Page 65 of Daddy's Mail Order Mate

“I—... Would like the truth, Thorn.”

“It will not be pretty. Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He adjusts his posture, and my stomach flips with anxious suspense. This is a man who carries himself dauntlessly, unphased by anything. I know for a fact now that he’s more than capable of killing, and yet this conversation has him terrified. But we can’t keep going on like this. So I do my best to prepare myself for whatever is to come, and hope that somehow we stand together on the other side.

Chapter 21 - Thorn

I stare down at my hands clenched in front of me. I have to tell her the truth, and there’s no more room to keep things unsaid. My fists clench tighter by reflex to hide the anxious shaking. The words don’t come readily—these are memories I’ve kept buried for years. Trying to open this section of my mind feels like staring into the abyss, ugly and terrible. I feel my body clench and brace as though an opponent is at the back of my neck and ready to strike. But I know there is no one there. The only threat here is myself.

And I refuse to give up, not even against myself. Even if it takes me back to the darkest time of my life.

***

It’s a quiet night in the Vata household. I’m grateful for that much at least after the day I’ve had. Gwen’s pack isn’t going to be staying much longer, and rather than getting to spend the day with her, I’d been summoned by the Alpha for yet another training excursion. There’s a square of gauze and bandage itching beneath my shirt from where one of the enemy wolves gored into my side, but I know better than to scratch. So all I can do is just brace through the pain and hope it’s healed up enough that I won’t have to be careful to hide any sign that I’m hurt when I get to spend time with Gwen tomorrow.

And as though he somehow senses the nature of my thoughts, my father speaks up across the living room.

“Son, I think it’s time you stop spending time with that Mitchell girl.”

I freeze at my spot by the window. Even though I keep looking down at my textbook as though I’m in the middle of wrapping up my mental train of thought with my studies, I’m certainly not thinking about high school level math. I try to calculate how I can safely approach this conversation, but my worry gnaws too fiercely for me to keep myself entirely stoic about it.

“I’m not sure why you’re suggesting that, Father.”

He scoffs with a nasty tone, and I fight down the bristling defensive anger as best I can by shutting the book, standing, and gripping my hands into fists at my side. It’s not tearing across the room and mauling him for trying to intimidate him like my wolf wants—but it’s the best compromise I can offer. Years of normalized bloodshed and brutality has made that part of my nature frightening to everyone, myself included.

“You know exactly why I’d be suggesting that. If you’re going to be part of the elite of Portsmill, you need to make sure you’re associating with the best of our kind. And that girl is anembarrassment.She’s well past the age most children can reliably shift. Leave her to rot at the bottom of the ladder with the others like her and focus on spending time with your proper peers.”

I’d rather be back in the outside world on the Alpha’s bidding spilling blood and be at the risk of dying again than have this conversation. They have no idea how serious things are between her and I. We’ve been quite discreet, as we decided that it isn’t anyone’s business but our own, and the more transient nature of her pack’s visits make it easier to keep it private. At least for now while we’re still stuck under our respective parents’ thumbs.

“I can’t do that, Father.”

He crosses his arms and stares sharply at me.

“And why not?”

I’ve done all I can to protect Gwen from the worst of my pack. She has no idea what the Alpha and his warriors have been doing to me all these years. I’ve had to hide bruises and scars under clothes. I’ve gotten back to the pack with someone else’s blood under my fingernails and their screams still in my ears and only had a shower to get myself ready to go and spend time with her like we’re just a pair of ordinary teenagers. I’m not even sure if my parents know that I’ve had to kill more people in the last few years than some of the fully grown warriors; the Alpha has very proudly made that remark to me several times. They’ve never openly acknowledged it. Perhaps they know and just want to keep some sense of deniability about it. But maybe the Alpha hasn’t confided in them the way he’s brutalized and weaponized me all these years. Even if he hasn’t disclosed it, they have to know something. I can see the fear in them too often for them to be entirely ignorant as to what their son is becoming.

“My son isnotgoing to sully our family’s standing with some weakling. We already suffer enough thanks to your useless sister. It’s only by your hard work to stand out that the Alpha hasn’t completely given up on our family’s future. The humiliation we’d face if you take that useless runt as your mate—”

My father falls into a furious conniption fit, groaning and spitting with ceaseless anger. All I can do is keep my eyes locked dutifully on the floor. I know that if I dare to lift my gaze, it’ll just provoke him further.

“Honey, look at what this is doing to your father, to yourfamily,” my mother urges beside me in a sickeningly coaxing tone.

Acid churns in my gut and I have to grit my jaw to keep myself from snarling. I know that she’s not including Paige in that, and it fills me with such disgust and hatred to know that these people are our parents.

“It's a fated bond,” I grind out between my teeth. “I thought the family and the pack paid heed to our nature as wolves first and foremost. Or is the will of Seluna that unimportant?”

I see the punch from my father coming, but I don't block it. It collides with my cheek and even though I briefly sway, it's just counterbalancing out the impact. Aggression sparks in my blood and I see myself in that same instance swinging back. I'd catch my father in the sternum, then as he fell, I'd grab him about the head and crash his face into my knee. I wouldn't even give him the courtesy of turning his head to avoid the risk of driving the bridge of his nose back into his skull.

But I don't do that. I just stand there as a silent wall. I can overpower the both of them, and they know it. They're terrified of me yet they feel like they have complete control over me. And in a way, they do. They hold the leash but I'm just waiting for the chance to gnaw myself free.

“Don't you dare talk back to me like that. Ungrateful little shit.”

“Our duty to the pack is to make Portsmill as strong as it can be. And you'd comden our family to humiliation by bringing such a weakling into our fold. Regardless of how we feel about it, do you think the Alpha would let that happen?”

My blood runs cold at that question from my mother. And it drops a few degrees when she gives my father a meaningful look.

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