“I know!” Eva cried. “I couldn’t come back, don’t you understand? I was captured! Poachers found me. I was all alone and there were three of them.”
Nessie heard more scraping of chairs as her mother began to sob.
“I never wanted to leave you, Talon. I loved you so much. After I was captured, I realized how silly I was for fighting with you about marriage. Your father was never going to let you marry a human with that lycana born in the pack.”
“Shhhhh,” Talon cooed. “I’m so sorry, Eva. I should have been there to protect you. This is my fault, not yours.”
“I shouldn’t have left the village alone,” Eva sniffled.
Talon cooed at her again. “It’s okay. You’re here now. You’re safe.”
Eva’s sobs continued, muffled slightly. Nessie imagined Eva pressed against Talon’s big body, her face buried against his chest. Gag.
“The girl doesn’t know, does she?”
Eva sniffled again. “No. I married Paul not long before I delivered. He was kind and came to care for me, offering me the little protection that marriage offered a pregnant human. We were sold together, and he claimed Nessie as his own to avoid any suspicions.”
“Was he a good father to her?”
The best father she could have asked for, Nessie thought, grinding her teeth as she waited for her mother to answer.
“He was very affectionate. When Nessie was young, I struggled. She looked so much like you...it hurt to be around her sometimes. I was lucky he was there. Nessie grew very fond of him. I dare say, she probably loved him more than she loved me.”
She heard Eva begin sobbing again, muffled, most likely by Talon’s body somehow.
“I wish I could have been there for both of you. But I can protect you both now.”
“Will your pack allow that?” Eva asked, sounding skeptical.
“She is part of the pack now. We both saw her transform during the hunger rage. I’ve never witnessed it before. As far as I know, we have a natural immunity to vampire blood, which is why we can’t be turned. She must be close to twenty by now. Well beyond the age we begin transforming on full moon.”
“No. She never did. Me and Paul gave her tea with wolfsbane in it. Not a lethal dose, obviously, but enough to weaken her and stop the transformations. Jack would have killed her the moment he realized she was part lycan.”
“I still don’t understand how she would have had any abilities at all. As far as I know, humans cannot bear lycana offspring. The children are always human or lycans. A male would have to mate with a lycana to even have a chance of having one. And you know how rare lycanas are. It’s why they’re so prized in our community.”
“It must be the bloodline.”
“Nonsense. My father was a hound dog. He would have produced plenty of lycanas if they could be produced with a human.”
“Not your bloodline. Mine.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“My father is also a lycan. As is my grandfather, and great-grandfather, and so on. As far back as anyone can remember. I didn’t even realize she was your kind until she was a few months old. Jack had kept me from her too long. When I finally returned to our room, she had already broken Paul’s nose, and she was lying on the floor, screaming. Her eyes were glowing gold and her hair was several inches longer. Luckily, as soon as I picked her up, she calmed down and returned to normal. After that, Paul managed to get the wolfsbane smuggled into the mansion during his weekly trips to the market.”
Nessie had stopped breathing. She felt the warmth of fresh tears slide down her cheeks as she listened to the ugly truth of her life. She was a monster. And, apparently, she had been a monster long before Charlie had turned her. Flashes of her life sped through her mind. Lies. All of it. Her mind had finally had enough, claiming control of her body as she took several hurried steps back away from the doorway. Talon. The Alpha lycan. Her real father. Holy, shit. Who the hell am I?
With that last thought, she ran. She didn’t know where she was running to, but she knew it was away from her mother and the lycan she’d never call “father.”
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Charlie had finally managed to get his lower half under control and opened the basement door when Nessie flashed by. She hadn’t taken notice to him and he sensed something had upset her. Given her lack of impulse control, he followed her at a distance to make sure she didn’t bite someone’s head off...literally. And that none of these mutts tried to go after her despite Talon’s warning.
