21. Ylfa
I don’t leave my designatedroom at the refuge for the next few days. Butch had asked Tim if he would be willing to spare me a room where I could process my new information and it’s there I stay.
No one bothers me. Even Hunter and Patrick give me the time I need.
My poor mother... She had been raped by the alpha.
No wonder she has always been so cowardly and spineless, and now I feel bad for being so hard on her.
I can’t let myself feel that way. What happened to her was no excuse for how she treated me, but at least I can finally understand.
Now I have an answer for why she hates me so much.
I remind her of the alpha...
I ball my fists when I think of that man’s smug face, and I swear I will kill him. She may be a bitch, but she’s still my mom. Plus, it’s out of principle.
No one rapes an innocent woman and gets away with it.
What’s sad is that my mom had had to face the consequences of what happened to her. Rumors must have spread that she’d mated with a mated male, and that was how she got her reputation.
Yet she didn’t mate with him by choice.
She also had a lover in the form of Butch, and I wonder if Butch had known who I was the moment we first invaded his territory. He acted so ignorant, and I hate him.
He shouldn’t have lied to me. Okay, withholding the truth isn’t exactly lying, but he should have told me sooner.
Suppose he was just waiting for the right time.
This sucks. I have two potential fathers. While I don’t look anything like Alpha Graeme, I don’t look like Butch either. I only inherited my mother’s looks.
Humans used to do paternity tests all the time. I read enough books to understand how it all worked, but we don’t have that kind of technology anymore.
The humans no longer have access to laboratories.
Well, as far as we shifters know...
In a few more days, another boat will arrive, and it will take us straight to the human’s secret location. According to Tim, it is where the majority of the human race has been hiding for the last fifty years...
They built a secret society on a newly formed island. New islands are forming all the time, and in those fifty years, they managed to cultivate the land and prosper.
They trust us enough now to tell us this information. And it’s all thanks to Hunter and Ethel. Once she gave us her approval, they accepted us into their colony, and maybe wolves and humans really can learn to get along.
I just need to get to this secret island. It appears the humans haven’t lost all of their intelligence. They built a colony without our detection.
It makes sense. Shifters don’t have satellite technology. They wouldn’t be able to detect any human activity unless it was close enough. Plus, wolves don’t travel by sea much. We prefer land.
So we don’t bother with any small island.
Someone knocks outside my cave, and I peer out the opening. In the candlelight, I make out the withered form of Ethel and roll my eyes.
I see she got bored with my Hunter, and now she is seeking my company instead.
“May I come in?”
I sit up, offering her space in my tiny cave that barely passes as a room, but one can’t complain. Most of the colony lives in the communal area. Ethel included.
“Sure, go ahead...”