Chapter Nine
It had been three months since my brother and Elizabeth had left, and one month since Shaun had left to go looking for a way to get rid of that dang mark. It had been a hard three months trying to make sure no one attacked Michael. But I had done it with only one incident.
It happened about two months into her leaving. I was in the kitchen with my husband Ryan and we were talking about how much longer it would take for us to be there to help Luke’s pack. Michael and Luke had come into the kitchen and you could smell the hormones of them both. Ryan shook his head in disgust because of what Michael had become.
Everything was fine till Shaun had come into the kitchen with Tommy in his arms. Everyone froze not making any sudden movements and it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. I looked at Ryan and saw he had fear in his eyes not for me but for our child. Shaun had become unstable since he had found out the truth of who Elizabeth was and why she had left.
We watched as Shaun moved over to Ryan and handed him Tommy and told them both to leave. It was the first time I had ever seen my husband take orders from someone other than Tony or Elizabeth without some rude comeback. As soon as Ryan and Tommy were out of the house Shaun’s eyes turned from green to gold. I knew Tyrone had taken over but I still didn’t let my guard down.
Tyrone was known for having a worse temper than Shaun. But he didn’t move just shook his head in disgust at them both and turned around to leave. I thought we were good, I thought that the problem had been adverted, but I was wrong because just at that moment Michael had to open his fat mouth.
“I don’t know why you’re so pissed it’s not like you gave a shit about her. You hated her and never wanted me around her anyways. I’m happy with Luke so what crawled up your ass and died.” Michal spoke shoving his foot so far up his ass it came out his mouth.
I groaned out loud because I knew he had just made mistake number one. Then Luke had to add his two cents worth as well.
“Yeah Shaun, why the long face, by now she is probably dead, and I say good riddance.” Luke spoke with a huge smirk on his face.
And that was mistake number two. I was moving slowly as not to attract attention so I could easily move in between Shaun’s wolf and them but something must have snapped because the next thing I knew I saw Shaun move so fast that he had them both pinned up against the wall.
“Both of you shut up, you’re not worthy enough to even mention her name. I should kill you both right here, right now and the world would be better off.” He growled at them
I saw his fingers becoming claws and suddenly knew what he was going to do. I run up to him and laid my hand on his shoulders praying I could get through to him. I leaned in and had to stand on my tippy toes just so I could reach his ears. By now both men had passed out from lack of air and I knew if I didn’t do something quickly Elizabeth could die.
“I know you want to kill them both, but now is not the time. If you kill him before we can remove Michael’s mark you will end up not only killing them but her as well. Is that what you want?” I asked praying I had gotten through to him.
What seemed like forever but was probably only a few short seconds he released them. They fell down in a slump against the wall. Before I could stop him though, he kicked Luke as hard as he could in his manhood.
“Now I know he can’t have kids.” Was his only response to that which made me laugh.
We left them there to slowly wake up on their own. We went upstairs to his bedroom where I watched him grab a duffel bag and start throwing in his clothes. So I decided to ask a stupid question.
“Umm what are you doing?” I asked
“Well you said I can’t kill him because his mark is still on Elizabeth. If I stay here I will kill him. So I am leaving here to see if I can find a way to get rid of that mark.” He said
“Are you sure that’s what Shaun wants Tyrone or what you want?” I asked because I wanted to make sure he wasn’t trying to take over Shaun completely.
“It’s what we both want Terri, you know what will happen if I stay here.” He said with sadness in his voice.
“Well since you’re leaving then welcome to Free Falls Pack. Now you won’t be rouge.” Ryan said
We both were startled because we hadn’t heard him come up behind us. We both looked at him sheepishly.
“Thank you Ryan and take care of little Tommy.” He said
Both Ryan and I watched him walk away and we both hoped for Elizabeth’s sake he found what he was leaving to search for.
I shook my head trying to get rid of that memory. Both my husband and I had grown close to Shaun while we had been here and it was hard without him here.
I was in Tommy’s room trying to clean up the mess when I heard a bang downstairs. I ran out not sure what to expect but hoping for the best.
To say I was shocked was an understatement. There was Damien beating the crap out of Luke. I wasn’t sure if I should step in and break it up or sit down in a chair with a bag of popcorn and cheer him on.
