Total pages in book: 23
Estimated words: 21098 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 105(@200wpm)___ 84(@250wpm)___ 70(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 21098 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 105(@200wpm)___ 84(@250wpm)___ 70(@300wpm)
I wasn’t prepared for what he said. I felt the shock of his words riveting in my veins.
The horror that the man I was mated to hated my father, hated a part of me. But I couldn’t let go. Because no matter what, I loved him, and I knew I would never mate with someone that was actually evil.
“Why do you hate them?”
“I don’t anymore,” he whispered in my chest. “I can’t now. As soon as I met you, it changed it all for me.” I could hear the truth in his words.
“I still need to know why,” I whispered, trying to fight back the tears that were just lying underneath my eyelids. “When I was seventeen, my parents went for a hunt. They came across four Bears who decided to make an example out of them. They attacked. My parents weren’t able to fight them off. Four Bears, against just the two of them. My father tried to fight them off, but he wasn’t strong enough. They mauled my mother to death, leaving him howling in the wind. Three days went by and we didn’t hear a word. Finally, the Alpha sent out a search party and we found my father, naked, battered and bruised, crouched over my mother’s body, trembling with tears and rage.”
“Brett...” Tears trailed down my face. Seventeen was still a pup, too young to lose a parent, especially in such a traumatic event.
“My sister was twelve,” he continued, his eyes filled with anger and sorrow. I could feel his pain through every single word he spoke. “But my mother’s death wasn’t the end of it. The trauma of not being able to defend his mate left my father completely impotent. He couldn’t shift after that. The Bear Mountain Pack doesn’t do well with defective Wolves. Those are the ones that we cast aside and throw away like garbage. My father was no good anymore, just a burden. I knew that if anyone found out, my dad would be shunned, left on his own. There was no way he could handle that, not after what happened to my mother. He would have died on his own. So I hid him. I grew up faster than I should have to protect him and my kid sister.”
The horrors of his words washed over me. My father had always talked about his clan lovingly. He was proud of how they took care of their weak and helped the Bears who were struggling. He always said it was a community full of love. But that was the Bear Mountain Clan. I also knew other clans weren’t as willing to have peace at any cost. But Gavin was a good Alpha, my father always said he was the best of the best.
I felt the bile rise in my throat. There was really only one Bear clan in the mountains. Only one group that could have been able to do that. But I refused to believe it was my people. They were vicious, but only when one of their own was hurt.
“This wasn’t the Bear Mountain Clan was it?” I asked, my voice sounding shaky and unsure even to myself.
“No. They found the Bears. The pack tore them from limb to limb. They would never have done that if it was Gavin’s clan. Besides, he had a Wolf mate, no way any of his Bears would have done that.” He said, his eyes looking lost in the past, sadness and regret seemingly laced in his irises.
I felt the relief rush through me at his words. I don’t know how I could handle it, had my father’s clan done that. “It’s the only close Wolf and Bear territory here.”
“Is that why your parents left? Did they not accept them? Why are they living here, away from the rest of the Clan”
“My parents just wanted a quiet life. Gavin is a good man and when he took over he ended any of the nonsense. But from the stories I was told as a child, the Bears were never the problem. It was the Wolves. The Wolves were incredibly territorial, they couldn’t let anyone live in peace. They spent decades spewing hate and trying to manipulate pups. My father didn’t want my mother and any of the children they would have to live with that. So they moved and set up a home. Close enough to help if The Clan needed him, but also removed from them.”
Brett rubbed his face against his hands, as if trying to somehow scrub the past away. Seeing him defeated and sad hurt me, in a way I didn’t think was ever possible. I took his hands away, and looked at him.
“It’s not your fault,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around him, feeling him inhale and exhale, trying to grasp that oxygen, the fresh air he so desperately needed. “You were just a kid.”