Shocked, Thaniel reached up and pulled at his father’s hands, losing his balance as the Tomlee yanked him down onto his knees.
“You need to learn your place, boy. Son or not.” He shook Thaniel then stopped. “Look at this hair. You look like a girl,” he said. “Scissors!” the Tomlee shouted to the room and Thaniel heard feet hurrying away.
“No.” Thaniel hated how his voice cracked as he struggled to pull himself free. His father was too strong. Thaniel could feel his beast rising when the Tomlee slapped him.
“Oh, no you don’t.”
Then someone hurried up and tried to hand the Tomlee the scissors.
“You cut, I’ll hold him,” the Tomlee said, and Thaniel’s heart broke apart.
How could this be happening? “No,” he cried out again, and felt his beast rising. With a twist, he pulled away at the same time that the scissors cut a huge chunk out of his hair. Thaniel growled in fury when the Tomlee smacked him in the side of the head.
Ear ringing, Thaniel found himself sprawled on the floor. Heart pounding, he raised hate-filled eyes to his father’s and waited to be hit again. The strike didn’t come.
“Stop, please,” Deseria cried out from beside Thaniel. George stood on the other side of him.
“Please, no more.” Deseria slipped up close to his father, her soft voice pleading for him to stop as she laid a hand on his arm.
The man he could no longer believe had once been his dad, moved back. Thaniel didn’t take his eyes off his father as George reached down and pulled him to his feet.
After she managed to calm the Tomlee, Deseria turned and helped Elianna to her feet, then she waved behind her and a couple other people came forward to help the girl from the room.
“C’mon,” George said quietly and led him away.
Chapter Forty-Four
Humiliated
THANIEL, UTTERLY HUMILIATED, kept his head lowered as he followed George, but at the door, he looked back to see Deseria talking with his father. “Is she going to be okay with him?”
George nodded. “Yeah, she’ll be fine. She’s the only one he sorta listens to.”
Thaniel glanced sharply at him. “Doesn’t he listen to the Queenlee?”
George smirked. “No.” He led Thaniel down the hall to his room. Once he was inside, George followed him in and then hesitated. “Can I get you anything?”
Thaniel shook his head. There was nothing he wanted. Well, there was, but he’d thrown that away. Now there was no way they’d want him back, not after he had hurt them. They probably hated him now, too.
“Well—” George started to leave when he stopped and turned back, “I’m sorry about what he did to you,” he said.
Thaniel wondered if he meant just now, or years ago, but really, it didn’t matter, did it? He stared at George, wondering if his words were a trick. He knew better than to trust, especially someone who had already shown their true colors, or in their case, spots. With a sad look on his face that surprised Thaniel, George left him alone.
Thaniel settled himself on the bed, but after everything that had happened, he knew he’d be unable to sleep. Not that he wanted to. He didn’t trust anyone in this house. Instead, he sat up against the headboard for hours, thinking of all he’d learned.
Finally, he got up. He needed to leave, even if he had no idea of where he’d go. Quickly, he hurried down the hall toward the front door. He’d memorized the turns when he’d been with Elianna earlier.
Except as he exited the hall behind the stairs, he stopped. Two men leaned against the wall on either side of the front door. His father had posted guards? Why?
It was obvious he didn’t care about Thaniel, so why was he trying to keep him here? Was it to prove how powerful he was? Thaniel remembered how the Were-wolves had also tried to claim him. It was like he was a piece of property. Disgusted, Thaniel studied the men at the door. Then one of them must have sensed him because the man suddenly turned and looked straight at Thaniel in the shadows.
“Go back to bed,” he said.
Thaniel stood there a moment longer, wondering what would happen if he refused. As he continued to watch them, both guards stared right back, and finally, shoulders slumped in defeat, Thaniel turned and went back to his room. There was no way he could take on the two men and chances were, if his father posted guards at the front door, there would be someone guarding the back door as well.
