Page 49 of Wolf Domination

I met her gaze with my own darkened eyes, knowing I’d do anything—literally anything—to protect the members of my pack.

Especially Willow.

Mother didn’t wait for an answer as satisfaction swarmed the lines of her face.

"Did you know when I was pregnant with you, I was kidnapped and held captive for weeks?”

The sudden reveal left me confused as I watched her begin to pace slowly from her spot to one end of the kitchen island.

“Intriguing time, really. Hybrids were frowned upon to begin with, so being pregnant didn’t ignite much urgency. Back then, my pack was indeed powerful but not high enough in the hierarchy to make a stance for help. As for the Coven, well, I guess they assumed I was but a fling to your father. We were married but even a ring couldn’t give shifters enough reassurance that we were lovers. Shifters are all about demonstrations. Actions. Talk and symbolism don’t do shit.”

She spun around and began to walk back down toward me.

“I think it took three weeks? Maybe four? To be honest, I thought I’d have to get my pregnant ass out myself, for I wasn’t going to possibly give birth to my firstborn in the pits of an unsanitized cell.”

She looked appalled at the memory as she flicked her hands through her white locks.

“Essentially, I’d had enough of waiting and was going to escape, but then came your father, who managed to not only secure an alliance with the Coven but somehow pulled my entire pack up the ranks of power until we sat at the top.”

“H-How did he do that?” I gasped. “He wasn’t a wolf.”

“Just like I’m not a pureblood,” she said with a wink as she passed by me.

Now she had my entire focus as she continued sharing the memory.

“A quality that many have forgotten in this day and age is the fluidity of shifter traits between bonded mates,” she revealed. “It’s a shame that such a blessed gift has been forgotten by the majority of shifters, but it may have been done on purpose or else many would encourage hybrids instead of outcasting them like pieces of garbage.”

She spun and walked down until she was parallel to Willow.

“Your father used our mate bond to embed threads of my wolf abilities. By doing so, he managed to pray to the Moon Goddess herself and request her aid in retrieving me from the enemy. The time I was captive was only because I was in the second trimester, which is the most fragile for us shifters. It was apparently safer for me to remain in imprisonment seeing as they had no choice but to keep me alive and feed my questionable eating habits. Taking advantage of this, he took it upon himself to stride through wolf territories and challenge the Alpha. Instead of killing and taking their packs, he requested an alliance. In a few weeks, he did something no true wolf Alpha had accomplished. All to save his pregnant Alpha wife from the clutches of another.”

Her smile was priceless as she continued to stare at Willow.

"His determination to save me was witnessed by many in the supernatural community. It made a statement, one that emphasized that I was someone you should never mess with it. Those actions all those years ago are still the reason why now, even after your father’s death, I still carry power in his Coven,” she revealed. “Despite his greedy end, your father was once a man who never let anyone dare think about messing with what he’d marked. His drastic change was a plot for his own demise, and sadly, they were successful, but their plot to do the same to you clearly fell through the grapevine.”

“They…wanted me to fall down the same path as Father?” I hesitantly questioned.

“Of course,” she whispered and peered into my eyes. “You were heading down that path, don’t you think?”

I looked away, which was my answer.

"Why aren’t you mad?” I asked instead.

“About what?”

I didn’t have the guts to say his name before her—secretly frightened to see her disappointment—but I knew she already knew who I was referring to.

"What happened to your brother couldn’t have been stopped by your actions, Dimitris.”

"If I hadn’t fallen into that cycle—”

“What ifs never give you the closure your heart deserves,” she cut me off. "I’m aware of what happened to Mikael, Dimitris. I’m aware of what tugged him into its web and made him do what I’m sure was in his mind, but he never had the guts to do on his own.”

She returned to stand right before me, and her hands lightly pressed on my cheeks so I wouldn’t be able to look away this time.

“I will never judge you for his suicide. Nor are your actions and commitment for vengeance considered worthy of being judged,” she emphasized as her expression softened further. “When your father was murdered and I disappeared, you could have envied me. Despised me down to your very core so when I arrived in this instant, you could use it to spew all your internal rage in my direction.”

I hadn’t even thought of it like that, and she knew it.

---