Pack Mentality

by Idella Breen

  Sam didn’t reply so she continued.

  “While I was in the McCloud mansion, I gave up. I thought I was going to die there and all I kept thinking about was how maybe that was better. I was so tired Sam. I was so tired of running, or being thrown away like I meant nothing and I wondered what I had been clinging too for so long. Was it family? Mine threw me away. Was it the clan? Remus chose them over coming to save me. Was it my mates? They both betrayed me to the enemy. So, what was I clinging too? What was keeping me alive? What was I running from that kept my feet moving?” Gwen paused, then she looked up, and what Sam saw in her eyes, he didn’t fully understand but he realized that this was the change he noticed as soon as he walked into her hospital room. It blazed in her eyes, and it smoldered, and if sent a chill of fear down his spine.

  “What was your answer?” He whispered.

  “You can’t run from reality. Like the hounds of hell, it will chase you until one day you fall down, then it will devour you. Do you know what the problem is with running from hounds?”

  She didn’t wait for his response. “Like wolves, hounds attack in packs and if you run you have given them your back. You’ve shown a weakness that they will exploit the moment you falter. Do you know what the best way to fight a hound is, Sam?”

  Sam waited, his breath caught in his throat.

  “You fight hounds with fire. Beast fear the flame for it burns and even though they are the hounds of hell they feel pain like the rest of us. You fight those hounds with your will to survive. That fire is the only thing you have and when you run you snuff it out. I won’t run anymore, Sam. My fire burns so hot it’s consuming and I won’t ever let someone put it out like Art almost did. I’ll fight those hounds until my last breath and then I’ll burn them all on my way down to hell.”

  Gwen was breathing hard. Her face was flushed, and yet to Sam, she was beautiful. She was glorious in her rage and anger and Sam felt like he was in the presence of greatness. The Gwen he knew was gone but this Gwen, she was beautiful in the way that a fire is beautiful. From a distance, you will feel the warmth but at any time that fire can burn you. Sam found he loved both versions and yet this one drew him in like a moth to her flame. This Gwen would lead, this Gwen was strong, and this Gwen would never back down.

  Sam smiled. “You’re strong, Gwen.”

  Gwen took a deep breath then shook her head. “Maybe. Sometimes, I think. But rather than strong, I’d like to think I’m resilient because my strength is found in my weakness and my weakness is found in my admittance of defeat. Do you know what’s so amazing about defeat?”

  When he didn’t say anything Gwen looked up into the sunny sky and smiled. “Well, once you’re defeated you have nothing left to lose. You’ve already lost it all. What else can you do but start succeeding,” She said then paused. She suddenly released a laugh as her face took on a thoughtful look. Gwen grinned as she gingerly touched her scar. “Beware, for I am fearless and therefore powerful,” Gwen laughed again as she walked away leaving the werewolf to his thoughts.

  Sam stood, covered in blood, sweat, and dirt, but he stood over a tired Keith and he felt for the first time in a very long time like he was no longer running. He’d won. He was now the second-in-command and he felt very tired but also relieved. Running really was exhausting.

  Aaron and Sheik stood in front of Jezebel with their heads bowed.

  “Do you regret it?” She asked with her arms folded.

  “Yes,” they both said.

  “Do you understand now?”

  Aaron and Sheik looked up with tears in their eyes but it was Aaron that spoke. “She doesn’t love us like you do, Jazz.”

  Sheik nodded. “I don’t think she loves us at all. We just wanted her to see us.”

  Jezebel held out her arms and they both clutched onto her. “You understand now, that’s enough.”

  “I didn’t know, Vi,” Nathan wiped at the tears running down his cheeks.

  “I didn’t want you to know,” Silvia shrugged. They were sitting in a park outside the gym. It was small and surrounded by woods. It was quiet and empty, that’s all that really mattered.