A few miles outside the village, in a secluded grove, he watched as she crashed to her knees. She sobbed into her hands, the gut-wrenching, gasping-for-air type. He wanted to go to her. To fold her into his arms and allow his body to absorb her tears and tortured cries. He knew she wouldn’t accept her new life easily, and watching her now made him second-guess his decision to turn her. Not everyone was cut out for this existence, but he thought Nessie’s strength and pig-headedness would lend itself well to transition. As Eva had said the night they had escaped, Nessie was a fighter. She showed it time and time again.
But, as Nessie knelt on the ground, her body heaving through her tears, it seemed something had broken her. Something had finally gotten through her iron skin. And that something had happened sometime after she had left the basement.
“Monster,” he heard her mutter in between sobs. “I’m a monster.”
Charlie took a silent step toward her. She definitely wasn’t taking the turning well. But it was too late to take it back now. He stepped out from the shadows. “You’re not a monster, Nessie.”
She jumped up, turning to face him in one fluid movement. Her eyes were blood-shot and puffy, her cheeks streaked with tears, but she was still the most beautiful mess he’d ever seen. Misery saturated her face as she shook her head. “I am a monster. And apparently I’ve always been a monster. No wonder everyone keeps dying around me. It’s me.”
He took another step toward her, but she held her hand up to stop him.
“No! Don’t come near me! I might hurt you. I couldn’t bear it if I killed you, and the way your blood tastes, I might very well drain you of every last drop.”
He smirked at her, trying to lighten the mood. “So, I taste that good to you, huh?” He wiggled his eyebrows.
She rolled her eyes. “This is not funny, Charlie! I could kill you, you know? Right now.”
He took another step toward her, allowing his mind to wander to Nessie’s surprising and welcoming wake-up call that evening. Her reaction told him his eyes had darkened at the lusty memory. “Really? You want another taste already? Well, I’m game if you are.”
He was close to her now, a few arm-lengths and he could pull her against him and make her forget she ever thought she was anything but amazing.
“You don’t understand,” she cried. “I’m not...I don’t even...Oh, gods!” Her hands came up to cover her face as she began sobbing again.
He took the last few steps and pulled her toward him, but she shoved him off.
“Don’t! Don’t touch me!”
“Nessie, please. You’re hurting. Let me help you.”
“You can’t help me!” she cried, flinging her arms. “There’s no helping me out of this, Charlie. I’m a monster, and there’s no changing that.”
Charlie dropped his outstretched arm. “You’re never going to forgive me for turning you, are you?”
“I don’t know! Can I have more than 24 hours to decide if I’m okay with it?” she snapped, turning away from him. “And it turns out it’s not entirely your fault I’m a monster, anyway.”
He didn’t like the sound of that. “What does that mean?” he asked, his body tensing.
He heard her sniffle as she took a deep breath. “I’m not human.”
Charlie raised a brow. “I’m aware. I changed that fact.”
She turned her head, her eyes a slightly brighter shade of brown as the gold flecks became more prominent. “No, you didn’t.”
Alright, now he was confused. “I don’t understand.”
“According to my mother and...the Alpha,” she ground out. “I was never exactly human to begin with.”
The Alpha? The lycan flashed through his mind. Never human? He tried to follow wherever she was trying to lead him but...nothing. He shook his head.
She sighed. “My dad...he wasn’t my biological father.”
Paul wasn’t her father? If not Paul, then who? He remembered Paul rushing to Eva’s side during Nessie’s birth. Only a few weeks after Jacques had bought the pair of them. His gaze locked with Nessie’s again, those big, bright, gold eyes filled with unwept tears. Gold eyes? The eyes of a shifting lycan.
“No,” he stated. “It’s not possible. You would have shifted as a child. I would have noticed that.”
Nessie lowered her head, looking at her feet. “Eva said they gave me wolfsbane tea to keep me from transforming and subdue my abilities. I always did despise that disgusting tea. At least now I know why.”
