Greyriver Shifters

by Kristina Weaver

  I breathe deeply, feeling my insides turn cold, and it’s like a fire inside me, this need to just walk away and tell her to go to hell. That’s not what I do though because Julia and I, we’re it. We’re together, no matter how I tried to pull away.

  She needs me, and the plain truth is, part of me needs her. I hope to God that’s enough because after blooding her there is no way I will survive a bond if she ever breaks it.

  “It isn’t an easy question,” I hedge, getting a slap to the chest, as she snorts and rolls her eyes.

  “I’m not here to hear your confessions and judge you, Blain. It’s just…we’re in this shit together now, and I just… I need to know. I’m not telling anyone. I’m not going to jump up and run if what you say isn’t something I like. I need to know.”

  Fuck.

  “When I was a little kid, I had this hero worship of your father,” I tell her, relaxing back as much as I can and staring straight up at the white ceiling. “I’d see him out in town with Bear, and it was…nothing like my own father. At home, we’d have to be perfect or risk his wrath. Hell, sometimes—no matter how perfect we were—it happened anyway.”

  Telling her this shit isn’t easy for me. I’ve never been a talker, having learned a long time ago that speaking out gets you nowhere but in a world of pain. All of this, the stuff that sticks with me is only with me. No one else has ever heard it.

  But Julia is my mate, no matter how much I want to deny it, and she has the right to hear it. Even if it’s not what she wants to hear. I just have to trust that afterward she won’t bolt. I can’t say I’m confident, but at least I’ll know, one way or the other.

  “I envied Bear, and you when you came along. Did you know I saw you when you were a tiny baby? I thought you were the most precious thing I’d ever seen.”

  She giggles and rolls her eyes, mentioning her carrot top of orange baby hair.

  “You were adorable. And happy. Seeing how much your father loved you only made me worship him more because I wanted to be him. I wanted to have a family and know that I would never harm them, that my life would be nothing without their happiness.”

  Shit.

  I think this may take too long, especially when she swallows and grabs one of my hands, joining our hands beside my hip and holding tight.

  # # # #

  Jules

  I already want to cry, and he’s not even telling me all that much yet. Hearing the way he speaks about my dad, the way my dad was and always has been with his young, it only reminds me of how far we’ve come and how far away we are from those times.

  I don’t cry though. I just take his hand in mine and listen as he stares up at the ceiling and lets me hold him.

  “I decided that day, the day he brought you to Fry’s to show you off that I was going to be him. It didn’t matter that my father hated him, or that I should look up to my own parent, I wanted that. So I tried to be kind, always. It didn’t exactly fit into the way things were set out for me and my siblings, but I didn’t care. I’d take the hits for Hannah when I could anger Father enough not to focus on her. I took shit for Brig because he was smaller, and I loved him. It was good. I was protecting those I loved,” he says, chuckling and shaking his head.

  “You know, Brig was a naughty little bastard when he was young? He’d get into all manner of shit all the time and come along covered in mud or leaves or with his clothes ripped. Mother would have a fit, though I think in those early days she really did care about us. Maybe she didn’t want us to get into more trouble.”

  “She’s your mom, Blain. She loves her young, even if she’s shit at showing it.”

  He shrugs, as if hearing that she isn’t evil incarnate is not something he’s interested in, not the way he feels about her, and I decide to table that issue for another time, choosing to get as much as I can from him instead.

  “When I turned fourteen…it was the worst year of my life. I shot up almost a foot in a matter of months and grew balls, real fucking balls….” He quips, making me laugh.

  “All males have balls.”

  “No baby, I mean, I was a raging hard-on all the time. One minute I was just a kid, trying to live an okay life, and the next I had nuts, erections, and the uncanny ability to stare at boobs for hours. It confused the shit out of me, enough that I started getting afraid because one day…I looked across the street at a little girl and everything just stopped. The teenage angst, the fear, the embarrassing chubbies. It was like a bolt of lightning hit me.”