“What the hell did you do to my niece you pathetic half breed?” Damien yelled at the almost unconscious Luke.
All Luke did was laugh. We all stood there in the living room with our mouths hung open like you would see in some freak show.
“I didn’t think any of you would ever figure it out.” Luke said while still chuckling.
I stepped up and laid my hand on Damien’s shoulder to try and give him some comfort. He was shaking so bad, his eyes were black as night, his finger nails had grown longer, and his fangs were out. This was a vampire in all of his glory and something you never wanted to get in the middle of.
“Damien what do you mean? Luke shut up or I swear I will kill you.” I spoke quickly trying to defuse the situation.
“It’s easy my father was rouge when he came into this territory and challenged the alpha. He quickly won and killed off anyone who opposed him.” Luke spoke still chuckling
“Yes we already know that dumb ass.” I growled.
Now I was starting to lose my temper and that was never a good thing to happen. I could feel my wolf moving around under my skin just begging to get out. I knew most werewolves of higher ranking and had power named their wolves. But I was your ordinary werewolf. I couldn’t talk to my wolf and yes I was jealous of those who could but at that moment I felt as close to my wolf than ever before.
“Ah but what you don’t know is who my mother was. I still have a picture of her somewhere and when I feel down I look at it with fondness.” Luke spoke with eerie cheerfulness.
I could feel Damien trying to get control of himself. I could feel the anger off of him though, and my wolf didn’t like being this close to him. But I was the only thing from stopping him from killing Luke. I knew he had to die, hell we all did because of what he had done to Elizabeth but we needed answers about the past to understand the present and the future.
“My father was on his third year of being alpha and now mind you he had already killed his mate. So he was looking for someone else to replace her.” Luke spoke as if looking back into the past.
When he stated his father had killed his mate I could feel Moon Star Pack’s anger and hatred to the man they had once adored.
“But a stranger appeared on his land and he thought it was rouge trying to do to him that he had done to the old alpha. But when he got there all he found was a woman covered in blood wearing a cloak. He always told me what made him not kill her was because she was laughing.” Luke smiled as he was telling the tale of his father.
Some of the members of Luke’s pack left sickened by what they were hearing. But all of Free Falls Pack stayed by our side to hear the tale of a mad man.
“My mother was the most beautiful woman you had ever seen. She was five foot and 10 inches tall. She had an hour glass figure most women would kill for. But it was always her hair and eyes that I loved most about her.” Luke spoke as he moved enough to pull out his wallet.
He pulled out a picture of her and handed it to me.
“Look at her and you can see the beauty that she was.” Luke spoke softly.
But when I looked at the picture I was horrified by what I saw. You didn’t see any beauty like he claimed only death. I remembered one of the older ones saying he lost his mother right before the beta family lost their parents. So he had to have dug her up to get a picture like that.
“She must have been very pretty in her prime.” Was the only thing I could think of not to insult him or the picture of his dead mother.
“My father brought her home and offered her a place to stay and get cleaned up for the night. I think it was the last time he was ever truly nice without wanting something back in return.” Luke was now talking as if was talking to himself.
No one made a sound not even Michael who was on the ground next to Luke. You could see in his eyes he was afraid but what caused that fear was left alone for now.
“In the end she stayed there for many months before my father had realized it. He said he came down to get something from the kitchen and there she was wearing his robe around her body. With her hair the color of fire and the eye’s black as black could be.” Luke laughed
“He asked her why she was still here and her only response was you need a mate and I need a feeding ground.” Luke spoke quietly so quietly we had to strain just to hear right.
“My father; asked her what are you and how dare you assume that you have earned the right to be my mate?”
Luke spoke up a little louder this time.
“I’ll make you a deal you figure out what I am by the next full moon and you get me as a mate. Fail and I will kill you and your pack while laughing as each and every one dies.” Luke spoke again “it was my mother; you couldn’t have her without paying something in return.”
Buy this time Damien’s shaking was under control but that was the only change. My wolf was getting more restless as the story continued on. Like she knew something bad would happen and I had a feeling there would be no way to stop it.
“It took my father two weeks of searching through all of our books and he had finally found out what she was. So he waited full of excitement on the full moon. She showed up and asked him one question? What am I? He replied with you’re a half breed, part witch and part skin walker. She was so proud of him that they mated that very night.” Luke spoke up with a shit eating grin on his face.
