Page 26 of Wolf Bound

“This is incredible. It’s the most delicious food I’ve ever tasted,” I compliment her, adding in a small laugh. “It’s kind of making me want to cry while simultaneously shoving as much into my mouth at once as possible.”

“Good! I’m so glad.” Helen sits back, looking out the window at the now dark forest. “I’m sure the rest of your mates will be banging down the door soon to steal you away. You keep eating as much as you want and I’ll try and give you some pack drama before they get here.”

Smiling at her, I nod my head and dive back into my food, this time keeping an ear on Helen’s tale of a broken family, hell bent on tearing the pack apart.

“Vernon was a fair alpha, though he skipped out on the gifts of his sons. Drayton was destined to be alpha after Vernon, since the alpha power was passed on to him instead of Forrester. This angered Neima even more when it was revealed. She could see her family’s claim at power slipping away and she couldn’t handle it,” Helen explains to us. “Vernon started acting differently not long after that. His temper got shorter, his normally calm demeanour turning into one of violence and aggression. Most of that came out against poor Drayton.”

“Drayton hid the bruises and scars well, turning to tattoos when he was old enough to convince Harrold to do them. Thatboy was hurt so much by Vernon and Neima, it’s a wonder he stuck around and turned out the way he did. It was for Forrester, though. Drayton would do anything for his brother, including bear the burden of abuse.”

Penn sits back, shaking his head as he looks at the table. “It’s always bothered me how much Forrester refuses to see. He doesn’t want to see the type of people his parents were so he attacks the one family member that has always done right by him. Drayton killed Vernon to save his own life and to save Forrester from the threat that was mounting against him by Vernon. All Forrester cares to hear is that Drayton murdered him.”

“If everyone else knows, how can he not know?” I ask, putting down my spoon for a bit. The question has been bothering me.

“Neima was a master manipulator and she got her claws in Forrester as well,” Helen answers me. “He may have gotten the fake, sickly sweet side of her, but it was simply a means to an end. Everyone was a means to an end to her. Neima made sure that Forrester was brainwashed into thinking her and Vernon could do no wrong. Even with her gone, her voice echoes inside his head. Drayton was always the villain in her lies, while she and his father were the heroes. Once he saw Drayton had killed their father, it made those lies cement as truth in his mind.”

“Their relationship was doomed to fail from the beginning of time. Death by a thousand papercuts,” Helen murmurs with sadness. “It was never the one act of self-defence that Forrester walked in on that killed that kinship, it was the thousand lies that came before that moment.”

“That’s why he’s so angry,” I say mostly to myself, my heart breaking for both of my mates. “I knew Drayton wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer and I was right that Forrester had that potential only because he harbours so much anger andbitterness. Only, it’s not his anger and bitterness he holds onto, it’s the anger of his mother.”

Penn turns my head to look at him, his grey eyes staring deep into my soul. “This is why we’re all afraid that Forrester will reject the bond. His anger and hatred towards Drayton has been spurned on and forced into him from a history long in the making. Growing up he was my best friend, but there was nothing I could do to stop the parasitic lies from festering in his mind. Looking at him now, I don’t even know who he is anymore. His rejection isn’t of you, because the Forrester deep inside that still holds the title of my best friend would love you so much. This twisted, manipulated version of him can’t even love himself.”

My heart hurts so much for this pack and everything it has going on. They’ve been hurt and weakened by the selfish desires of a few people. Forrester was right when he said the pack was going through a lot. He was wrong though, when he thought it should push me away. This pack needs a healing touch and a change from the ways before.

Good thing healing is my specialty.

Chapter Fifteen

Drayton

If you told me three weeks ago that I would be sitting on my back porch, watching my mate play with the pack pups and dance around, I would have called you crazy. Yet, here I am, watching my stunning mate jump around, her long, teal hair bouncing and swinging around her with every move. She turns to me with the brightest smile on her face, her jade eyes sparkling in the sunlight that seems to gravitate towards her.

It’s strange, the shift that’s happened since I walked her through the front door just weeks before. Everything is lighter and sweeter. This house has represented nothing but pain for me for so long. Everyday, Talia changes that a little more. She'shelping all of us come out of the shadows left behind by my father and stepmother.

“I could watch her all day,” Penn murmurs beside me, his fingers spinning the cold beer can around in his hand. “She looks like a fucking angel.”

“I know what you mean,” I respond, tipping my own beer back for a long drink. “Everyone seems happier since she came here. Obviously there’s a shift with the four of us around her, but it seems to reach so much further than her mates. I’m starting to understand the reverence in the history books about the mythical shifters. I’ve never seen anything like her before.”

Wes sits up on the other side of me, his eyes looking at me with excitement. “You’re actually not far off the mark! Mythical shifters are genetically on the same level as all shifters, but magically, they’re something else entirely.”

“What do you mean?” Penn asks, sitting forward as well. “Talia’s magic is different from ours?”

“It is! It’s kind of like how our special powers have a different wavelength than the magic of other shifters,” he explains, pushing his long hair back from his face. “Except that hers seems to be on a much larger scale than that. Her healing powers are strong enough to heal an entire army if she needed to. When she chooses to shift, I believe her powers will be even more amplified in that form. I don’t think even she’s scratched the surface of what it means to be a mythical shifter. It’s not hard to see that her lineage has a direct connection to Adessa herself.”

“Are you guys talking about me?” Talia stands on the stairs, her breathing quick as she playfully glares between the three of us.

“We are! I was just saying that I think your magic has a direct link to the goddess that created shifters, Adessa. It has the same signature as the Valley of the Goddess,” Wes explains excitedly, standing up to lean on the railing by her.

Talia stares at Wes like he just revealed she was a lizard person with a head full of snakes. Wes looks back at Penn and I, his eyes wide in fear and discomfort. Wes is either fantastic with emotions or he clams up and freaks out. Today is the latter.

Talia is moving through waves of confusion, shock, and then understanding. She walks up the stairs fully, sitting on Penn’s lap like she’s done it a million times before. A sliver of jealousy runs through me over her choice, but I squash it quickly. Talia has four other mates, if you include Forrester whom I haven’t given up on yet, which means I can’t be selfish.

“Adessa is the name of the goddess that created shifters?” Talia asks after a bit, twisting her hair in her fingertips. “Do you guys all go to the golden meadow as well? Is that the Valley of the Goddess?”

Taking over the lead so Wes can reshape his thoughts, I answer her questions with as much information as I can. “That’s what shifter history says. Adessa came down during the turning of the age, around when the human’s bible says that a deity named Jesus walked the Earth. The gods that came before her all left their mark on the world, some good and some bad. She wanted to do the same, but she wasn’t sure how. It was then that she noticed the relationship between human and animal. It fascinated her, and she stayed on Earth longer than she was meant to, studying the bonds there.”

Wes smiles at her, leaning with his back on the railing now, his earlier discomfort vanishing. He picks up where I left off, loving talking about the history of shifters. “The other gods grew angry, fighting back against her breaking the rules. You see, when a god or goddess visits our world, no other one can come through. By staying here past her time, she shifted the power balance in her favour and blocked the others from coming.”

“What did they do to her?” Talia sits forward, eyes flickering between Wes and I while Penn dozes in the chair.

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