  My chest goes tight when he says this, and his voice is so reverent I have to peep at him to make sure he’s not delirious.

  “It was…I can’t explain it. Nothing else mattered but knowing she was okay. That she was fed. Happy. Looked after. It was nothing sexual, don’t think that because like I said, the cock? Not even a problem.”

  “Are you telling me I turned you off, Seers!” I quip, giggling when he grunts and rolls over to face me.

  “No, bria. I just knew, nothing mattered but you. You were a kid, nowhere near growing boobs and looking at boy. It confused the hell out of me, scared me so much I ran home and hid under my bed for hours just trying to make my wolf stop howling inside me. When I couldn’t take it another minute, I found myself going for you. I couldn’t stop it. It was like this force that took over and shook me so hard I knew I would go crazy if I didn’t obey.”

  Aaaah. Fating.

  It kills me to think of an innocent fourteen-year-old boy, scared, alone, and confused by everything. Take away the Fating for a second and just think of what a teenage boy deals with, and then add in Fating on top of all that emotion, and it’s like setting a lit match to a powder keg.

  “My father…”

  “Was enraged, babe. He took one look at me, sweating and crying and yelling that I needed to see you, and that was it. I was the Seers heir, the little shit who belonged to the elite bastard he hated. Hell, I can’t even blame him sometimes because you were just a little girl.”

  “That doesn’t excuse it! He owed you comfort and safety and help. He owed it to you to see you through the Fating, explain it all to you, and do something to ease it. Hell, I would have sat with you in the living room and watched hours of cartoons if that’s what you needed, Blain. Dad had no right to take that away from you. From me,” I whisper, swiping at a tear that can’t be contained anymore.

  He smiles softly, as if my reaction is naïve, and I get that it is, but still, it’s horrendous what Dad did.

  “What did he do?”

  “He grabbed me by the collar, marched me home, and told my father that no little Seers shit was going to come around his daughter and pollute her. Let’s just say, father was not pleased that I had embarrassed him that way,” he mutters, his face going hard enough that I know not to push him into anything.

  He’ll tell me if he wants to, otherwise I have to accept what I can get.

  “It must have been hard to get through Fating, puberty, and family life.”

  “Hard? It was fucking impossible. My father made sure though. He ensured that I understood the penalties of ever shaming him again, and I took my lessons. By the time I was eighteen, I had completely gotten over the pain my wolf felt at being denied. I started dating, really dating, and I’d fuck anything that had a wolf, a pulse, and two good tits,” he admits, chuckling when I sniff disdainfully.

  “Whore.”

  “I was. Nothing mattered to me because, let’s face it, having your destiny ripped away sort of makes anything else non-existent for a guy.”

  “But you fell in love?” I press, my heart aching at the thought.

  In a perfect world, the male I want, maybe love, would not have loved another. He’d have been mine from the time I could understand what my body was feeling, and I would have been his.

  Fairy tales, I think, snorting at my own naivety. Just fairy tales because the reality is, I have none of that. Blain loved another, and I, well, I haven’t ever had the chance to try.

  “I�
��” He clears his throat. “I met Jessa at a party that my father was throwing for the council. Elite families don’t always socialize all that often unless there’s some big event or issue on the table. Anyway, it was my father’s birthday and that year Mom threw a huge party. The Rubens were invited, as were other leading families. Mom even invited the Banes bunch.”

  “She was gorgeous. I remember her. She had blonde hair and the prettiest green eyes,” I murmur, smiling when he sighs.

  “She was. Better yet she was kind. She was so kind that at first I thought she was playing with me. Until I got to know her. Then I knew it was just, she reminded me of—”

  “Cass.”

  “Yes. Not one wrong word to say. Just sweet and pure and the first female I took who meant something. I just, I needed that. It’s not a stretch to say that I fell for her hard and fast, and we were together more than we were apart. I’d go away on business, and she’d meet me and spend the week with me holed up in a motel room.”