“The next morning he sacrificed a beta female to his new mate and everyone forgot what really happened. She was the last of her kind she said till I was born. I was four years old and I watched my father kill my mother because she grew to be insane.” Luke shook his head and we all saw one lone tear escape his eye.
“My father though was smart. He found out that the child of Chris and Ella would bring his down fall. So before he killed my mother he made her do one last thing. If such a child would ever be born her life would be filled with pain and suffering. Michael isn’t her real mate and neither am I, but my mother’s spell made it seemed like we were.” Luke spoke up still laughing his butt off.
We were all shocked to hear who his mother was. As far as the supernatural world was concerned the vampire’s had made them extinct for very good reason. It didn’t matter how powerful you were a skin walker could kill you without even having to touch you. Damien started to shake with uncontrollable anger and I had a good feeling why.
“Did your father kill my brother and my sister in law?” Damien asked or more like hissed out.
“Yes he did and he was supposed to kill Elizabeth as well but he failed. The last words to me on his death bed were to make her pay and when she is at her weakest point kill that bitch.” He laughed while he said it.
“Plus you can’t kill me I marked Michael last night, and even if I hadn’t you don’t know how to kill me, a half breed.” By the time he finished talking he was laughing so hard tears were coming out of his eyes.
We were so focused on him that we didn’t hear the front door open and close. I really thought at this point a bomb could go off outside and we wouldn’t even hear it.
“Your right, they can’t kill you but I can.” Someone spoke up
And before we could even blink there was bullet hole in his forehead. Michael was screaming in agony because he just lost his mate and in some ways his pack felt bad for him, but not enough to comfort him, and well our pack was glad he was finally gone.
We all turned around and were shocked. There standing in the door was Elizabeth holding up a nine millimeter hand gun with smoke coming out of it. Tony looked different to, he had a new tattoo on his right for arm of two wolves, and one was black and the other white in the shape of yang and ying, with Elizabeth’s full Name written in cursive underneath.
And Shaun was standing behind her as well but on the other side of Tony. We didn’t know what to do since she had just shot the alpha of the Moon Star pack, did we have to leave before they tried to kill us or would they take on a new alpha and still keep the treaty we had with them.
“Please cuff him and put that wailing idiot in the cell in the basement and Damien I do believe I found your next meal.” Elizabeth said
No one moved for about ten seconds until we got the death look from her and we did everything she asked of us. I was glad to have her back but she looked so different then when she left. I was still trying to figure out if that was a good thing or bad thing when we slammed the cell door on a screaming Michael.
When all of us came back to the living room Damien was gone as well as the body of Luke. I was just about to ask her what the heck happened when I noticed her mark from Michael was gone completely.
“So explain now please?” I asked like a child who had just been given five pounds of chocolate.
“It’s really simple, Shaun found us and Tyrone told me what Luke really was. So I found a really religious priest and had him not only bless the gun but as well as the bullets that were in the gun. Luke is dead and he isn’t coming back.” Elizabeth spoke with total calmness
“With him dead all the spell’s that his mother put up along with the spells he did should die out. A lot of people will be very upset. It’s why I let Damien take the body. Why waste precious food right?” She asked me
“But what made you come back here?” I asked her with confusion written all over my face.
“When my mark disappeared, which I have to thank Luke, oh no wait I can’t tell him because I killed him. Anyway short story is when he marked Michael mine went away since he was never my true mate in the first place.” She said sounding very proud of herself.
I couldn’t believe it she was sounding happy, acting happy, and heck she even looked happy. Yet when I looked in her eyes I could tell that it was all fake. I noticed Tony was holding her hand and I began to wonder if there was something there. Before I could ask, Damien rushed in and swooped Elizabeth off of her feet into a big hug.
“Don’t ever scare me like that again please.” He spoke with a hiss but you could hear the emotion behind it.
She nodded her head and just let him hold her. I could tell she wanted to cry but either there was no tears left or she didn’t want to cry in front of us. She stepped back from Damien and nodded to all of us. We watched she and Tony leave to go upstairs, and Ryan looked at Shaun. It seemed he had grown up since he had been away. There was a harder look to him and I wasn’t sure if I liked that.
