto to her sister, and the railing so she wouldn’t fall over. “Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?” Chrys shouted and pulled out of her sister’s grasp. Harmony could see that her sister’s eyes were red, and her cheeks were puffy like she had been crying. “I should be asking you that, stupid. I was worried!”
Harmony looked around, still on alert, and worried that one of Kiran’s men might have followed her. She took Chrys by the shoulder and led her back inside of their hotel room. Harmony closed the door and bolted it.
“I’m sorry I worried you, Chrys... There was just... An incident and my car broke down and—”
“No, just stop.”
Harmony was caught off guard by the forceful tone in Chrys’ voice and looked into her sister’s serious eyes as she stared at her. Harmony hadn’t seen this side of Chrys before.
“No more lying to me, alright? In case you haven’t realized, I know a lot more than you think like, for instance, that there are people who can shift into animals, and that there are Hunters who hunt them, like our parents.”
Harmony didn’t react. She just stared at her sister and Chrys stared at her. Harmony had no idea when her sister had known this or if she had always had an inkling.
“That’s what happened the night our parents died, right? There were Shifters that attacked them, right? That’s why we kept moving, so we wouldn’t meet the same fate.”
Harmony licked her lips, but she knew that there was no point in lying to her sister anymore.
“Yes. Our parents were Hunters and one of the people who kidnapped me, Kiran, he and the rest of them killed them for years of Hunters killing them.”
Chrys sighed in relief and walked over to the bed, sitting at the edge. Harmony stared at her as Chrys flopped down on the comforter. Harmony sat on the other bed, on the edge.
“And that technically makes us Hunters too, right?” Chrys asked and stared at the ceiling. “Hunters by association.”
Harmony didn’t say anything but hummed in agreement. She too looked up at the ceiling and the two didn’t say anything for quite some time.
“How did you end up finding out?”
Harmony saw Chrys flinch suddenly and her sister turned her head to look at her. She couldn’t be quite sure, but she thought she saw hesitation in her sister’s eyes.
“I... Saw it on your computer, you were looking up Hunters and Shifters. Then, I happened to stumble on the knife you hid in your bag and, well, I put two and two together.”
“Oh,” was all Harmo
ny said and she looked at her sister for a moment longer, not sure why she felt as if Chrys was lying to her.
“So, what are we going to do now?” Chrys asked her, resting her hands on her chest. “Are we going to keep running until they catch us? Are we going to fight back as Hunters?”
Harmony hadn’t really thought that far. Her mind was still reeling with images of Roan changing in front of her, that she didn’t think of what she should do next. She didn’t want to uproot Chrys again, but there was no way that they could fight Kiran on their own.
So, she had another idea.
“If there are really Hunters out there, I’m going to find someone, and tell them about the problem. They say that Hunters know everyone by their surname, so maybe our parents were well-known, and someone will help us.”
Chrys jerked her head up as Harmony got up from her seat.
“You can’t do that!” Chrys shouted.
Harmony was headed for her computer but stopped to turn around, furrowing her brows at her sister’s panicked expression.
“Chrys, what’s gotten into you?”
Chrys bit her lip and twiddled her thumbs. Harmony thought it was strange behavior for her sister and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Chrysanthemum, what is it? I don’t know if this will work, but if Hunters can come in and take care of Kiran, then why shouldn’t we let them?”
Harmony couldn’t help but feel a pang in her chest at the comment. Granted, she didn’t think the plan through and though Roan terrified her, she would hope that he and the other Shifters would get out before the Hunters got to them.
“It’s just that... Nothing, I’m sorry I reacted that way.” Chrys mumbled and looked away.
Harmony narrowed her eyes at her sister but decided if Chrys needed to speak to her that she could when she was ready.
“Alright, well, I’m just going in the bathroom. Don’t answer the door for anyone. Got it?”
Chrys nodded.
Harmony grabbed the computer from the table and headed into the bathroom.
***
It took a few link searches, but Harmony finally found a site that seemed viable. She admitted she didn’t know what to type as her fingers hovered over the keyboard, and she admitted that the electricity pull inside of her almost made her shut the computer a few times.
Mate. That’s what Roan had called her, what exactly that meant, she wasn’t entirely sure, but if the beating in her heart and the feeling that she got around Roan was anything to go by Harmony assumed that it meant that they were a couple.
She shut her eyes and tears ran down her face.
I’m sorry, Roan. She couldn’t take the chance. Even if Roan would protect her until the end of the earth, he couldn’t protect her from everything. She would need some kind of back-up of her own, she couldn’t rely on Roan for everything.
