Page 40 of An Unexpected Claim

“When the alpha wasn’t ignoring me, he treated me like damaged goods, calling me terrible names, and being…physically rough with me. The rest of the pack—well, most of them, especially the kids—did the same. There wasn’t much my uncle could do except smother me with kindness within the walls of his home. I think he hoped that by loving me the way a family member should, it would wipe away the pain and humiliation that I suffered outside of the house.”

“I wouldn’t call that love,” Samantha whispered. “He was a coward. If he’d loved you, he would have protected you no matter what.”

I shrugged. “My uncle was a submissive wolf. It wasn’t in his nature to be confrontational. And there was no way he ever could have fought the alpha’s influence. Besides, eventually, he did what he thought was best for me. And it wasn’t easy for him because he knew his brother would be pissed as fuck.”

“Did he take you away?” she asked.

“No, he sent me away to boarding school. But under a different name and he paid for it anonymously. I still have no idea where he got the money.”

“He just…sent you away? Alone?” Samantha nearly shrieked. I glanced over at her and she had her arms crossed over her chest and a furious expression on her face. Her reaction made me feel a little better, confident that she didn’t see me the same way as my grandfather and the rest of the pack.

“He didn’t have the strength to leave. It would have taken more courage and determination than he possessed. Don’t get me wrong,” I hurried to assure her with a wave of my hand. “My uncle was a good man, he was just…a submissive wolf. Weak. And the choice to send me away where my grandfather couldn’t find me took everything he had.”

“How old were you?”

I tucked my hair behind my ears as I thought back. “Thirteen, I think?” Samantha gasped, but I felt no indignation on my own behalf. The past was the past, and even if it hurt sometimes, I couldn’t change it, so what was the point of letting it fester? “I know it sounds harsh, but I’d become difficult to deal with anyway. When I wasn’t acting out, or raging at the injustice of my life, I withdrew and lived deep in my mind where the outside world couldn’t touch me.

“It became clear when I was much younger that my instincts were more panther than wolf. I felt as if I were shackled inside a cage by being forced to stay inside so much. I had to contain my urges to wander, to explore, to breathe in the exotic air of new and exciting places. One of the only things that kept me sane was daydreaming about what I would do when I finally escaped that life.”

My cat curled into a ball, knowing what came next in the story. “My uncle might have waited until I was a little older to send me away, but there was an incident with a wolf in the pack. He was an enforcer, and at least twenty years older than me. Most of the pack were attending a party in the maid lodge at the back of my grandfather’s property, so my uncle gave me permission to play in the woods behind the house.

“The enforcer—Buck—was way over the alcohol limit and must have lost his way because he happened upon me. He grabbed me and told me I’d been a cocktease for too long, and he was going to take what I’d been pretending not to offer.” I felt a little nauseous at the memory, but I’d long since stopped remembering that experience with fear. I was a survivor, not a victim. “I was small for my age”—I gestured to my body—“something that I thankfully outgrew. So he was able to pin me down easily. One thing I can always thank my uncle for is the self-defense lessons he insisted on—though I wasn’t allowed to use them, which I hadn’t understood at the time—because size can be deceiving. Yeah, Buck had taken me down, but I didn’t have very far to go to put my knee in his balls.”

Samantha snorted, then slapped a hand over her mouth, appearing mortified.

“Relax, Foxy,” I said with a crooked smile. My response put her at ease, and she dropped her hand into her lap, folding it with the other.

“Anyway, my panther shoved her way to the surface, determined to protect me, but he had a knife I hadn’t seen before. Just as the shift was completed, he grabbed her around the neck and tossed her into the nearest tree. It broke several of our bones. When she staggered to her feet, he launched the knife and it embedded deeply into the shoulder. He passed out after that and she limped back to my uncle’s home.”

I shuddered a little as I told her the next part. “The angle wouldn’t allow her to get a good grip and pull out the blade. So—”

“Holy shit,” Samantha breathed. “You shifted with a fucking knife in your shoulder?”

“Yeah,” I admitted with a wince. “I had no clue what would happen, but my uncle wasn’t around, and we certainly couldn’t ask help from someone else.” I ran my hands through my hair before tucking it behind my ears. “The muscles and bones couldn’t shift quite right with an object obstructing their path. So, as they tried to move into position, the knife ripped through them all over again and a few of the bones that broke during the process didn’t realign correctly. I was able to remove the knife, but then I passed out from the pain.”

“I hope you castrated him,” she huffed.

My smile became a little evil as I nodded. “Almost. He had to have surgery to fix whatever I did. My uncle never told me the specifics. He was too busy trying to clean up the fallout anyway.”

“Fallout?”

I waved my hand in a careless gesture. “Yeah, Buck cried foul. Said I’d begged him to help me, lured him into the woods, and taken a bat to his balls.”

“That bastard!” Samantha snarled. “You told them the truth though, right?”

“It wouldn’t have mattered if I did. As soon as my uncle returned to the house and saw me unconscious on the ground, he took me to a doctor—a falcon from a local flock—who stitched up a few of the sliced muscles. Then he re-broke the bones and aligned them correctly before telling me to shift so I could heal faster. Before I did, I told my uncle the story of what happened. He left me with the doctor to go home and scope out the situation. I think we both knew what would happen, but he hoped he was wrong. When he returned, he told me about Buck’s version of events and that he’d gone to talk to my grandfather about it. But the alpha was already up in arms and demanding I be punished. That night, my uncle drove me to the airport and put me on a plane to France.”

“I can imagine the whole situation had you in a freefall,” Samantha commented, her eyes cast down and the corners of her lips pinched. “A new place, not knowing anyone, feeling like a fish out of water.”

I nodded. “For a while. But one of the best things my uncle ever did for me was choose this school. It was small and, believe it or not, the kids at my boarding school weren’t so bad. I’d expected a bunch of rich kids to be uppity bitches and egotistical pretty boys. But most of them were just…normal. Like me, they’d been sent there because they weren’t wanted at home. They made the best of the situation and making enemies among such a small group would have just made everyone miserable. I’d learned to close myself off, but that made it easy to build friendships of a sort. They weren’t deep or lasting, which meant no one hurt me and I didn’t miss them when they were gone. My time there was happy.”

Samantha listened carefully, and I sensed the desperate hope in her, but she was terrified. Probably because everything in her life had gone to shit, so why would this be any different?

I reached over and covered her hands with mine. “Give it time, Samantha. And if after a while, you still don’t feel at home here, try something new. Hey”—she looked up at me and I smiled—“you can always fly along with me on my next adventure until you find the right place to land.”

Her forehead puckered and she looked away, shifting as thought she was suddenly uncomfortable.

“Foxy, that wasn’t a demand, girl. Just an offer.” I laughed and gave her hand a squeeze before pulling back. “I won’t be offended if you don’t want to go gallivanting all over the world with me.”

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