  I hear sorrow in his voice but also so much good and pure happiness that—for a minute—I can’t breathe for the jealousy that wings its way through me. I can’t think that way though. It’s not fair to either of us, and especially not Jessa, who for all intents was one happy spot in his life.

  “She must have loved you very much.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jules

  I swallow when Blain remains quiet and rolls to his back, disconnecting our hands in a way that leaves me feeling rejected and out of place here beside him. I see his face harden and the old familiar Blain return, the anger rolling off him so strong it almost chokes me.

  “She did. At least I believe she did until your father brought the divorce laws into effect and the Rubens’ eldest daughter, Bailey, left her mate of three years. She’d been desperate to go, didn’t love him, and had found her Fated. Until then, it didn’t matter to the elite that Fating was more than just biology. They wouldn’t dissolve a mating.”

  I remember. I remember Bailey, too. It was her Fated Galen who came to Dad and pleaded his case, begging for help. He needed to get his female out of the pack before her mate hurt her, so Dad and Mom sat down and discussed the option of adding divorce into the bylaws.

  “They brought the law in for Bailey and her mate. Mom said it was more than time that females could choose.”

  “Yes, but it also brought with it many problems. One of which was the Rubens family being disgraced. They betrothed Jessa to a Banes the very day after Bailey and Galen left the pack.”

  “Oh no.”

  “Yes. My love, the only female I…she accepted it without question. As if what we shared meant nothing.”

  “I’m so sorry, Blain. I—”

  “Don’t be,” he mutters, rolling to his feet to stalk to the window and glare out at the night sky. “Shit happens. Didn’t mean that I just stopped loving her though. Hell, I’d convinced her that I was going to get us out of here before anyone could make her mate Banes, and I would have—until she started spouting hate speech against the elite.”

  “She agreed with you? About running away?” I ask, sitting up with my back against the headboard and my knees drawn up to my chest.

  Blain snorts and shakes his head at me again, walking over to a hidden cabinet in the wall to grab a bottle and two glasses. When he shakes the bottle at me, I nod and slide off the bed to grab something to wear.

  What I find in the closet makes me realize I am not in my own room, something that had escaped me before because all of these clothes belong to Blain.

  “Grab a shirt, malina.”

  I obey his yelled order and pull on a black button up, rolling the sleeves so that they don’t overlap my hands. The hem reaches just above my knees and covers everything.

  When I walk back into the room, he gives me an appreciative grin and waves me to the couch by the hearth. I take a seat, making sure all relevant parts are covered before facing him and lifting my glass. The old, well-aged whiskey is smooth, a fiery burn to my stomach that makes me warm, and I wait, as he sits back and lifts a leg to the coffee table.

  “Jessa didn’t agree to running away with me. For one thing, I hadn’t made any of my own money yet, and for another, she was a pack loyalist.”

  I snort, not knowing how to take that because as far as I can tell the female had little to no loyalty. I don’t say that though because I’m afraid that would piss him off, and right now, I like just being with him and hearing him open up.

  “Sooo…?”

  “So I left her to do what she pleased. She was a daddy’s girl Jessa, a tiny little thing who strove to be the perfect daughter.”

  “Sorry Blain, but that doesn’t sound like a female who’d go out and spout shit about her own elite class,” I point out, making him smile mockingly.

  “You say that as if elite and normal are two different entities, Jules. Are you another closet elitist?” he queries.

  I can’t help blushing guiltily and looking away before I shake my head and meet his eyes.

  “I don’t want to be, but the elite haven’t exactly been model neighbors in the last years, you know. My dad was always going nuts about them, and I guess, I just got my attitude from there. It’s wrong but—”

  “It’s reality.” He interjects, laughing when he catches me staring at his chest and the spot where his jeans are unbuttoned and riding low.