“Want to tell us what happened?” Ryan asked
“I found out about Luke’s dad through his older brother. Apparently the reason his father went rouge was because their parents felt he would abuse the power so they gave the title of alpha to Victor. James got mad and when he left he swore vengeance on them all.” Shaun said while shaking his head.
“Unfortunately when Luke was about a year old James managed to nearly wipe out his old pack with the help of his wife. Victor was severely damaged due to the fight and has been a lone wolf ever since. It was Victor who told me about Luke’s mom. Apparently her name was Eve.” He said with disgust.
“After I found out I went looking for Tony and Elizabeth to give them the info. I wasn’t expecting her to kill him though even if he deserved it. Victor said Luke would turn out like his father and mother because the reason Eve was killed because her power turned on her and caused her to go insane.”
He looked so torn up that I wanted to give him a hug and tell him it would be alright but I knew it would be a lie. Ryan nodded at Shaun and patted his back. It was the only way males knew how to comfort other males which almost made me want to laugh.
“Well I think everyone has had a stressful day so let’s all get some rest and we can deal with the rest tomorrow.” I said to both boys
As Ryan and I were walking away to go to bed we heard Shaun ask us one very important question.
“She killed Luke even if he was insane and her fake mate and Michael will probably be next on the killing block. So what happens when her powers come in fully and she doesn’t have her mates there to keep her balanced and sane?” He asked
I turned back to look at Shaun. He seemed to care a lot about her which was good. He had a good point though, if she didn’t have her mates what would happen?
“I don’t know but I do know we need to take one day at a time and pray we find her true mates quickly.” I said.
And with that I led my husband to our bedroom. We both go undressed and put on our pajamas. Ryan kissed me good night and rolled over on his side of the bed and went to sleep.
I laid there worrying, and thinking about what Shaun had said and what we had found out tonight. I didn’t have all the answers but I did know one thing. Luke was dead; Michael’s mark was gone, which meant that as of tomorrow Michael had a very short life span.
I finally fell asleep with a smile on my face and dreamed about how I would kill Michal now that he was free game.
~~
It had been a couple of hours since I had shown back up in Moon Star Pack’s territory, with Tony and Shaun at my heels. I had a lot of information on Luke, James his father, and Eve his mother and it wasn’t a pretty picture. He had always been mean to me and growing up I never knew why but I guess I had at least some of my answers. It’s funny how you can kill someone with just a blessed gun and blessed bullets.
I had thought it was all make believe, something you would read in one of these books that write about us or the movies and television shows. Yet I went anyway and found out it was all true. Apparently that’s the only way to kill a skin walker, even a half breed like Luke.
It took me an hour to convince Tony I was fine after I killed him and let Damien feed from him. He thought I would be in tears, but in reality I had always hated that man. Yet even though I hated him I expected to feel relief, or even happiness, but I felt nothing.
I still felt nothing. I could still hear Michael screaming, yelling profanities at me for killing his mate. I wanted to cry the first time I heard that after Tony had fallen asleep because at one point we were happy or so I had thought. I knew Michael had to die for the crimes he had committed not only to me but to the people who lived here in the pack house.
Apparently while I had been gone he had decided to torcher and killed some of the humans that were friends or mates of the wolves here.
I knew some of them would be mad at me because if it had been left up to them they would have killed him sooner, but Terri wouldn’t let them. I had no idea why she changed her mind about me or why she stopped hating me but it was nice to have someone in my corner besides Tony.
These last three months had changed me even more. When I left I was a broken mess for the second time in my life and it was because of them. We traveled never staying in one place for too long, but I knew the truth I was running away once more from my problems.
I got up and grabbed my jacket and snuck out of the house. I needed to know what was in my birth mothers journal and if she had left me any information about my future other than the fact I had to have two mates mark me otherwise I would end up becoming the monster everyone would fear.
I was done with men, done with mates, and done with getting my heart broken. I would kill myself before I became a threat, but before I did that I needed to know what I was supposed to do, and who I was supposed to become. I ran straight to the tree where I had found it and placed it before I had left. I rested my hand on the tree and I could almost feel the life force coming from it. I also knew that if I concentrated hard enough I could feel the magic around the tree.
