Fighting For Hope (The Hybrid and The Wolf - Book 3)

Chapter 12 - Sanctuary

I was standing near a lake with rocks in my hand and I started skipping them across the water, deep in thought.

"You scared me," Jackson said as he joined me. "I was worried you ran off in the middle of the night."

I turned and looked at my brother. "No, I was just out here, thinking."

I skipped another rock across the lake water.

"Jack, I know I'm suppose to divulge my great secrets but I--I can't," I told him. "I can't even tell you why I can't."

"Nina, do you really think there's a secret you have that's so bad you can't tell me?"

"I don't understand why it's necessary for me to divulge my secrets to you. You're marrying Hayley, not me. Why is it part of the Blood Gift ritual, anyway?"

"Because for this to work, your blood has to be free of sin. It's a necessary step to ensure the blood isn't tainted."

I raised my brows, offended. "Oh, so I have tainted blood?"

"No, that--that's not what I meant, Nina. Why can't you just tell me?"

"It's not safe, Jack," I told him.

"When have we ever been safe, Nina?" He replied. "Now, our people have been cursed, hunted, exiled but you, me and Hayley, this wedding? We can change all that. We can create a new pack, one with your ability to turn at will! So we give each other our secrets. If we don't, then the transfer of power won't work and we're back to where we were."

I bit my lip, nervously.

"Look, even if we call this off, there's still something I need to tell you and Hayley."

"Jack, I'm sure you've lived quite the life but I can't imagine that your secrets are anything like mine," I said, looking at my brother.

"There's one," Jackson said in a somber tone. "It has to do with how Hayley's parents died and what happened to our mother."

My face fell, I was both eager and worried about what he had to say.

~*~*~

Jackson had taken Hayley and I deep into the Bayou to a graveyard.

"What is this place?" Hayley asked.

"It's where wolves bury those who walk away from the pack," Jackson answered as we approached one of the graves. "Traitors, murderers . . . like this one."

I knelt down in front of the grave and saw the initials RXD carved into it was a crescent moon.

"Richard Xavier Dumas. He was Mary's husband," I looked up when he said this. "Our grandfather. He was an Alpha of his time. Militant, radical, hell-bent on raising war with vampires. When he found out that our parents planned to join the packs, try for peace with Marcel and his crew, he . . . he went ballistic." 

I stood up, my heart heavy when I saw Hayley's tortured expression.

"It was him, wasn't it?" She asked. "He was the one that killed my parents."

"He wanted to stop them and everything they stood for and he did," Jackson answered, just as heartbroken. Then he looked at me. "He even stopped our mother when she got in his way."

I felt my heart seize in my chest in that moment, he killed his own daughter?

"I have spent my entire life wondering what happened," I finally spoke. "Why did you wait so long to tell us?"