  Nathan looked down at his hands. “The woman I was with, when she left me, she left me with debts to people that I couldn’t ever hope to pay back. Then suddenly people started signing up for memberships and all the suspicious people that used to hang around my gym just suddenly disappeared. I really thought they just lost interest in me. I didn’t know…” he trailed off.

  Silvia sighed. “I did what I had to do.”

  Nathan growled low in his chest. “I didn’t ask you to fix my problems.”

  Silvia hesitated but caught his gaze. “I don’t regret it, Nathan. I would do it all again.”

  Suddenly, Nathan stood. “This is why I left the pack.”

  Silvia watched him and waited for him to continue.

  “I left because I was tired of you always fixing things for me.”

  “Nathan—”

  “No! Listen, Silvia.”

  She held her tongue.

  “It isn’t your job to make my life easy. You don’t have to make sacrifices for me anymore. I’m an adult. It’s my job to take care of myself. If I need help, I’ll come to you, but I don’t want you doing things like—” he waved his hands wildly. “Like what you’ve done! You joined another pack! You betrayed your mate! You’ve hurt people! Do you even understand what you’ve done? Do you understand that you’ve done things that can’t be forgiven?”

  She watched him. His face hot and red, his arms strong yet weak as they now hung at his sides, his jaw set in a stubborn tilt. In this moment, Nathan looked like their mother. It made Silvia’s heartache.

  “Nathan,” she began and waited to see if he would interrupt. He didn’t, so she continued. “I didn’t know what to do.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  She leaned back on the bench and dropped her head in her hands. Silvia was tired. If she was being honest, she’d been tired for a long time. The need to protect Nathan had been the only thing keeping her going for a while now. It depressed her when she thought about how empty her life would be without her brother.

  He was literally the center of her world but at some point, he had become her whole world. When she met Gwen and Jezebel she had felt her world shifting to include more people and that had terrified her because, all at once, Silvia was faced with the fact that she had nothing to give either woman. Her life was empty. She was a shell, her only purpose was to protect her brother as it was their mother’s dying wish.

  Silvia breathed, and holding back tears, she said, “I’ve been protecting you since you were born, Nathan. I know of nothing else. When our father disowned me because he believed you left because of me, I had no way of protecting you anymore. I had to make sacrifices to ensure you wouldn’t get hurt. Then I saw who was hanging around your gym and I had to act or else you would have been hurt.”

  “Silvia,” his voice was strong and pulled her gaze to his.

  “All you are meant to do, is to live your life the way you want to. Do you understand what I’m saying? You’re not my mother.”

  Silvia jerked back as if he had physically struck her. Nathan reached out and took her cold hand into his, “You never have been. You’ve always been my sister to me and I rather have a sister than a sister pretending to be my mother.”

  Tears were falling. She could taste the salt on her lips. Silvia couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried. She was always meant to be the strong one. The responsibility of the pack had always rested on her shoulders until her father had disowned her after Nathan left to “make his own way in the world,” as he had phrased it. Their father had been furious and blamed her for corrupting him.

  Nathan sighed. “I’m going back.”

  Silvia met his gaze.

  “I’m going back, but you’re coming back with me.”

  Silvia looked out into the forest around them. “I can do that.”
<
br />   “Good, Vi, because I’m not taking no for an answer,” Nathan chuckled.

  “Will you keep the gym?” She wanted to know.

  “Of course, the old man can’t make me get rid of it!” They both smiled.

  “I thought so. At least you’ll finally have the money to keep it open.” Silvia grinned at him and Nathan frowned.

  “I resent that.”

  “Nathan?”

  He sat down next to her while still holding her hand and waited for her to continue. She played with his fingers, trying to find the right words. Huffing, she gave up, she’d just have to wing it.

