area, both of which were warmed by the
cheery fire in the grate. A meal was
already sitting on the dinner table waiting
for them. Nash climbed to his feet and sat
down at the table.
“Is
that
mutton?”
he
asked
incredulously. He wondered which of his
pack had dared to raid a shepherd’s flock.
He remembered a time in his youth when
he’d been skewered with a pitchfork for
such bad behavior. Cort had been the one
to drag both him and his hard won ewe
home.
Stacia smiled. “I thought you might
appreciate a treat.”
“You’re spoiling me,” he said, not
hesitating in biting into the rare meat. With
Maralee out of sight, he allowed his
instinct to devour to take over him. He
was soon licking the bare bone zealously.
Stacia
grinned
at
his
obvious
enjoyment. “How was it?” she asked,
taking delicate nibbles of her own meat.
“Delicious,” he growled.
Stacia watched him for a moment and
then said, “I thought you’d do the right
thing by Rella at least.”
Nash’s eyes widened. “What?”
“If Rella finds a new mate, we’ll lose
those babies.”
“What are you talking about? Rella
would never prevent us from seeing the
twins or Carsha,” Nash said, knowing it
was his mother’s fear of being left alone
that made her so irrational.
“I thought if you took Rella as your
mate, there’d be no risk of that,” Stacia
said. “There’s been a Wolf from another
pack asking about her. She’s considering
leaving our pack for another.”
“What? Why hasn’t anyone told me of
this before now?”
“You are so preoccupied with that
human it makes little difference what
anyone tells you.”
“That’s not fair, Mother.” He thought
about the implications of Rella leaving
their pack and taking the children with her.
For one thing, the small family would lose
his protection as Guardian. Then again,
with the last of the Hunters placated, they
wouldn’t be in any real physical danger.
He still remembered the mental anguish
Cort had felt after he’d returned from
dealing with the Hunters. Cort had killed a
ten-year-old human boy in their attack.
That had brought him far more anguish
than the deaths of their father and
grandfather. Surely Rella wouldn’t want
herself or her children to be subjected to
such a reality, for without Nash’s
protection, one of them would eventually
kill a human. “What is Rella thinking?”
“She’s thinking about her future,
Nash,” Stacia said. “Forget about this
foolish tryst of yours and take Rella as
your mate.”
“Foolish tryst?” Nash scowled at his
mother. “Is that what you think my
relationship with Maralee is? Just a
temporary affair?”
Stacia scoffed. “What else can it be?
She’ll live another fifty years, if that, and
you have another two hundred to go. What
do you plan on doing after she gets old
and frail and you’re as young and vigorous
as ever?”
“Take care of her,” he said. “Maybe
you don’t believe this, but I love her,
completely, madly, deeply. She is the part
of me that had been missing until now.
That will never change, not even if she
does die long before I do.”
Stacia’s eyes narrowed. “You make
me sick,” she snarled. “How could you?
How could you fall in love with a filthy
human?”
“And why do you hate humans so
much?” Nash countered. “No one else in
this pack loathes them the way you do.”
Stacia stood up from the table, as
angry as he was now. “I don’t have to
explain myself to you.”
Nash stood up as well. “I don’t
understand you, Mother. You were never
this way with Cort.” He slammed his fist
on the table, rattling the dishes.
“Don’t bring your brother into this. He
has nothing to do with any of it and he’s
no longer here to defend his position.”
“Why don’t you finish that thought?”
Nash said, his voice hard as steel, his
eyes narrowed.
“What do you mean?” Stacia asked,
meeting his eyes unflinchingly.
“He’s no longer here because I failed
to protect him.”
For a moment Stacia seemed to realize
her words wounded her surviving son
more than he let on, but then she didn’t
seem to care. “That’s right, you didn’t
protect him and now I stand to lose not
only my son, but also my grandchildren
because you always hesitate.”
“So you do think I’m a failure.”
Stacia sighed heavily and shook her
head. “No, Nash, I don’t think you’re a
failure. You shoulder so much more than
the rest of us. Sometimes I wish that you
didn’t bear the burden of the crescent on
your forehead.”
