The way he used to hang around us students, us girls in particular. The way he would help us get away with things and bail us out. I thought he was just one of the good teachers, a friend even. An adult that saw us for who we were, instead of just pitying the mutated freaks. But I learned everything comes with a price, I just didn’t see it then.
So, does it make it my fault because I missed the warning signs? Even when he asked me to pull the blind down, something was screaming at me that something was off. Yet I shoved it aside, stupidly trusting the devil in disguise. So, now I find myself questioning everyone’s intentions, looking for anything to warn me away. I missed how I was carefree, invincible, and free of my own tormented mind before it all.
I missed my innocence when the world looked colorful and beautiful. Now, I only saw the darkness in everything, the things that could go wrong. Now I worried about how I dressed, how I talked, and how much of myself I put on display. That worried me. Besides, couldn’t they all tell? Could they not see how disgusting I was? Couldn’t they see how much I hated what he tried to do? How much I hated myself for almost letting him succeed? But the biggest burning question was, do they blame me the same way I blamed myself for not seeing the warning signs? Did I ask for it? And was it my fault?
Looking at my mother, I truly saw her for the first time. Saw why Amanda snapped. I was the nightmare Amanda kept living. The memory ingrained in her mind like he was in mine. Tragically broken and left with only the broken pieces. No matter how much glue, how much force and strength you used to hold those pieces together, it only took one trigger to shatter them all over again and dissolve the little safety you’d once felt.
Hearing movement, I looked down between us and found Ryden stirring before feeling movement behind me, making me look over my shoulder to see Rayan curled up and jammed in my back as he snuggled against me. Turning to face my mother, I found her eyes open, staring back at me.
Chapter fifty-two
Iwatchedasshepressed her lips together, and my breathing hitched, wondering if she knew what Josie and Melana had done. It was the only explanation for how those photos got out. Even banished, we no longer cast rogues out, they were still allowed to join other packs. They just had to get off the turf of the pack they were banished from. I couldn’t see my mother or Ryker accepting them into the pack, making me wonder how they got into this territory unnoticed, let alone on the school grounds. Judging by the look on my mother’s face, she knew exactly what they did as her eyes softened and turned teary.
She reached over, gripping my hand that was by my face before kissing it and holding it tight. Her hand was warm as she brushed her thumb over my fingers softly.
“You don’t let them win. What happened, happened and it’s not who you are. You are not the things that happen to you Lucy. So don’t keep giving them control,” she whispered. A lump formed in my throat as emotion tried to choke me.
“Everyone knows, mom. Everyone saw it,” I told her. Shame crushed me. Everyone knew now. My secret was out, and my agony was on display for them all to judge and see.
“Let them see you survived what they couldn’t. People break for less, Lucy. You learned to live. You will learn again. You know what I see?” she asked, her eyes holding mine, and I swallowed, wondering if she saw the same sharp shards of my soul that were jutting through my flesh and slowly killing me. I wondered if she saw me the same way I saw myself, disgustingly weak and naive. The foolish girl that walked into a monster’s den and let him almost destroy her.
“I see my daughter. I see the little girl who grew up in a glass cage surrounded by people who tried to break her but couldn’t. I watched you die, but then I watched you live. It was hard, but you did it. You rebuilt yourself to become the woman that you are. You fought so goddamn hard to put that place behind you and live a normal life. If they couldn’t break you in that place, don’t let one man do it. You survived hunters as a child. You survived your own death. And you will survive this, because I know my daughter, and I see you, and you will not break. So don’t give them that satisfaction. A lesser person would break, but not my Lucy. My Lucy is a survivor,” she said before wiping my tears.
I sniffled and nodded, trying to force myself to believe her words. This was the woman I missed. Even when everything happened, even when I knew we weren’t on the best terms, all I could think was that I needed my mom. Mom could fix this, she would make it go away. Now I realized she couldn’t, but she wouldn’t let me fall either. She would hold me up when I no longer could because she was my mom, the woman who tossed away a huge part of herself for me. The woman who chose me over her wolf and still forgave me for almost destroying her.
Ryden stirred, crying out, and I reached over with my other hand rubbing his belly in a circular motion before looking up at my mother.
“Where are my mates?” I asked her.
“Tyson is downstairs. But Ace went with your father. Mitchell went home. I had Jacob drop him off.”
“Where did dad go?”
“He is tearing the city apart with Ace, looking for Josie and Melana.” I swallowed and nodded. How could someone who used to be my best friend cause so much destruction to my life? It didn’t make sense. She was a woman too. How could another woman do that to another? Brand their soul with such cruelty, and put them on display like that? I could never do what she did, no matter how much I hated her. How much pain she caused me. I could not do that to another woman and live with myself.
“Your father said it will be your choice what becomes of them,” my mother told me, but I didn’t want that choice. I didn’t want to be the monster. I dealt with monsters my entire life, I wasn’t going to become one.
“I can’t,” I whispered to her. I just wanted to understand why she would hurt me this way. We grew up together, lived the same nightmare, and were bonded by it, yet she still did this.
“You can’t do what, Lucy?” my mother asked me.
“Decide their fate,” I told her. I couldn’t do it. I hated them, and I knew that would taint my judgment, and I wouldn’t stoop to their level. I didn’t need to destroy them the way they tried to destroy me. I knew how that felt, and banishment wasn’t enough. Still, I couldn’t take their lives because that would be on me. I couldn’t have their deaths on my hands.
“Then I will do it,” she said, making my eyes dart to hers. “No one messes with my children and gets to keep breathing afterward,” she said, and I gulped at her words, seeing the determination in her eyes. She meant every word she said, I would never doubt that. Yet could I let her do this? Would it be the same as me signing their death warrant?
“Mom?” I whispered.
“I know you, Lucy. I know you don’t want to do it but they will pay. You don’t have to live with their deaths on your hands. But I would wear their blood happily on mine. There is no bigger monster than a mother’s wrath. And I will make them pay with their lives,” she said. I knew this was a promise she would keep.
They would pay, and I felt sorry for anyone that got in her way because she would destroy them. She wasn’t just the Queen, she was my mother, and I feared my mother more than her title as Queen. As Queen, she ruled fairly, but as my mother, she would destroy them until there was nothing left but a hollow corpse of despair. One thing my mother did best was to switch from diplomat to warlord. Josie and Melana had no idea who they had just signed up to war with. And my mother didn’t fight fair.
Chapter fifty-three
Ace
We searched everywhere, even split off to a few different territories, searching for Melana and Josie. Yet we came up empty. For the most part, the other pack Alphas gladly accepted us on their territories, leaving only one territory left unsearched. Which I knew was either going to be a flat out refusal or a pain in the ass to convince.
Ryker could demand entry onto Alpha Jamie’s territory, but he would receive backlash from the other packs for abusing his power. The last thing we needed was to go to war with the five packs surrounding ours, though two of the smaller new packs were less likely to give us trouble and my family’s packs outnumbered them. I knew that the other three were itching for a chance to take on the Alpha King, and with a new baby and his family to protect, I also knew that wasn’t something Ryker was willing to risk right now.