Rebecca Royce - Her Wolf

“Our father killed our mother before the spell was even finished. He is also not dead.

It seems he has found a way to circumvent the kill-yourself-when-your-mate-dies impulse.” Rex snorted. “The other men, when they realized what happened, what they had done to the most precious thing in the world to them, their mates, they killed themselves immediately. It was gruesome and awful.” Rex paused in his speech, his eyes deep and fathomless. Ashlee wondered if he was reliving that time. She was grateful to not have those memories herself.

“My father thought he could control us with the threat of killing our future mates, but they were already gone, sent away by our mother. He killed her before he knew this, so she couldn’t tell him where they were. Trip and Theo, our fifth brother, the one right above me in age, led the attack on our father but he got away.

“Our mother had made the spell so that only when the danger had passed could we locate our missing women. That’s why the spell has never lifted and we have not been able to find anyone. Thirty men live on that island waiting the return of our missing girls—or at least the ability to find them, to know if they still live. Our eldest brother Michael has been acting as interim Alpha ever since. But he has no taste for the job. And obviously the danger is not over, as Father’s men attempted to get Tristan six months ago. We feared him dead. But evidently he’d just been trapped as a wolf and living in a zoo.”

After they stunned me with their magic while I waited for you, I managed to limp off into the woods. When I woke up I was in the back of an animal control truck on my way to New Jersey with no way to shift back. Whatever they did to me with their magic, they trapped me in this form and it’s been agony. Why have none of you ever tried to come home, Victoria?

“Mary Jo told us to go live our lives as humans. She said our magic would keep us safe as long as we were not together. So we split up, the little girls sent to orphanages and homes. I don’t know where they are. I thought to wait until the danger was over and I could come home.” Victoria turned to Ashlee. She had a small smile on her face.

“I was so lost at first. Live as a human? What did that mean? We’d been raised to fear exposure, to stay away from spending too much time out amongst non-shifters.

Kendrick could barely stand the shifters whose mates were humans. Mary Jo sent me to New York City. It was horrible at first. Where were the places to run as a wolf? There was so much noise, so many people. I worked odd jobs. I waitressed, but I broke everything I touched and I couldn’t keep orders straight. Finally, a woman I met on the subway who took pity on me got me a job at Columbia Presbyterian in the cafeteria. I sliced off the top half of my finger and that’s how I met Scott. And the wolf wants what it wants. My mate was human. Kendrick would hate me and I could care less.” Ashlee’s mom looked up and smiled at her. “I had you and your sister and I did not need to go back. I made myself forget.”

Ashlee had heard that story before. But they’d said her mother had been a student earning extra cash at the hospital. This version was very different.

Rex’s head jerked up. “Sister?”

Her mother’s eyes flared and Ashlee knew that whatever she was about to say would be her mother’s final word on the subject. Twenty-two years had taught Ashlee to be careful of her mother’s stubborn streak. “She is in college, and I will not give her to the pack until she is at least Ashlee’s age, and then only if she has a mate, as Ashlee does. I won’t have her passed around the group of you just because you’re lonesome for female companionship.“

Ashlee took a deep breath and cut off Rex’s response. She stared straight at Tristan, the word she uttered being of the utmost importance. “I can’t be your mate, Tristan. I can’t have any children. You’ll want to find someone else.”

Her father looked sad. “The doctors have told us that Ashlee’s reproductive organs, her ovaries and her uterus, simply do not work. Pregnancy is impossible without ovulation and the doctors aren’t sure her uterus could support a pregnancy even with someone else’s egg. It’s malformed.” Ashlee groaned. She hated when her father talked about what was such a personal, terrible fact of her life as if it was simply another medical discussion.

Tears stung the back of Ashlee’s eyes, but she did not shed them. She’d gone down this road before. Tom had been so sure his family would never accept him marrying a barren woman that he’d gone and cheated on her with some girl who worked at the Dairy Queen, and the ultimate irony of the whole thing was that he had knocked her up. Ashlee didn’t even know Tristan. Losing him couldn’t possibly be as great a loss as losing Tom over her infertility.

I don’t care.

“You don’t care?” Ashlee and her mother spat out at the same time.

No.

Her mother narrowed her eyes at Tristan. “You male shifters are all about the mating and the babies. How can you not care?”

Tristan made a snorting noise and opened his eyes. I could make generalities about female shifters; would you like that, Victoria?

Her mother shook her head and said nothing else.

Rex advanced on her mother, his hand on his hip. “You should have brought your daughters to us the second they were born. They should have been raised on our island.

With the pack.”

Her father, always the peacemaker, spoke softly. “We considered it. But Vicki was worried that since you didn’t seek her out, the danger might not be gone. which evidently it isn’t,. Also, Ashlee attached so early on to Tom that we thought he must be her mate.”

Who is Tom?

Ashlee pushed Tristan gently off her lap and stood. She walked to the other side of the room. “It doesn’t matter. He’s gone now. He married someone else. I don’t know about this mate thing.” She still needed to clarify some things in her own mind. She turned to her mother. “There was nothing about me as a child that led you to believe I could be like you?”

Her mother shook her head. “Other than the dreams that your father just reminded me of, no, there was not. Don’t forget ,Ashlee, I had no one to guide me in raising a half-shifter. I had no idea what to look for or how to tell. You were an imaginative, smart, wonderful little girl. But when you didn’t start to rage around puberty, when you didn’t start to demand release from our parental bounds, I didn’t think you had the wolf in you.”

Ashlee sucked in her breath. A sudden thought occurred to her. “But Summer raged.

She still does. She defies you at every turn.” Her mother nodded slowly. “Oh, I see, you thought I was normal but you didn’t believe Summer was.”

“And that’s why we’ve had to be so hard on her, so controlling of where she goes and who she knows. I know she’s got the wolf. But I won’t let it come out, not until she’s mature enough to protect herself.”

It all started to make sense to Ashlee. She needed to say something and she wasn’t sure she could. She swallowed and clenched her fists at her side. “You’ve never understood my nature.” Ashlee’s voice wavered and she forced herself to pull it together.

She pointed at her father. “But you should have.”

Her father looked down and her mother put her hands on her hips. “What do you mean Ash?”

Ashlee placed her hands over her heart. “I rage here.” Her voice came out a whisper but she knew enough now to know that with their wolf hearing they all heard what she said. She wasn’t finished. Tristan needed an answer from her. “I’ve just met you and I don’t even know what you look like as a human.” Except in my dreams , she added silently.