***
THE TOMLEE, still furious, pulled his cell from his pocket and punched in a number. Putting it to his ear, he waited as it rang and rang. Finally it went to voice mail. “You fucked up. You didn’t tell me he’d been turned. Call me,” he said before hanging up and tossing his phone on his dresser.
A moment later, there was a light knock at his bedroom door and then it opened.
“You had Elianna taken below?” Deseria asked as she walked into the room.
He turned away, ran a hand through his hair, and then nodded. “Yes, she needs to be punished.” Then he looked at the only person who held a place in his heart. “Fucking bitch. What the fuck did she think she was doing?”
“She’s just a silly child,” Deseria said, trying to defuse the situation.
“I warned her. I told her to stay away from him. She knows our laws. She deserves everything she gets,” he said, barely controlling his temper.
“She’s had a crush on you since she was a small child. She’s only trying to get your attention,” Deseria said, trying to reason with him, but he shook his head. He didn’t care.
He eyed the woman beside him and anger filled him anew. He’d offered her a place at his side, all she had to do was bond with him. She claimed to love him, yet always used his bond with the Queenlee to refuse, saying she couldn’t break their bond. And, he couldn’t tell her the truth about his bond with their Queenlee, so his arguments were always useless.
It never occurred to him that she might know his secret. The only person who knew was expressly forbidden upon the threat of death to tell another living soul.
“Bond with me,” he said now, like he had said many times over the years, but like she always did, Deseria shook her head.
“You know why I can’t.”
Familiar anger at their same old fight stoked the fires of his present fury, making him want to hit something—someone. Too bad his weaselly snitch hadn’t answered.
Without another word, he turned and stalked from the room.
“Please, Tomlee, Elianna may not be of our blood, but she is clan,” Deseria pleaded behind him.
Chapter Forty-Five
George
THANIEL WAS TRYING TO COME UP with an escape plan the next morning when George showed up in his doorway and frowned at him.
“Did you even sleep?” he asked.
Thaniel shrugged but didn’t say anything.
George sighed. “Well, let’s go get some breakfast before everyone gets up then,” he said and turned away.
After a moment, Thaniel got up and followed him. “Everyone’s still asleep?” he asked.
George, without stopping, nodded. “Yes, everyone sleeps really late. Well, except me. I get three-four hours and I’m good.”
George led him into a large dining room with a long table in the center of the room and smaller tables all around the outside. Thaniel automatically counted the chairs at the large table. There were sixty of them. He followed George over to the buffet counter, glad now that he didn’t have to eat with sixty-plus strangers. “Yeah, didn’t think you’d be comfortable eating with everyone yet,” George said when he saw Thaniel glance back at all the chairs.
“If everyone is asleep, who cooked?” Thaniel asked as he filled a plate with eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, hash browns, a biscuit, and fruit.
“We have a few cooks. They know I get up early, so they make sure there is always food ready, and apparently, they made enough for you as well,” George said, filling his plate even higher than Thaniel’s.
Together, they went and sat
at one of the little tables. Thaniel didn’t know what to think about the change to George’s attitude. While he sensed his half-brother was trying, he was still too leery to completely trust the guy.
It was a quiet breakfast.
They had just finished eating when Thaniel heard the sounds of people moving about the house. Seeing him tense up, George nodded at Thaniel’s empty plate. “You had enough?”
Thaniel nodded. Even if he was still hungry, he’d rather get out of this room before it filled up.
Back in his room, George followed Thaniel inside. “I’ll find you some clothes, if you want to shower and change.”
Thaniel wasn’t about to get naked long enough to shower in this place, but a change of clothing would be nice. However, remembering George’s words and scorn from the day he arrived, he wasn’t about to accept. “I’m fine,” he said, lowering his head.
George stared at him a second. “Look, Thaniel, I’m sorry.”