  “I’m not perfect. I’m probably the farthest thing from it. I do what I know but I’ve begun to learn that despite all the things I think I know, and despite all the planning I do to come out with my desired outcome, there are always other ways with better outcomes that I failed to come up with or acknowledge. I’m weak, Nathan. I’m weak and I try so hard to do what’s best but what I think is best is sometimes just my ego telling me that I can fix everything. This leads me to make the worst choice sometimes. I don’t think I can fix this and that terrifies me. I know I’ve hurt people and I don’t think there’s a way to heal those wounds,” she turned to him with tears freely flowing down her face. “Nathan, I need help.”

  “Vi,” Nathan sighed and pulled her into a sidearm hug. “Oh, Vi, what am I going to do with you?”

  They sat there, side-by-side until the sun sunk below the horizon and Silvia felt like her heart was bleeding out of her and painting the sky with yellows, oranges, and reds as the sunset. She regretted the things she’d done, and yet she knew she’d do them again because, at the end of it all, everyone lived, even if they were a little more broken than they were when it all began.

  People have to break, she thought, because it’s when they find a way to put themselves back together that they shine the brightest because broken pieces reflect many shades of light and for some reason, they are always more beautiful than when they were just one smooth piece. Silvia just regretted that she was the one to break the people she loves. She wished that the task could have been the burden of someone else. For once, she wished she hadn’t listened to her mother. Silvia really didn’t have the heart to be a coward. Somehow, being a coward required so much more strength.

  “I’m going back to Scotland,” Kebethi said as they stood in the meeting hall.

  Silvia nodded. “I think that would be best.”

  Silvia crouched down next to Raegan. “Will you go with them, Rae?”

  “I want to stay with Elena and you, Vi.”

  Silvia nodded. “I can take you with me to the Cain pack. You’ll be treated well there and taught to control your power.”

  “Then I’ll stay,” Raegan said with a smile.

  Silvia held her hand and looked back up at Kebethi. “Until we meet again, Silvia Cain McCloud.”

  Silvia smirked and reached out gripping her forearm. “I believe I still owe you a drink, Beth.”

  Kebethi laughed. “Then sometime in the future, you can buy me one. I’ll look forward to it.”

  Silvia and Raegan left after that. Silvia listened to Raegan chatter on and on about her last playdate with Elena and somehow, for the first time in a long time, things felt better. Not perfect, not even close. She still had wrongs to right but they felt better than they had ever felt since her mother died. Silvia smiled as she listened to Raegan. The child moved excitedly as she told the tale of her and Elena’s adventures. As she spoke, Silvia would glance at her to show she was still listening. It was at one of these moments that she glanced over and caught a glimpse of Raegan’s neck, the child’s too-large-shirt slid down to reveal a small tattoo in the place where her neck met her left shoulder. Silvia didn’t pay it much attention in the past as it had seemed like a strange birthmark. She’s seen it before when giving Raegan a bath many a time. It was a tattoo of a cross bone. In each space between the bones were two small teardrops and two small flames. Silvia had always thought it was a strange tattoo and when she’d asked Raegan about it the child had simply said, “It is what it needs to be and when it needs to be more it will become more.”

  Silvia decided to let sleeping dogs lay as there were things in this world she had no desire to mess with. Silvia knew Raegan was special. Silvia also knew she had way too much on her plate to take on just how special Raegan was in the past. The words from the scribbles Art had given her when she first noticed him beginning to babble to himself, had said something about a child bearing the mark of Death, one of bone and the other a tear. Silvia wondered briefly if this Elena that Raegan was so fond of had a tattoo of a tear mark on her somewhere. Silvia shook her head. She had many other things to deal with and this thing between these two children, whatever it was, was really none of her business. The thought that Art may have not been crazy would not suit her needs. All Silvia needed to do was take care of her new ward and to deal with the mess left behind due to her actions. Silvia reached across the console and adjusted Raegan shirt hiding the mark from view. The child smiled up at her and she smiled back.

  “Tell me all about this Elena Fallon that you’re so taken with. Maybe we can schedule regular playdates.”

  Raegan’s face lit up like the fourth of July. “Really?”

  “Have I ever lied to you?”

  “You’re the best, Vi!”

