Page 61 of Thor's Unexpected Mate

That’s when I saw the scars on Tyr’s arm and on his torso through the open flap of his shirt. His clothes were grungy and torn, his skin was dirty and unwashed, but the scars were still bright and shiny, as if they were new. And they looked like bullet wounds.

Silver bullets… Not only did silver burn werewolves, but it stopped their healing powers from activating. That meant, if I could just do enough damage to him, he’d die. Tyr could be killed.

It was a short-lived revelation as Tyr suddenly leaped forward and grabbed me by the arm, twisting it painfully behind my back. With his foot he kicked the back of my knees, forcing me to the ground. With one hand on my arm and the other in my hair, he dragged me across the room toward Nana.

“Your family has been a pain in my side since the day I was born,” he growled. “The day your grandfather killed my mother I swore that I’d put an end to your line.”

“You’re lying!” I managed to squeak out as I was tossed to the floor next to Nana.

“Am I?” he laughed cruelly. “Maybe your Nana here should tell you the truth.”

He reached across, ripping the gag from Nana’s mouth. She coughed and sputtered, drawing what was probably her first deep breath in hours. As soon as she was free of the gag, he yanked me over in front of her, his fist full of my hair as he pulled my head back.

“Tell him!” he barked, glaring at her. “Tell him how you and your husband hunted down my mother and her pups, trying to kill each and every one of us! Tell him how you slaughtered my entire family one by one until I was the only one left! Tell him how you ruined my life!”

Nana looked at me, her eyes filling with tears.

“TELL HIM!”

Tyr yanked me backward, making a motion like he was about to slash my throat open.

“It’s true!” Nana screamed, tears streaming down her wrinkled face. “What he says is true!”

The hand on top of my head relaxed and I could hear Tyr smile. I stared at Nana, unable to believe what I was hearing.

“H-How… How is that possible?” I asked. “Maybe grandpa but… but not you.” I stared at her, my eyes pleading. “You’re not a killer, Nana. I know you.”

She shook her head. “Not as well as you might think.”

“Y-You said the day Tyr attacked my mother was the first time you’d seen him!”

Another shake. “No. I’d seen him many times before that as a pup.” She turned her gaze to the floor, her gray hair hanging around her face in strands. “When your grandfather and I hunted his kind.”

“For sport,” Tyr hissed.

“No!” she barked back, her green eyes blazing as her gaze rose to meet his. “Your mother and father were killers! And they were teaching you and your siblings to do the same!”

“Werewolves have to kill to stay alive,” he retorted. “In nature it’s killed or be killed. Your kind has been hunting us for generations. We killed to keep ourselves safe.”

“Your father killed humans to eat them,” Nana growled. “He and your mother both loved the taste of human flesh, and they took far too many lives by the time we finally caught up with them.” She looked up at me, a pleading look in her eyes. “The werewolf hunters might’ve been tasked to exterminate the Lycan race centuries ago, but in the modern age we only go after those that attack humans willfully. That’s why we came here. Our target was that family only. After that we were going to retire.”

“You lie,” Tyr scoffed. “Hunters hunt. They don’t differentiate between who is guilty and who is not.”

“Then why didn’t we kill the rest of your pack?” Nana asked. “We had plenty of chances.”

“Because you’re weak. We were too powerful for you to take on at once. That’s why you picked off my family one by one, reveling in their deaths.”

“We did our task and nothing more. I took no joy in killing those wolves.” She glared him down, daring him to retort. “And when we were done, we packed everything away and retired, vowing never to kill another again. At least, until you came along and tried to eat my daughter.”

Tyr laughed at that, but I still stared at Nana.

“You… You and grandpa… killed people?”

I thought of Thor and his brothers. I thought of all those wolves in the pack meeting, each of them looking so normal. Sure, they were mad at Tyr for attacking them and they wanted blood, but they didn’t do that out of spite or vengeance. No. I saw how they clung to their children, their spouses, their families with fear in their eyes. They wanted to protect their own. It was the most natural thing in the entire world. I felt that way toward Thor and he felt it for me.

But Nana… she hunted people down and killed them. Just because they were werewolves didn’t mean they weren’t people.

“We only killed those guilty of heinous murder,” she replied. Her head sagged again. “But yes… I killed people.”

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