Vale:
“It was after she murdered me in my own home….”
Silence took over before the story could even really begin. Her eyes glossed over and I suddenly realized that she had begun to lose herself in whatever trauma she was about tell everyone in the room about.
“Mother,” I softly called to her. I started to take a step toward her, when my father lifted his hand to pause me.
Our eyes met and I knew immediately why he did this.
“Alastair Wade has been on the sidelines long enough.” When I heard Fierya’s voice, my eyes shifted to her.
“Fierya?” I whispered.
I hadn’t heard the sound of my counterpart for what felt like an eternity. I could feel her but she just…she stopped communicating with me completely.
“We…are here…” her voice was like an ethereal echo. It wasn’t the same as before. And….we? Before I could question this, she spoke, knowing already what I had planned to ask. “Later,” she said. “For now, we listen…”
As curious as I was, I did as instructed by my counterpart. Something told me that now was not the time to delve into whatever it was that I was missing. Whatever it was that she needed to tell me.
So, for the time being, I resigned, and I returned my attention to the situation at hand just as my father approached mother. He was slow and cautious but he did approach, and as her eyes began to steadily become more and more distant, he gingerly took her hand.
She looked up at him and then exhaled as if she’d been holding her breath this whole entire time.
“It’s okay,” he said to her in a soft voice. “I’m here, and…I will never leave you again, Merari. I will protect you…with my life.”
She nervously looked around after seeming lost in the words that my father had spoken to her. She took a deep breath, but it was evident that she needed a moment. It was then, that dad did something that, surprised me, and I’m sure everyone in the room.
“Caris, the former Luna of our pack and…my once beloved wife,” he started. He glanced back at my mother, whos still seemed to be almost lost in thought, and then continued. “Many of you knew her as such…a great luna, and powerful wolf of Shadow Veil.”
“Daddy?” Harlyn said, as she worriedly examined our father. She was visibly concerned about what he might say.
“Harlyn,” he said. “Your mother…she tried her best, but….” he shook his head, and then looked at me. He exhaled. “She had her demons.”
“What are you saying?” she asked.
“You don’t wanna bloody know,” I muttered under my breath before I could even think better of it.
“And what the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?” she snapped back at me. Harlyn even dared take a step toward me. Was she trying to test me? “Well?” she pressed. Suddenly, she was closer than before.
Ooo, she was.
“Come now, Harly,” I replied. “You do know that stepping to me will not end well. So, how about you listen to what dear old dad has to say, about mum, hm?”
“You mean my mother?” she spat irately.
I wasn’t completely sure what she wanted me to say, but one thing that I knew for sure was that regardless of what Caris Wade had done, she was still a mother to me. For a while, she was the only mother that I’d ever known.
“If that’s what you want to call her,” I replied without a smile. This was serious and I was done placating. “You know as well as I that she is the only mother that I have known throughout twenty of the twenty-two years that I have been on this earth.”
“And yet you stand here trying to approve of our father sullying her name?” she hissed.
Our. She acknowledged that we shared a father. Even despite our tension, I could not help but feel a small tinge of validation. Nevertheless…
“Would you be so angry if this was the other way around?” I asked her. Silence ensued. “Trust me, Harly, you are not the only one who is traumatized by the sins of her parents. The sooner you understand that, the better off we will be.”
Silence further ensued. Then, without another word, she begrudgingly backed away from me and then shifted her glare to our father.
“Well then,” she started. “Go on.”
“Your mother, Harlyn, you know that she was apart of pack infamous for their feral nature. Your mother had a particularly rough time keeping her more…unruly side in check. While…we were together…”
I could tell that it was difficult for dad to confess this next part because it would mean that Caris was not the perfect luna that everyone of Shadow Veil saw her to be. The faction leaders would know the truth. Harlyn would know the truth. About Caris Wade.
“I’m sure that you all are also aware of the fact that she suffered from a severe sickness that only females suffer from due to the loss of our children.”
Mother scoffed when he said this, and grimaced. It was after dad said this that she pulled away from him.
“That may be true in part,” she said. “But she was also a female who enjoyed the freedom that being feral presented her with.”
“And how would you know?” Harlyn hissed in defense of her mother. “You didn’t even know her!”
“You are right, little one.” she stepped forward. “I did not know your mother, but it seems that you did not know her as well as you thought either.”
Harlyn frowned. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
It was then that my mother decided to finish the story that she had been too…distracted to tell in the first place.
“Your father and I did have an affair, but it was not as scandalous as you assume it to be.”
“I fail to see how any affair could not be considered scandalous,” rebounded Harlyn bitterly.
I scoffed. She really had no idea.
Harly shifted her scowl to me. “What’s so funny?!”