  Silvia smiled ruefully and muttered under her breath, “At least one person thinks so.”

  Epilogue

  Gwen woke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Her mouth was open as she gasped for air and her throat ached as if she’d been screaming. This wasn’t the first time. It was the fourth time this month, she thought ruefully. As she gained control over her breathing, she once again became aware of the constant ache in her chest from the mating bond. Her wolf craved the conform of her mates even as she denied them both. She refused to admit that she craved her mates and yet she knew it wasn’t such an easy fix. She also knew it needed to be fixed. Her heart ached as the sweat trailed down her back and she knew she couldn’t go on like this. Reaching out, her hand met the cold porcelain of a cup she’d set on her nightstand before going to bed. She drank the lukewarm water and eased the ache in her throat and wondered if she’d been screaming in her sleep again. Remus and Sam had stopped coming to her when she had her night terrors. She’d told them to. Gwen didn’t want to be coddled.

  She was handling it, and yet she knew deep down that she wasn’t. How did they fix this mess they’d gotten themselves into? She wasn’t sure she could go on like this for much longer. None of them could. Their mating bonds wept like open wounds, broken and bleeding. Yet, her anger festered and rotted in her chest as her heart beat in a broken staccato. Gwen hated playing peacekeeper. The omega position made her into one. She hated that she needed them after their betrayals. Gwen knew that things needed to change, and yet, she didn’t know if she had the power to change them. She picked up her cellphone from her night table as she set the glass down. Her thumb hovered over the group text she had with Silvia and Jezebel. There were several unanswered texts from both women. Everyone was waiting on her to begin the conversation. For once in her life, she had all of the control. Her thumb moved across the screen.

  Let’s meet at Jezebel’s house tomorrow afternoon.

  Jezebel replied first. Okay.

  Silvia took a while longer. I’ll be there.

  Gwen set her phone back down on the table and turned over to go back to sleep. As she lay on her side, she hoped that the nightmares would be kept at a bay and Gwen wondered, not for the first time since being set free, it this was reality or if she was still strapped to that board waiting to wake up to fifteen more seconds and the pain and despair that had almost taken everything from her. She closed her eyes, and she hoped, and when she dreamt, she dreamt of mating bonds and regrets, the smell of jasmine and something wild, and for once she felt that it didn’t matter what was reality. Reality, was what we made it out to be and
that was all that really mattered.

  Silvia stood at Jezebel’s front door as Gwen walked up next to her. Silvia startled when Gwen reached out and touched her arm.

  “Gwen.”

  “Hey.”

  Suddenly, Silvia felt the crushing guilt and she couldn’t stop the tears from falling even if she tried. Gwen stood next to her. Silvia had, for a moment, thought the woman would hug her. She felt stupid for thinking such a thing and slipped her hands into her pockets.

  Silvia shuffled awkwardly from one foot to the other. “Hey.”

  “We should go in.”

  “Oh. Yeah, right,” Silvia reached out and grabbed the handle, a task that had seemed monumental only a moment before now done in a jerky and awkward motion.

  “Silvia?”

  She turned to see the scarred face of her mate and held back the wince and the guilt that threatened to overtake her. She refused to look away. She’d done that to her. Silvia had scarred her lover through her actions. The actions that had saved the people she loved were the same actions that now scarred Gwen’s face. She wanted to apologize and yet those words fell flat and seemed disingenuous. An apology seemed like more of an insult at this moment.

  “I’ll never forget,” she said instead.

  Gwen studied her for a moment then nodded. “I don’t forgive you.”

  Silvia’s grip tightened on the doorknob. She expected this and yet when Gwen confirmed it she felt her chest clench painfully. Silvia nodded. “I don’t forgive myself.”

  Gwen smiled at this and Silvia held back tears as her once charming and innocent smile now carried something dark and heavy. “Let’s go in then. I suspect Jezebel has made us something to eat. It’s bad form to keep the cook waiting.”