Page 29 of Fated
"It's okay, Mom," she soothed as she brushed some hair from her mom’s forehead. Something in her tone pulled at my heart.
From the time I'd discovered who she was, I'd built her up to be a heartless bitch in my mind and what I was seeing didn't fit with that. After a minute of more painful coughing, it died down and her mom's chest rattled as she breathed.
I watched Keri look down at her mom with concern, which gave me a glimpse at another side of Keri that I hadn't seen before. There was no mistaking that look; she loved her mom and, from what I could tell, her mom loved her too. It was hard to believe that they were Victor's family.
In my mind it was hard to imagine Victor and Keri's mom together. Actually it was hard to imagine anyone with that monster. At times it was still hard to even comprehend that Keri was his daughter.
Unable to keep my emotions from filtering through onto my face, I decided it was a good time to leave. I remembered Keri's words. She didn't want me to upset her mom so I backed away quietly, leaving the two of them alone in their own little bubble.
Once I got out of the room, I rubbed my hands over my face as I tried to get my thoughts together. The image that I'd built up of Keri had cracked, and the more I'd watched her interact, the bigger the cracks had gotten. The image had crumbled and I was left reeling.
I'd liked Keri before I found out who she really was, and then I'd hated her, and now I just felt numb.
Fuck!
I began to pace, trying to work off the nervous energy building up inside of me.
"So she finally told you," I heard Kyle say and I swung my gaze to find him standing with his arms crossed over his chest a few feet away from me. I felt my blood boil.
"You knew about her mother and you didn't say anything?" I asked him incredulously.
"Yes." He gave a brief nod.
“Why didn't you say anything?" I asked.
He let out a sigh and dropped his arms to his sides.
"She asked me not to," he explained.
To me there was really only one reason he'd do that and it made me angry. I just saw red. Before reason or he could stop me, I stepped forward and swung my fist. There was a hiss of pain as my first connected with the side of his face, the momentum of the hit making him stumble backward.
My breath was hard. Anger consumed every cell of my body as I took another menacing step forward.
“What the fuck was that for?” he yelled at me as his hand went to the side of his face.
“I know what you’re doing and I won’t allow it,” I yelled back as my fists tightened at my sides. The urge to hit him again was almost impossible to fight.
“You’re an idiot,” he stated as his hand dropped from his face.
He wouldn’t be an easy opponent to defeat because, like me, he was an alpha, but just the thought of hitting him made me feel slightly better.
“You don’t know everything because if you did, you would understand why I didn’t say anything,” he explained calmly.
I had no idea what he was talking about and I felt my temper rise even further.
“If the two of you can’t play nice, get out of my medical center,” Curtis barked. My glare shifted from Kyle to Curtis and for a few moments I wanted to smack him too.
“I’ll leave,” Kyle offered.
“Come find me when you know everything and then you owe me an apology,” he instructed with a fierce look before he turned on his heel and walked out.
I was shocked and stood there still wanting to hit someone to ease the anger building up inside of me. What was he talking about?
“He’s right,” Curtis added as he studied me for a moment. “You’re going to feel like an ass when you find out everything.”
I glared at him. Why did everyone but me know what was going on? He turned and left me standing there confused and angry.
I took a few deep breaths before I managed to calm myself down. How was meeting her mother going to change everything I’d learned up to that point? But no matter how much I wanted to push away Kyle and Curtis’ warnings, my gut was telling me that they were right.