Charlie exhaled in a rush. Nessie was part lycan? It was hard to believe, but as flashes of her transformations over the last few days came to mind, it began to make sense. Why had he not sensed it in her blood? He had drunk wolf blood before. He should have detected it in her blood as well. Unless the wolfbane somehow affected her blood.
His gaze snapped back to her as she fell to her knees, her hands covering her face as he heard her weep again. “Who am I?”
He knelt next to her. “You’re ancestry doesn’t change who you are, Nessie.”
“Yes, it does! I thought I was human...a plain, human girl who just wanted freedom from all these monsters! Now, it turns out I was one of those monsters all along. And now...now, I don’t even know what I am!”
Charlie wanted to comfort her. Reassure her that she was still the same person, but she was right. She wasn’t the same. And even he didn’t know what she was. Nothing like this had ever happened before to his knowledge. The supernatural species didn’t mix. Vampires couldn’t procreate, and lycans were immune to vampirism. So, how had it happened with Nessie? If she was born a lycan, how had he been able to turn her? It shouldn’t have been possible.
“I should leave. Before I hurt someone. I almost bit my own mother this morning. Who knows what I’m capable of now.”
Charlie sighed. “I don’t know if that’s the best option right now. Where will you go? The human colonies wouldn’t let you anywhere near them.”
During his endless meetings with the Ancient Council over the past decade, the colonies had come into the conversation more than once. There weren’t many places left on earth for humans to live free of supernatural oppression. The final groups of human rebels had retreated to the poles a few centuries earlier, where the endless summer days made it nearly impossible for a vampire to venture. Not the mention, the humans began focusing all their technological efforts towards keeping the monsters of the world out of their safe haven. He and Nessie wouldn’t stand a chance of seeking refuge there.
The harsh reality was that there were even fewer places for rogue supernaturals to escape to. The wilderness was lycan territory. The cities were vampire territory.
“I’ll just have to fend for myself from now on, I suppose. Given what I am, I’m assuming I’m at least capable of that.”
“You may be stronger, but you are still very young, Nessie. There will be plenty of much older vampires...and lycans for that matter, that will be much more experienced than you are. Not to mention if you run into a group of them. No one is invincible.”
Nessie lifted her chin. “I killed Jack easily enough.”
“That was because he wasn’t expecting you to turn, much less as...well, whatever you are. You caught him off-guard.” He had to convince her because venturing out on her own could be suicide.
“Well, what do you expect me to do? I’m not staying here, I don’t care what Talon says.”
“Talon offered you to stay with the pack?”
“Yeah. He said that given that I’m technically one of their kind, the pack couldn’t refuse me.”
While that was surprising, it made sense given her relation to the Alpha. “Your safest bet would be to accept Talon’s offer. The protection of a pack...well, there’s nothing much safer.”
“I can’t stay here with him.”
“Why?”
“Because!”
“He has done nothing but help you. He saved both our lives this morning, Nessie. He obviously wants to protect you.”
“He is not my father!”
“Accepting his protection doesn’t mean you have to have a relationship with him.”
Nessie looked up at him. “She never loved my dad. She married him for the protection. She was in love with...with…”
“Talon,” he finished for her. Nessie flinched and nodded.
He reached out for her, but she stepped away, scowling at him, and he sighed. “We can’t choose who we love, Ness. Look at me. Falling for a stubborn human slave that turned out to be something else entirely wasn’t exactly part of my master plan.” Hell, it wasn’t part of any plan. Period.
Nessie’s eyes widened and he knew she had caught his meaning. And from the doe-eyed look she was giving him, she was about to make a run for it again.
“I’m not expecting you to feel the same, or even be ready to think about love.” He looked away, trying to prepare himself for the inevitable rejection he was about to receive. “I understand why you’re holding back. I deserve it, really.”
Nessie’s wide eyes gazed up at him as silence stretched between them. “You terrify me,” she muttered as she continued to hold him captive. “You’re the most dangerous person in my life.”