“You know what, I’m tired of this,” I replied. “Beating around the bloody bush like everyone in here aren’t full grown adults.” My glare shifted aroupnd the whole area and then I zeroed in on my little sister. “Your mother-as you like to refer to her, Harlyn, cheated on dad first.”
“What?!” Harlyn exclaimed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“I know very bloody well what I am talking about, little sister.” I quipped without hesitation. “Your mother went feral, and she-”
“That’s enough, Valene,” said dad, interrupting the harsh truth that I was about to bestow on may naive sister.
He then stepped forward and from there, he took over.
“Harlyn, me and your mother were separated when I met Ms. Van Doren. It was while I was searching for your mother after she went feral, that I ran into her…my true mate.”
“And that excuses what you did?” Harlyn pressed. “Is that what you are trying to say to me, dad? Really?”
“Nothing excuses what I’ve done, Harlyn. I’d been chasing your mother around the world…for so long…for…for months I’d been searching for her.” He began to smile. “And then I’d finally find her, and…” his smile would fade. “She’d be…” his jaw clenched. I could tell, it nearly broke him to say what he would next. “In the arms of…of another.” His mouth began to twitch. Thinking about it was obviously still a sensitive subject with him.
“Wh…why didn’t you talk to-did you at least…try?”
“She did not want to talk to me, Harlyn,” he hissed. “She…your mother wanted to end the marriage.”
“What?” Harlyn incredulously said. “No! That can’t be true! It can’t be!”
“She was feral, love,” said dad. “That coupled with an unfulfilled mothering instinct. It will drive one to madness.”
“And knowing this? You still cheated on her?”
“Are you not hearing him?!” I snapped.
I had had enough of her one-sided, biased, selective hearing. She refused to see her mother as anything other than what she wanted to see.
“She wanted no more parts of him!”
“Because she was sick!”
“Because she was weak!” I growled, the words leaving my lips before I could even stop them. “Caris was not the first to endure such hardship! Such an impossible sickness! Do you really think that this is the first time that this has happened to someone! She didn’t love him strong enough to try and fight it!”
“Would you?! Unlike dad, mum did not have the same ability has dad to choose without loss of strength! She was innocent!” she then shifted her glare over to our father. “You used that weakness that she harbored to do whatever you wanted to do!”
“Harlyn…it is not that simple…I could not fight the call of my true mate. No matter how hard I tried.”
Harlyn scoffed and then her scowl met with my mother. “I wish you’d have stayed dead.”
That remark pricked my heart and enraged my soul. “Do you truly mean that?” I asked her. “That you would not have me exist?”
Harlyn then looked at me. “If it meant that my mother would be here…yes, I do.”
I scoffed. “Do you truly think that you would be here if it weren’t for what transpired?” In all of her rage, Harlyn did not think about this. “I am the reason that you exist to this day, Harlyn. Do not forget that. Had it not been for daddy dearest’s slip-up, your mother wouldn’t have even cared enough to spawn you.”
I could feel my anger getting the best of me. I wasn’t thinking clearly, I knew this, and yet I could not stop the rage.
She took a step toward me, one quite combative, and I reveled in it.
“You really think a lot of yourself,” she said to me. “That you are the reason for my being here?” she scoffed. “You’ve gotten really above yourself, Valene. Have you forgotten that at one point in time you were just a lowly drudge. My….drudge.”
“Harlyn,” said our father, trying to intercede.
“Don’t.” I quickly stopped him. “The little sister has a lot on her chest. Let’s give her space to express her little feelings, shall we?”
“You’re not a true inhuman, Valene,” said Harlyn. “You never will be. I’d hate to have to put you in your place.”
Instead of reminding her of the fact that I saved her life once against the very inhuman creatures that she was tasked to find, I smiled.
“Harlyn, I could’ve put you down well before I was saddled with this curse.” I shifted my footing, crossed my arms and approached her closer, my head tilted to the side. “Do you know why?” she didn’t respond but I knew that she was curious as to what I’d say. “Because you are weaker than me. You have always…been…weaker than me.”
Without another word, Harlyn lunged at me, slamming into the wall with so much force, we penetrated the meeting room wall and ended up outside on the yard.
Harlyn struck me across the face and just as quickly got on to her feet. She yanked me up into the air and slung me across the yard, my body colliding and cratering a car that sat on the street, no doubt belonging to a packmember.
“You want me to s how you how weak I am!?” she roared angrily, her eyes dark with rage.
And I welcomed it.
Cracking my neck, and relocating my dislocated arm, I wiped the blood that was trickling down my chin, a smile playing across my lips.
“Show me, little sister,” I said to her. “Show me how strong you are.”
Without another word, Harlyn came pouncing toward me. And I waited for her to come.
This…this was going to be fun.