Nash suddenly remembered his reason
for coming here in the first place. “And
why do I bear the mark of the Wolf
Guardian?”
Stacia glanced up at him, her eyes
wide and afraid. “It’s left to chance I
suppose,” she whispered slowly.
“Really?” Nash asked skeptically.
“It’s not because I’m half Wolf and half
human?”
Stacia sat down heavily, the flush of
anger that had stained her cheeks faded
until she was as pale as alabaster. “H—
how did you find out?”
Nash’s ears rang and a sudden
weakness made him wobbly. He dropped
into the chair across from her. Surely,
he’d heard her wrong. “You mean, it’s
true?”
She nodded wordlessly, tears flowing
freely. The enormity of the situation
pressed down on Nash from above. How
could he be half-human? His parents were
both Wolves, unless…
“Which of you strayed?” he asked
angrily. “Was it you? Or was it father?”
He looked up at her, pinning her with a
hard stare. “It had to be you, because you
gave birth to me.”
She
was
trembling—his
strong,
independent mother, suddenly as weak as
kitten. “It wasn’t like that. I loved your
father. You know that.”
“Then how?”
She shook her head, stood up, took
several running steps towards her
bedroom. Nash jumped to his feet, caught
her by the shoulders and spun her around
to face him.
“Tell me!”
She looked up at him, and he was
surprised to see her eyes brimmed with
tears. She bit her lip, a haunted look on
her face. “Your father and I were on a
hunt,” she said hesitantly. “While your
father was scouting the area, I took a bath
in a stream and was lying in the sun to dry,
when men, human men found me.” She
closed her eyes and shuddered. “You
know a Wolf cannot shift in front of a
human. I was stuck in my human form.
Defenseless. I guess they assumed because
I was naked I was willing to…willing
to…” She swallowed hard several times.
She seemed to be forcing herself not to
vomit. “There were six of them, I couldn’t
stop them, they all…they all…”
Nash pulled her into his embrace,
stroking her hair.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“They raped me,” she said hollowly.
“Many times—I’m not sure how many
times—and then they tried to kill me, but I
didn’t die. I couldn’t die. I don’t know
how many times they stabbed me. God, I
wanted to die, and then my husband came
back and he found me like that, with those
disgusting humans. He…he…went crazy.
He killed all of them.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered again. He
didn’t know what else to say.
She was silent for a long moment.
“Your father and I kept it a secret,” she
said, “and when it became apparent I was
pregnant, we tried to convince ourselves
the child was his. But after nine weeks I
was barely showing, not even close to
being ready to whelp. When I didn’t give
birth, we hid my pregnancy as well. Only
your brother and your father knew I was
pregnant for over nine months. You were
born human.”
“I was born human?” His kind was
always born in their Wolf forms. They
couldn’t even shift into their human form
until their eyes were fully open. Both he
and his mother were trembling now. Nash
wasn’t sure which one of them was
supporting the other, but he sought the sofa
and urged his mother to sit down beside
him before they both collapsed.
“I hated you when you were born,” she
admitted. “I wanted to kill you, but your
father took you from me. He cared for you
for several months by himself before you
were able to take your Wolf form and I
was able to accept you were my son.”
“Then my father isn’t really—”
“Don’t say that, Nash,” Stacia
interrupted. “You may not have been of
his flesh, but you were definitely of his
heart. He loved you as his own.”
Nash was a chaotic jumble of
emotions. To know of the circumstances
of his conception, to realize that his own
mother had wanted him dead, to hear that
the wonderful man who had raised him
was not his real father, to understand he
was not the Wolf he’d believed he was;
all of it was simply too much for him to
absorb.
“I hoped you would never find out,”
Stacia said.
He nodded tersely. “Thank you for
telling me the truth,” he said and stood up.
He had to keep it together in front of her.
He didn’t want her to know how upset he
was by her story. “I should be going home
now,” he said. “Maralee will be
worried.”
Stacia winced at the sound of her
name, but at least now Nash understood
why his mother hated humans. He let
himself out of the house and just as he was
about to close the door, his mother called
after him.
“Don’t forget to talk to Rella,” she
called. “You have to stop her from taking
my grandchildren away.”