He shook his head, dumbfounded. How could she even think that?
“I don’t want to love you,” she croaked, emotions dripping into her soft voice. “I want to hate you. For leaving me. For turning me. For…for making me feel things I don’t want to. I’m overwhelmed and confused, and I don’t like it!”
His heart was pounding, the echo of it loud in his ears, but he caught every word she said. Her words resonated with him on a deep level. “I felt the same way. When I got back to the mansion, the last thing I wanted was to fall in love. I had a plan, and you weren’t part of it. But as soon as I tasted you, I recognized you for what you really were. My mate. And I wasn’t exactly thrilled about it.”
Nessie held up a hand. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Mate?”
Yeah, he’d just opened that giant can of worms, hadn’t he?
***
Nessie kept her gaze locked on Charlie as he cleared his throat, shuffling his feet as he stared at the ground. “Well,” he started. “According to legend, each vampire has a single mate destined to share eternity with. It is through blood that mates are recognized, claimed, and bound together.”
Nessie quirked her brow at him. “And you think I’m yours?”
He glared down at her in response. “I don’t ‘think,’ I know. I knew it the moment I first tasted you back at the mansion. Once a mate is recognized, it is nearly impossible to ignore the connection.”
She stood there, dumbfounded at the sheer insanity of it all. Because it sounded batshit crazy. But some small part of her realized that ever since Charlie had returned, she’s felt this undeniable attraction. His voice. His face. Even his fangs made her knees want to wobble. And it wasn’t because she found fangs sexy on just anyone. Only him. But was that just remnants of her childhood crush resurfacing? Or was there something more to this?
He rolled his eyes once he saw her expression, huffing in exasperation. “Look, I don’t expect you to believe it. I’m confident that in time you’ll recognize me for what I am.”
“And that is?”
The look in his eyes became so intense, she could feel herself falling into his gaze. “Your soulmate.”
He placed his hand over hers on his face, closing his eyes and pulling her hand down to place a tender kiss on the inside of
her wrist. Heat bloomed at that one small gesture of affection. She felt her body react in an instant as his eyes opened, still vibrant blue as he pressed his lips against her skin a second time. Her stomach fluttered he watched her face.
He smirked at her. “Your eyes are turning black,” he whispered. As he said the words, she watched as his eyes darkened, the black slowly swallowing his pupil.
“So are yours,” she whispered back.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
He lowered his face. He was going to kiss her. She saw it in his eyes. “So they are.” She could feel her heart racing as she waited. She should back away. Kissing him was dangerous. She pulled her hand out of his, stepping back even though she wanted to fall right into him.
You can’t run from this. Deep down, you know how you really feel. Even if you won’t say it out loud.
She bit her lip as she heard his voice. That sweet, sexy voice speaking to her in the most intimate way. This couldn’t happen. She couldn’t love the person who broke her heart and then made it stop beating.
His jaw clenched. I’m also the person…who made it start beating again. His black eyes bore into her as he laid his palm on her chest. Listen. Close your eyes, and listen.
She swallowed the giant lump that lodged in her throat. But as she let the sounds of the forest fade into the background, she heard it. Two hearts, thrumming to the same exact beat.
Gasping, her eyes popped open, finding his still focused on her face. “How?” Vampires were…dead. How in the hell were their hearts beating?
His lips curved, drawing her attention to them and making that heartbeat of hers pick up its pace. He ran his fingers through her hair, stepping closer. The heat from his body and the smell of him making her brain fuzzy. Our hearts lie dormant and unmoving until our mate comes along, and we are awakened. If you hadn’t found your mate, you would feel cold and numb all the time. His fingers slid down her neck, a gentle touch that set fire to her body. Tell me, Nessie. Do you feel cold right now?
First Kiss of Freedom: A Vampire Shifter Hybrid Romance (The Whitemoon Warriors Series Book 1) Page 14