Harmony started to type,
Hello, I don’t know if you exist, and frankly, I must be crazy for even thinking this. My name is Harmony Ashur. My parents, both deceased, are Mary and John Ashur. Hunters. If any other Hunters receive this message, we live in Fairview, Montana. Please, me and my sister need help getting rid of rogue Shifters – one in particular named Kiran. Thank you.
The minute that Harmony pressed send, she heard a knock on the door.
Her heart accelerated and she closed the laptop, putting it on the floor, and rushed out the bathroom to see Chrys talking to Roan.
“Chrys!” Harmony yelled and Chrys turned around with a guilty look on her face. Harmony approached her and gave her a stink eye. “What part of don’t answer the door for anyone did you not understand?”
Chrys rolled her eyes. “Whatever, I’ll be in the bathroom.”
As soon as Chrys left into the bathroom, Roan spoke,
“Don’t be mad at her, Harmony. She… probably doesn’t really know the whole story, anyway.”
Harmony took in Roan’s features. While nothing about him changed from a few hours, he was terribly beaten up. His forehead had a bandage around his head, there were large claw marks on his face; from where Kiran had scratched him when he had looked back at her, and from underneath his shirt she was able to tell that his chest was bandaged as well.
On impulse, Harmony started to reach out her hand, wanting nothing more than to hold him, and to care for her his wounds but she held herself back.
“What are you doing here, Roan?” She hadn’t meant to make her voice sound small and hesitant, but she couldn’t look at Roan as just Roan anymore.
She noticed that he flinched, but he regained back to his disposition.
“I wanted to apologize, for what happened, with Kiran…”
“You mean the fact that he kidnapped me? Or the fact that both of you are Shifters.”
Roan pressed his lips together and nodded.
Harmony squeezed her eyes shut. “You lied to me, Roan… About yourself, your life, about Celine.” She opened her eyes to reveal that they were glassy-eyed. “We made love, said we loved each other, and I thought that…”
The tears that peeked from Harmony’s eyes started to fall and she wiped them furiously away with the back of her hand.
“And that still stands, I do love you. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about any of this, but it was never my intention to always keep it from you. I would have told you, eventually.” Roan pleaded, there was a downcast look in his eyes, Harmony could tell, but she had to put up her own walls in defense.
“And when would that have been? A year? Two years, later? I’m guessing Kiran interrupted those plans.” Harmony snorted and shook her head. “And after I told you that night my parents died, you knew what that meant. I figured something was off when your brother showed up at your house.”
Roan stared at her and looked down at the floor.
“I think the reason that Kiran is the way he is, is that when Celine died I closed myself off. I lost sight of myself as an Alpha. I was careless and reckless. That night, of your parent's death, I… unconsciously gave the order for him to do whatever he wanted.”
“What?” gasped Harmony, not sure if she heard him right. Every fiber of her being froze. “You what?”
Roan gritted his teeth and balled his hands into fists.
“At the time, I didn’t know what I thought. I had shirked my responsibilities on my Herd and my brother saw me as weak, he took matters into his own hand.”
Harmony didn’t say anything as she listened to Roan tell her the entire truth, her body felt cold.
“After what Kiran did, I knew that what he did was wrong. I knew I should have been a better Alpha, I did punish him and everyone, but it wasn’t enough. I hardened myself and I pushed away those thoughts so I could be a better Alpha for my people. Please, Harmony,” Roan said, and he looked at her, his pupils dilated, and his eyes became watery.
“I’m sorry.”
Harmony had no words to say. She didn’t know what to say, it did sound like Kiran had followed his own order, no matter what Roan said. He wasn’t in his right mind, and had lost someone close to him. Harmony had been the same way when her parents died.
But, no matter the situation, he was connected to it..
“I think you need to leave,” Harmony finally said. Her voice was soft and tender. She saw Roan flinch again, but this time made no way to hide it.
“Does this mean, we’re over?” He asked, softly as if he didn’t want to believe it.
Harmony pressed her lips together. The electricity pull made her body ache and she wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms in Roan, sealing her lips upon his, and be buried underneath him, forgetting that everything existed.
But, she couldn’t because this was real life.
“I don’t know, but it’s for the best if we don’t see one another. Please.”
Slowly, the two looked at one another. A sad expression crossed Roan’s face, a tear escaped his eye, and he nodded in compliance.
Roan leaned forward, Harmony noted ever
y movement of his, and how his lips formed in a shape to give her a kiss. She closed her eyes but at the last moment, turned her face so he kissed her cheek.
His lips felt warm and they made her cheeks tingle, but the minute they left Harmony felt the cold once more.
“Goodbye, Harmony,” Roan said. She could see him looking at her one last time from the corner of her eye. He looked pained and it made her ache to see him this way.