Primal

Chapter Forty-Five - More Than Happy

Your mother is not addicted to painkillers. She is a Vampire.

When you were nine years old, I told you that she had surgery to lose weight. I lied and I did so to protect you. The truth is: your mother comes from a family of Vampires, only she wasn't born one herself. Her brother, Viktor, turned her in order to seek revenge against me for the things that Lycanthropes were accountable for. One of those things was the death of his wife.

Your mother never told me about her family until Viktor showed up on our doorstep, demanding to see her. That was the day your mother died. I lost the woman I loved and you lost your mother. The woman that returned in her place, that filled her body, was not the woman I fell in love with. This woman was a monster.

The only way I could escape this monster was through alcohol. You see, she was out for my blood—and yours—from that day on. Because blood becomes toxic to a Vampire once it is concentrated with enough alcohol, I started to drink in order to keep her away from me. If I'm being honest, I never liked the taste of it, but I suppose it tasted better than death would.

If you can recall, or maybe you've blocked these memories from your mind, this is when the abuse started.

I couldn't bring myself to start making you drink as well; you were only a child. Because of this, I needed to find other ways to keep you away from your mother. But, you were stubborn like I am. You would never leave the house unless you wanted to, so I had to make you want to.

I promise you with everything within me that I never took pleasure in insulting or hurting you. It hurt more than I can put into words to watch myself become a monster in your eyes, especially since I knew that the real monster was the woman you mistook for your mother.

But, as a father, I had to make the sacrifice. Your life was worth so much more to me than your love was.

I had no other choice.

There was no way I could send you away. Your mother's family was never an option and neither was my family.

I know I told you that my parents were dead, but that was also a lie. My father was the Beta Superior of Europe. As a pureblood, I was expected to wait for my mate to get married, but that all changed when I met your mother and I was disowned by my family when I married her.

I wanted desperately to tell you this, since I knew you would be confused as to why a seemingly ordinary Lycanthrope like yourself earned a mate. You are not ordinary, Evelyn. You are a strong young woman that comes from Lycanthrope royalty.

I should have told you and Adam this before you left the house that morning, but I could not risk your mother hearing me.

Tell Adam a few things for me: The first being that I am not an example of how you are to be treated. He is to treat you like the queen you are and you are not to expect anything less from him. He is to respect you and to honor you.

The second thing I'd like you to tell him is that the rogue he came looking for in the first place never existed. Our neighboring pack had mistaken Viktor for one of their own when they caught him crossing pack lines. Viktor was in our house the night you met Adam, which is why I told you not to come home. The men Adam left behind got too close to figuring this out, which was why your mother and Viktor kidnapped Warren Chandler, to throw off their scent.

I went looking for Warren Chandler, only to come home to a house that had been burnt to the ground after I found him and placed him where the men in Adam's pack could find him. If Warren survived, I want you to tell he and Mrs. Chandler thank you for me. They practically raised you and offered you food and shelter when you didn't get that from me. I will forever be in their debt.