Shifters

Chapter 40

He was taken aback, he glanced at his biting hand in disbelief. She had backed away, and faced him, standing tall, trying to dominate. "H-How dare you!?" He scolded.

"HOW DARE YOU!" She shrieked, pointing a accusing claw at him. "YOU'RE WORSE THAN WHAT YOU IMAGINE YOUR 'ENEMIES' TO BE!"

Bernese came outside. "Kayla don't talk to your father that way!"

She ignored her mother, staring at her father pleadingly. "How can you not see the terrible crime you've committed? How could you torture him that way when he did everything in his power to prevent this?"

"How can you be defending him, as if he's good? You witnessed that savagery!" Anthony scoffed.

"He is good! He's better than you will ever be!"

Bernese brought a hand to her face. "You sound like you have Stockholm syndrome." She gasped.

"What?"

Anthony rolled his eyes. "Kayla, you just don't understand, someday you will."

She snarled, clawing and kicking at the air violently, an act just as savage (and even crazier in appearance) than what Damian had done. "Don't", she stopped to look them both in the eyes. "Pull that shit on me!"

Her flaring arms and legs had been invisible to her parents, but her use of vulgar language got a reaction, she didn't let them scold her for it.

"All my life you've treated me as if I was incapable; too fragile to handle the world. You raised me in a damn bubble, you made a bodyguard out of my cousin and kept him glued to me! Neither of you have ever believed in me, and because of that I didn't know how to believe in myself." She choked. With a swallow of her sob, determination erupted within her eyes. "But I have news for you! I am not some delicate princess, I have the same blood of the Alpha as you, Dad!"

Her parents were stunned, and looking at them, she saw a glimpse of the father she once knew.

"Kayla," He said, stepping forward. "We never meant for you to feel... weak. We just wanted to keep you safe, I feared the Serians would kill you."

"Always with the Serians." Kayla scoffed bitterly. "Are they your excuse for everything?" An epiphany occurred to her that made her spine shiver unpleasantly.

Anthony glared. "You've had quite a shift in your attitude. First, you despised them, particularly Damian, as much as any of us, now you sound half in love."

"Half in love?" Kayla scoffed. "I DO love him! I love him with every part of me and you've killed him!" She cried, clutching her heart as it cracked down the middle. "You crushed his spirit right in front of me and you don't even care! You don't acknowledge what he's done for this pack!"

Anthony leaned towards his wife, "You're right, maybe it is Stockholm?"

"HE DIDN'T KIDNAP ME!" She screamed, her voice rising up to impossible octaves. It left the sensitive lobain ears ringing, and drew some pack members in who began to watch from a respectful distance. "He saved me, and by doing so he determined that this pack would continue to flourish." She stood straighter. "You didn't even thank him for bringing me, your daughter, home alive. My safety should be important to you, not only for the pack, but because you're my parents. Yet, the simplest form of gratitude, that you should have been more than happy to give, wasn't even granted." She shook her head in disgust. "And don't try to say, that I would've been fine on my own. With the way you raised me, I didn't stand a chance, I would've been raped, skinned, torn apart and sold before the night was over."

The detail of the fate Kayla had faced devastated her mother. She closed her eyes, willing herself to forget the horrible images of her child so brutally dismembered. Guilt began to seep into her when she saw the act she'd supported against the one who brought her child home. Anthony was unmoving in his stance, he narrowed his eyes.

"Watch your tone." He said calmly. "You're upsetting your mother."

"No, you watch your tone." Kayla replied, backing away from him. "You're no alpha of mine."

He cocked his head sideways. "I wasn't speaking to you as an alpha, I was speaking to you as a father. I always have." He pressed. "Either way, alpha or not, I'll always be your father, and you can't just expel the Pelisian blood you have. Whether you like it or not, you have a duty to this pack."

She chuckled bitterly. "Was that last part father, or alpha?" She wondered out loud.

"Kayla." He growled with warning.

She sighed with expression. "Pay attention, and actually listen to me for once. I never said I would dissociate myself from my pack, but I will from you. I am as much alpha as you, and I will not take orders from you anymore. As far as being my father, don't kid yourself, you bargained me away before I was even two weeks old, all to reach some 'impossible' idea of peace, but I think you only proposed that to seem holier to all the other alphas. Then, you used me as an excuse to quench your thirst for innocent Serius blood. If you were my father, you would not have exploited me like this, but you've never been my dad. I was only an instrument for your politics."

Anthony opened his mouth to say something, but Bernese was quick to stop him.

"Don't." She whispered, a single tear streaming out of her eyes. "Listen and think about what your daughter is saying. If you'll only do it once, do it now. Please, Anthony."

He sighed and closed his mouth, looking away from them. His cheek popped with movement when he started to grind his teeth over each other. Damian was in Kayla's thought, and, now confident that her parents would not stop her, she walked past them boldly in the direction of the destroyed Serius side. She made sure the rest of her nosy pack was watching where she traveled. Raul and Silvia stood at a corner down the block, he leaned against his crutches and Silvia had a hand clasped in his. They nodded in support, and Kayla smiled. Till the end she'd always have Raul's support, and now that of his delightfully enlightened mate, Silvia, too.

She stopped when she was a meter away, and turned her head just slightly to say one last point that developed from her memory. "Think back to who started this whole mess." Kayla said. "I don't mean back to The Pelisian and Serius, cause 'ancient' stories 'have no place in modern' situations. I mean back to the feud between the packs with you and Devon as alphas. If I remember what Uncle Adam explained to Raul and I correctly, it was our pack who struck first, right? Some wolves under your leadership murdered a baby, with the intention of killing the heir. As anyone would have done, they retaliated by killing your best friend, the strongest hunter." Kayla sighed in disappointment. "We're silly to accuse them of so many flaws, when we started it." She frowned, "How many babies did the Pelisian pack murder this time?"

Her question hung in the air, unanswered, but heard by all, slicing through not only her parents, but also the rest of her nosy pack who looked on as well. Raul broke a smile, he was immensely proud of her. With nothing left to say, Kayla jogged toward Damian in the Serius side of the valley. He watched her proudly, and then glanced around, daring anyone to stop her.

No one did.