When Thaniel met his gaze, George gave a slight shrug. “I was an ass the day you got here. I really didn’t mean what I said, I just—” Looking uncomfortable, George ran a hand through his own hair. “I don’t blame you for not trusting anyone, especially after what you’ve gone through. But I promise, you can take a shower. No one will bother you.” George waited for Thaniel to say something, then sighed. “They might be a little big, but I have some clothes you can wear.”
Seeing how hard George was trying and sensing his sincerity, Thaniel swallowed and gave a tiny nod. “Okay.”
At his words, a smile lit George’s face. “All right. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said and hurried away. When he came back, George was still grinning. “You may need a belt.” He held out a bundle of clean, folded clothing. Thaniel studied George for a moment, remembering times in the foster homes when one of the other kids would offer him something only to yank it away and howl with laughter.
As if he had an idea of what Thaniel was thinking, George set the bundle on the bed. “Do you want me to keep watch outside of the bathroom so no one bothers you while you shower?” he asked.
Thaniel blinked. He still didn’t trust the guy that much. “No.” He shook his head and then nodded at the clothing. “Thank you.”
George took a deep breath. “All right. Is there anything else I can get you?”
Thaniel shook his head and George stopped.
“Do you want me to help you even it up?” he asked, nodding at Thaniel’s hair.
Hunching his shoulders, Thaniel pulled his hair around and inspected it. A large chunk about a foot long was cut off, leaving it uneven. At least it still hid his face.
“I didn’t know,” George said and Thaniel frowned. George looked sad as he shook his head. “I’d always heard these whispers of the Tomlee’s other son.”
At Thaniel’s confused stare, he shrugged. “All my life I’ve tried to get my … our father’s attention, but he’d never so much as look at me, and if he did, it was to say that my face was dirty, or that I didn’t belong in the room with the adults, and then you show up and—”
Looking guilty and ashamed, George shrugged again. “I’m sorry about how I acted, I was jealous. The Tomlee—” he stopped and then started again, “our father, he was just beginning to see me, and then you showed up. I didn’t mean to be such an ass.”
Thaniel shook his head. He’d wondered what his father had done or said to turn George against him when his brother had never even met him. Now he understood. It wasn’t that his father had done or said anything, it was the lack of what he’d said to a son that craved his love, his acceptance.
Thaniel sighed, saddened by how many people’s lives his father had ruined. “George, I’m nothing to be jealous of,” he whispered bitterly, waving his hand about his face. George swallowed and turned to leave, but Thaniel stopped him. “George?” When his brother turned back, Thaniel swallowed. “Can you get me some scissors?”
“Sure, I’ll be right back,” he said and hurried from the room.
Thaniel swallowed back the anger that was still seething inside of him. He needed to get out of here, but how? And where would he go?
A minute later, George came back in and handed him the scissors.
“Thank you,” Thaniel said, and pulling the small wastepaper basket over, he started to hack more of his hair off to even it out.
“Do you want help?” George asked, stepping up beside him.
Thaniel hesitated, but as he met George’s eyes, he suddenly decided to take a chance. “Sure,” he said and handed the scissors over.
George began to fix his hair and after a moment, he stopped and spoke. “When I was little, I used to try to get my … our father to look at me.”
Thaniel’s eyes shot to George’s in the mirror.
“I would sneak into his office and hide, but he always caught me. He’d spank me really hard and then he’d send me to my mother. Another time, I decided to walk along the third floor railing, to prove that I was an agile, tough cat. But instead of being impressed, he just laughed and called me a baby, told me to get down and walked away.
“Every time I asked him to play, or do anything with me, he’d say he didn’t play with stupid little kids. I just wanted some of his time, his attention, but I never got it. You say I had nothing to be jealous of, but all my life I heard whispers of how much he loved you, how he took you fishing, or the time you clogged the toilet up with an alligator, how funny he thought it was. But when I did the same thing, only it was a toy cat, he had me sent to bed without supper, my backside blistered.”
Thaniel could only stare at his new brother, sorry for the both of them. He didn’t know what had happened to his father to change him so drastically, or what was worse, having no good memories with his father, or having them only to lose them so brutally. “I’m sorry, George.”
