Ryker fell to his knees beside her, pulling her to him, his fingers gently brushing her hair. “I had no choice. I won’t let her destroy you,” he whispered to her. Reika’s hands clutched his shirt in a fist as she clung to him.
“I’m sorry. But we talked about this. She was hurting you. She was hurting our kids,” Ryker told her, and she nodded, yet it was obvious she had just paid the ultimate sacrifice for her family. Not only did she lose her wolf for them, but she basically just tossed all her free will away. Something I knew had been holding Ryker back from doing this earlier.
Ryker could just command her now, and she would be unable to defy him. Effectively stripping her of her title, even though she would remain Queen and by his side. He had the ultimate control. And against him, she would be a mere puppet on some strings.
“I know,” she cried, pressing her face into his chest. The amount of trust she must have had in him, to allow him to take her free will was obvious. She trusted him to make the right choices. Trusted him completely. I hoped one day Lucy could trust me the way Reika trusted Ryker wholeheartedly.
“Lucy?” she asked, looking up at him.
“She is with Ryden and Rayan.”
“She must hate me. She must hate me for everything,” Reika told him.
“She knows it wasn’t you. She knows Amanda was unstable and suffering.”
Reika shook her head and started crying again. “I hurt her. The things Amanda said to her,’ Reika said, crying harder, but Ryker pressed his chin on her head, tucking her to his chest.
“She knows it wasn’t you,” Ryker told her before he looked at me. I nodded to him, turning and opening the door to let them know it was safe to come in. I wondered if Lucy would hate me for participating in her mother’s torture. But it needed to be done. Amanda had become more estranged and more unstable, and the PTSD was uncontrollable and ruined not only her family but also her mother.
Tyson nodded to the door, and Lucy turned to see me standing there. Jacob was trying to calm down an upset Rayan, while Lucy cradled her brother in her arms.
“Rayan, it’s over. We can see her,” Lucy told him, and I could barely just make out her voice. Rayan looked at her, and she nodded toward the house, and his eyes darted to the open door before rushing to it. He stopped next to me, and Lucy came up behind him, giving him a nudge when he didn’t enter. Both of them stared at their mother on the floor in Ryker’s arms, and Reika looked up at them before sighing in relief when she spotted they were okay.
“Mom?” Rayan asked, looking at his father for confirmation that it was her. Ryker nodded to him, and Rayan threw himself in her arms. She kissed his face, clutching him and stroking his face with her hands. Lucy chewed her lip, and Ryden stirred in her arms, making her look down at him. He sucked his fingers, and Jacob stepped inside.
“I will go make him a bottle,” he said, kissing Lucy’s head on the way past, as he walked toward the kitchen.
“Jacob?” Reika called out to him, and he stopped looking at her. “Thank you,” she told him, and he nodded to her.
“Anytime, Luna,” he said to her before walking off. It was no secret that he was specifically assigned to Reika, because she shouldn’t be on her own. The number of times he had taken the brunt of Amanda’s anger was nearly as much as Ryker did, trying to protect his kids from her unstable wolf. Jacob was always willing to throw himself in harm’s way to protect Rayan, and to protect Reika from herself.
Ryden cried out, and Lucy rocked him, tapping his bum before looking at her mother and stepfather. I could see she was wondering if it was safe to hand him over. I had no doubt Lucy would die before letting her mother hurt her brothers, but she need not worry now. Reika looked up at her, and I watched her lip tremble, the guilt on her face for what she had done over the last couple of weeks obvious.
It was one thing when Lucy was away most of the time. But Lucy came home while Reika was struggling the hardest, because she was pregnant, and if she wasn’t, I doubted it would have gotten to this level. Reika and Ryker had always been careful to hide this from her, though. I don’t know why they kept it secret, but we all knew something was going on with Reika. Everyone saw the change in my brother, but it only showed that nobody truly knew what went on behind closed doors.
“It’s okay, mom,” Lucy told her, walking over to her. She bent down, placing Ryden in her mother’s arms before kissing her mother’s head and stepping back.
“I messed everything up, didn’t I?” Reika asked, looking up at her, and Lucy shook her head.
“I know it wasn’t you,” Lucy told her, but I could hear how destroyed she was. I could see she blamed herself for her mother’s psychosis.
“Amanda is me. A part of me. But I think things will be better now,” Reika said, and I believed she was also telling herself that. Like saying it out loud would fix everything.
“I know you will get better,” Lucy told her, stepping away and toward us. It was weird watching Lucy with them, and I could truly understand why she felt like such an outsider. Looking at Reika and Ryker with both boys in their arms, despite looking like crap, they looked like the perfect family, and Lucy was the odd one out. She didn’t look like them, except for sharing her mother’s eyes and hair color. You could tell she wasn’t Ryker’s daughter, and you could tell she took after her father because her facial features were nothing like her mother’s. Lucy’s were softer and not so stern-looking. Reika was beautiful, but Lucy was different.
“You can come home now. It will be safe for you to come home,” Ryker told her, but Lucy shook her head.
“This isn’t my home,” Lucy told him, and I could tell by the look on her face that she’d never really felt at home here. Or anywhere. The facility was the only true home Lucy had ever had. And the one place she’d spent the longest time in, to call home. Even after we got her back, she went to boarding school when she was twelve. So, she had spent more time in school, and in the facility, than she ever did at home. No wonder nowhere felt like home to her. There was no sense of belonging because she never belonged anywhere, just existed. And the three places she called home had only destroyed her, taking that sense of belonging from her.
“Lucy…” Reika said, hurt shining in her eyes.
“It’s okay, mom. You have the boys to look after. You don’t have to worry about me,” Lucy told her, smiling sadly.
“Lucy, this will always be your home,” Ryker told her, but Lucy shook her head, and I knew what she was going to say. I could see she really felt that way too. Like she was a mistake.
“This was never my home. I don’t have a home. I belonged here as much as I belonged in that facility. I was never supposed to exist. In a perfect world, only those in your arms would. I was never meant to be part of this. I was just chucked into the picture by a mad man.”
“Lucy, you are our daughter. Of course, you belong here. I would never have survived that place if it weren’t for you. You kept Amanda going,” Reika told her.