  Hell, Julia, talk not sex.

  “Sorry.”

  “I really do not mind, my female. Trust me. The sooner you heal and I get my cock in you, the happier I’ll be.”

  “Uh. Yeah. So Jessa?” I squeak, getting another laugh before he sobers and leans back, draining his glass to refill it and offer me another.

  I accept, only because I know I will need alcohol soon enough and sip on the strong brew while he stares at the cold hearth.

  “Her father had lost a lot of money, mostly due to investors pulling out of his schemes when Bailey ran off with her Fated. It put the Rubens clan in financial straits, something I only knew about because my father was in seventh heaven bragging about how he’d ruined the male with a broken investment just days earlier.”

  “Bastard.”

  Blain shrugs and frowns, turning to look back at me with his usual amusement.

  “That’s business, baby. If a male can’t control his own home no one will have confidence enough to invest large amounts of money with him. That’s not the issue though. Jessa…she was used to a certain lifestyle, one of the main reasons she’d accepted Banes in the first place since I couldn’t ask for her hand.”

  “Why the hell not?” I ask, perplexed because according to my knowledge the Rubens and Seers had always been leading families.

  “Father refused,” he says simply, as if that in and of itself is the answer to everything.

  Hell, if I’d love a male I’d have told them all to fuck off and gone for love. I tell Blain that, and he roars with laughter because the truth is, I basically just did that myself. I gave up everything for…well love, I have to be honest.

  It’s stupid and soon and so not logical, but I think I love Blain Seers. Every wicked part of him.

  “You are so idealistic! Jessa Rubens live poor? Jules, baby, be reasonable, the female was used to four-course meals at lunch and the most expensive designer fashions. I once heard her mother yell at her for wearing an out of season dress.”

  “Oh, the horror,” I mutter, getting anther huff of mirth from him. “I thought you said she was kind!”

  “She was. To me. That’s all that mattered to me. She loved me and didn’t ever judge me and most importantly, she was loyal. I didn’t have to worry about her spreading rumors like the other females did if I gave them the time of day. I didn’t have to think about some idiot turning up on my doorstep, making life hard for me when my father found out. She was just…with me.” He shrugs.

  I grimace, hiding the expression behind my glass because that sure as hell doesn’t sound like love to me. And then it hi
ts me. Blain Seers doesn’t have a clue what real love is. At all. If he thinks some bimbo with expensive taste is worth loving because she’s not mean, then hell, I have a fucking real shot here.

  “Okay. So she was, okay. Then what?”

  “Then she heard that the betrothal was going to be a four-month affair and that the money her family were set to get from Banes wasn’t going to materialize miraculously and save them from scandal. She was desperate to save her parents from the shame.”

  “Aaaah. I think I know the next part. She took payment from the council to talk about hate speech.”

  I frown when the times don’t add up for me, and Blain sees it, his mouth thinning.

  “Yes, I was already with the resistance. Although at the time I was only running an underground network for females who needed escape.”

  “Holy shit. That was your escape plan,” I say, holding my empty glass out for more.

  Blain refills it and leans down to kiss my hand before letting me sit back.

  “Yes, you see, I thought that if she was coming to us for money, then I could…” he swallows and looks away, his fingers going white around the glass in his hand.

  “You thought if they disowned her she’d take your offer,” I fill in, biting my lip when he swallows and nods.

  “That was the plan. Only it didn’t work out that way because she was sure that once she explained to her parents and the Banes family that they’d sweep it under the rug.”

  Idiot.

  I don’t say it, but I think it really hard and loud because it’s the truth. Fucking idiot. It’s like this chick didn’t grow up with the reality of elite rules.

  “They didn’t.”

  “No. They grabbed her from the woods before I could meet her, and she disappeared. Hannah told me about what she saw the day they took Jessa home, and it took me six months but I found…what was left of her,” he croaks, looking away quickly when his eyes go bright.