ing that it was all a lie, and damn, that fucking hurts. I refuse to let my mother cry, but I’m also not sure what I’m supposed to do now. The woman who was supposed to protect me, to care for me, has betrayed me.
“Brendan, I can explain.” She says the words, but there’s no emotion on her face. There’s no concern. There’s no sadness. She’s shocked that I called her out, but she doesn’t regret what she did. Why the hell not? She’s seen me suffering. She’s seen me being sad. She just doesn’t care. Is that it? She doesn’t care?
“No thanks,” I shake my head. “There’s nothing to explain, is there? You stole my mate from me.”
The thought makes me feel sick.
I never even suspected that my mother had been involved in the breakup. Never. There was never a time when I thought that she was the reason my mate left or abandoned me. I thought that there was more to the story, but I had been so hurt that I’d accepted Felicity’s words at face value. I had been so wrong to do that. I had been so, so wrong. Now I understood. Finally, I was in a place where it made sense to me. The missing puzzle pieces I’d tried for years to find were now right in front of me. It was my mom. It had always been her.
“You had so much going for you,” my mother says. “And you were too young.” She shrugs casually, as though you find a mate every day. You don’t. Fuck, you don’t! Felicity was it for me. She was fucking it.
“Do you think you were too young when you mated Dad?” I snap.
“Yes.”
“Well, I was 23, Mom. I was old enough. For fuck’s sake, I cried on your damn couch, and you called her names and told me what a horrible person she was for letting me down like that.” She had never let on that she knew. She never so much as hinted that she had an idea about that.
“She was never the right girl for you,” my mother tells me. She tries to reach for me, but I step back. “There were other girls who were better for you.”
“Who?” I snap. “Allison Erin?”
“Yes,” my mother nods. “Allison is exactly who I would have chosen for you.”
Allison is another cat shifter – a panther – and she’s gorgeous, but she’s never been someone who intrigued me or even interested me. To me, Allison has never even been on my radar. My mother always tried to push me towards other people, especially Allison. She always seemed to have this idea that anyone in the world would be better than Felicity, and I’ve never understood why.
The only person I’ve ever had eyes for is Foxy.
And apparently, I completely screwed that up.
“Allison isn’t my mate.”
My mother should know this by now. She should understand that when a lion mates, it mates for life. That’s the beautiful thing about being a shifter: these things are for eternity. She doesn’t care, though, and somehow, I never noticed that before.
Her eyes narrow now. We’re still on the porch. She’s standing on the doorway, and in the dim light provided by her porch light, I can see the glare that covers her face. Oh, she’s not happy.
Too bad I don’t give a shit.
“I’ve been working for years to get you to consider Allison,” my mother snaps. “She’s a good choice. She always has been. You’ve just been too caught up with that fox bitch to ever look at anyone else.”
I promised myself a long time ago I would never hit a woman. That might be sexist, but I don’t really care. I won’t do it. Even now, as I stand looking at my mother, I can’t bring myself to do it.
Oh, I want to.
I fucking want to.
But I won’t.
Instead, I nod, understanding that the relationship between myself and the woman who gave birth to me has effectively ended. My mother and I have never been close, but I know for a fact that there’s no coming back from this.
There will be no moment when I look at her and think oh, she really did want what was best for me.
I won’t look at her and believe that this thing between us is going to be anything but what it is: over.
“Goodbye, Mother,” I say firmly. There’s a finality to my voice on purpose. This is it for Mother and me. This is the end. I will not be coming over for holidays, and I will not be calling her when she finally has grandchildren, and I will not be visiting her when she’s lonely. This is the end. She tried to destroy me, and I will not continue to have a relationship with someone who is toxic, and who is hurtful, and who is cruel.
Her eyes widen and then darken once more. The words I’ve spoken seem to sink in, and she finally understands that I mean it.
“She was never right for you,” my mother tells me, and I know she’s talking about Foxy again. She doesn’t even care that our own relationship is crumbling right in front of her.