“I only ever wanted him to see me.” Lowering his eyes, George began to work on his hair again.
Thaniel stayed silent, thinking about all that had happened, then he thought about Elianna. “If Elianna was warned to stay away from me, why didn’t she listen?” he asked, swallowing the pain that his father had known where he was and never once tried to contact or help him.
George shook his head. “Because she’s a sucker for punishment.”
Thaniel frowned in the mirror at George, who sighed and shrugged.
“Fine, sorry. One of our clan, an old Were-leopard named Evra lost his last mate a year ago. Now he wants Elianna as a mate. She refuses to mate him, but she is due to come into her first heat any time now. If she finds a mate of her own, she won’t have to mate Evra, but if she doesn’t and she comes into her heat, she will have to mate him. No one else wants her, so she won’t have a choice, and she can’t remain unmated.”
“Why?” Thaniel asked, confused.
“Why what?” George frowned at him.
“Why does no one want her, and why can’t she remain unmated?” he asked, because as much as he no longer liked Elianna, she wasn’t ugly. Far from it, and he couldn’t see anything wrong with her, other than maybe her personality. Still, he needed to understand why she’d done what she had.
George sighed. Closing the scissors, he went and sat on Thaniel’s bed. “Elianna was adopted into our clan when she was three years old, so she has no real standing here, and is barely tolerated. Stella, one of the old Queenlees, has a soft spot for the pain in the ass, and let me tell you, Elianna has been a pain in the ass most of her life. It’s like she is just trying to get kicked out, all the stunts she pulls.” George shook his head. “Anyway, Elianna became clan, but none of the single men are prepared to tie themselves to her.”
“Why?” Thaniel repeated.
George sighed. “Elianna is not snow leopard like us, she is a clouded leopard.”
“So, if she’s the one who bit me, how come I’m a snow leopard and not a clouded leopard?” Thaniel asked, confused.
George smirked. “Because you are one of us.”
“
But she bit me, shouldn’t I be what she is?” Thaniel asked.
George shook his head. “No, you’re thinking of Nightwalkers and Daywalkers, they sire someone, that person turns into what they are. You already had the snow leopard gene. You just would never have turned if you hadn’t been bitten, since only half of your genes are Were and the other half human.”
Head swirling with all this new information, Thaniel ran a hand through his hair and George stood back up and motioned to the mirror.
“So, if she hadn’t bitten me, I’d never have changed?” Thaniel’s pulse raced as he watched George in the mirror.
“Right,” George said.
Thaniel took a deep breath and then let it out. “Why can’t she remain unmated?”
George pursed his lips. “She will drive all the unmated males insane.”
At Thaniel’s confused frown, he nodded.
“Literally. She will make us insane with need. We will have no control and leopards without control—”
“Are dangerous. I know,” Thaniel cut in, just the thought still terrified him.
“Yeah, so, if she’s mated, we will all still smell her heat, but it won’t affect us,” George explained.
“Oh.” Thaniel thought about all he’d learned, then thought of something else. “But that still doesn’t explain why she bit me,” he said, still not believing she really wanted him as a mate.
“Well, that part I’m not sure about. She may have just saw you as someone she could mate and control, though I suspect it might have something to do with the crush she’s always had on our father.”
At George’s words, Thaniel blinked.
“I know our, the Tomlee said he wouldn’t mate her, but you think that’s really why she did it?” he asked.
George nodded, though if he noticed how Thaniel didn’t call the Tomlee his father, he didn’t say anything about it.
“Yeah, she was pissed when the Tomlee rejected her last summer. I was with her when we overheard the Tomlee talking to my mom about seeing you in downtown Spokane one day. Elianna offered to bring you in, but father refused. He wanted you left alone—no one was to touch you. But knowing Elianna, she probably went after you to get back at him,” George said. “Or to earn favor with him, though she’d have to be an idiot to not know how angry he’d be if she did.” George shrugged.
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