It was just another stone on the wall
crushing him from above. He nodded and
closed the door. If Maralee hadn’t been
his keystone, he knew the wall would
have tumbled down on top of him by now.
CHAPTER 39
“I was getting worried about you,”
Maralee said as Nash entered the house.
He said nothing as he removed his
coat and hung it on the hook near the door.
“Nash?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, breathlessly. He
glanced at her, his forced smile torturous.
“My mother needed me to do a few chores
around the house. You know how mothers
are.”
She didn’t, but she nodded in
understanding. “I kept your lunch warm. I
hope you’re hungry.”
He shook his head. “She talked me
into staying to eat with her. You know
how mothers are.”
She didn’t, but she nodded in
understanding. “I guess I’ll eat alone
then,” she said. There was a strange
sadness between them. It was radiating off
him and filling her heart as well.
“I’ll sit and talk with you while you
eat,” he said.
She smiled and turned towards the
kitchen. She fixed herself a plate from the
food on the stove while Nash sat down at
the table. She sat across from him, eating
slowly and silently, waiting for him to
she didn’t want to dissuade him by rattling
on about nonsense.
“I guess some of the puzzling things
that happened when I was young make
sense now,” he murmured. “My mother
would get so angry with me, out of the
blue, for no reason at all. I always tried so
hard not to upset her, to stay out of her
way as much as possible. When she’d get
like that, father would always say, ‘It’s
not his fault, Stacia.’ and then he’d take
me away for a while and we’d do
something special together, just the two of
us. Cort would have Mother calmed down
by the time we returned. He was the only
one who could placate her. Cort could do
no wrong, and I could never do anything
right.
It was then I first started resenting
being born the Wolf Guardian. My father
made me realize I had a duty—an
obligation. ‘You were given to us for a
reason, Nash,’ he’d tell me. ‘Don’t ever
forget what that crescent stands for. You
were born to protect us. Only you can
save us from ourselves.’ He was the one
who always pushed me to break the curse,
as if it was his duty to steer me down the
right path. It’s strange that he was the one
who took me under his wing, when he
wasn’t even my real father.”
Maralee had been watching his face as
he spoke. Hi
s emotions were written so
clearly there: bitterness, nostalgia, pride,
and now pain. “I didn’t realize,” she
murmured.
He emitted a sound that was half
laugh, half snort. “Me neither.”
“Is this why you went to your mother’s
this morning? To find out about your
father?”
“When I was reading this morning I
discovered that the last Guardian was
born with the crescent moon marking
because he was half-human. I didn’t really
believe that was why I had been born with
it, but my mother confirmed it. I’m not
Wolf, I’m not human, I’m something else.”
“That doesn’t matter—”
“How can you say it doesn’t matter?”
he asked her angrily, focusing on her face
for the first time.
“It doesn’t matter to me,” she
whispered. “I love you for who you are,
not what you are.”
He shook his head in denial and stood
up. “I need to go talk to my father for a
little while.”
“Your human father?” she questioned,
confused.
“No. The one who raised me.”
“Can I come with you?” she asked,
standing. She wanted to be there for him if
or when he needed her.
He considered her for a moment and
then nodded. She hurried to put on her
boots and cloak while Nash waited on the
front porch, smoking his last cigarette.
When she joined him, he started walking
without looking at her. Crestfallen, she
followed. She was having a hard time
imagining what he must be feeling. It
would be difficult to discover the father
you loved was not the one who sired you,
but to realize you weren’t what you
thought you were… She couldn’t even
imagine how that felt.
She followed him to the giant oak tree
at the edge of the forest and paused. She
didn’t have a right to be here. Not at this
sacred place where the important men in
Nash’s life were buried. Not when she
had put one of them there herself and the
other two had been put there by other
members of the Decatur family.
“Nash, I—”
“You wanted to know what Cort was
like, so come and meet him.”
Her chin quivered with suppressed
emotions, but she held her tears at bay.
She wanted the terrible tight feeling in her
chest and her stinging eyes to remind her
of how wrong she’d been. Nash squatted
down at the foot of Cort’s grave and held
his hand out to Maralee. She went to him
reluctantly. She was surprised by how