After spending a few minutes standing there I had finally gotten the courage to reach my hand inside of the tree and nothing was there. I frantically searched every tree with in the area thinking I had maybe gotten the tree wrong but after a few hours of searching I knew it was gone.
Someone had found my mother’s journal and now they had all the answers to my questions and I wanted to know who had gotten passed the magic. I quickly ran back to the pack house to find it in an uproar. Many of the females were shouting at one another, some of the men looked like they had been fighting due to the blood on them. It was a total mess.
As I was about to yell quiet to everyone that was in the living room which was the size of a small two bedroom apartment everyone looked at me and shut up.
I saw a lot of them were from my old pack and my current pack was trying to get them to calm down. I saw a lot of angry faces and at once thought that they blamed me for killing their alpha.
One man though came forward. I didn’t recognize him but figured he had been one of the many older adults from the pack I never got to meet. He was about six foot tall and looked to be in his late thirties or early forties. His hair though told me a different story. Most humans would call it the salt and pepper color because he had white and grey all through it.
He wasn’t fat but wasn’t very muscular either. He dressed nice like you would see from an early nineties sit com show. His eyes were forest green and he had a heart shaped face. He looked angry though but I couldn’t tell if that anger was directed at me or the situation around the death of their alpha.
“I wanted to thank you for killing Luke, I know it must have been hard on you to do that since I think he was your mate but you freed us. Thank you.” He spoke and then wrapped his arms around me
What got me though were his tears. You couldn’t hear him crying but I could feel the wetness through my shirt. I was startled when others in the room that belonged to Moon Star Pack suddenly all started saying thank you to me. Many came up to hug me; some gave me a pat on the back.
When the older gentleman finally released me he gently cupped my face and I looked in his eyes and saw so much pain that it almost brought me to my knees.
“What’s your name sir?” I asked quietly
He chuckled when I said sir.
“Please don’t call me sir, I work for a living. But my name is Francis Pharaoh, but you may call me Frank.” He said still chuckling.
You could hear a few people in the room laugh at the small joke he made which made me smile for once since I had been back here.
“Why are you thanking me?” I asked
I truly was confused. I had killed their alpha and they should have wanted me dead right then and there. Then it hit me.
“You released us from the prison we have been in for many years. Frank though suffered the worst of it though. He had to watch him kill his mate because she was humane.” Someone spoke but I couldn’t tell who it was.
I looked in the room for Frank so I could talk to him but he was gone. I didn’t know if I would see him again or not but I hoped so, he seemed like a really nice man.
It’s been a week since I had been back, since the death of the ex-Alpha Luke. Every day I have had multiple people from the Moon Star pack come up to me thanking me, giving me gifts, and asking when I would be taking over the Alpha duties.
I still had no answer for that on though. Normally when two dominate wolves want the same position such as Alpha they have an honest fight to the death. What I did was sneaky, underhanded, and less than what he truly deserved after talking to some of the young and older pack mates.
I couldn’t believe how much pain and suffering had gone on in my absence and even though I knew it wasn’t my fault I still blamed myself. And if that wasn’t bad enough I had Terri on my back asking me when she could kill Michael for the crimes he committed not only to me but to the pack as well.
I hear is screams at night, yelling, begging, and then there would be silence and then it would start all over again. I knew I needed to go down there and find out why he had done those crimes, and why had he hurt me. I heard Terri enter the house and knew where to go where she wouldn’t look for me. I used my speed which unless you knew where to look you wouldn’t have seen me.
I had been working with Damien to find out exactly what type of vampire I was. I guess it was important enough and ended up spending about four hours of training with him every day trying to find out what I could do and then perfect it.
I got to the bottom of the stairs where our underground basement prison was. I knew one of two things. Either someone else was in the room giving meds to Michael so he would stop screaming and ranting and raving, or someone was trying to break him out.
I punched in the code 07081423 so I could enter when I saw it was Shaun. At first glance I wondered what he was doing down here and why after for so long saying he wanted nothing to do with the brother that hurt me as much as he did. But then I truly thought about it and I didn’t care.
I walked into the hallway and noticed that there were doors on each side. The only thing you could see was through I small window on each door. Shaun was sitting outside the last door to the right on the ground with his head on his legs.
“Hello Shaun what are you doing here if I may ask?” I spoke calmly but the order was there and he knew it even if he didn’t understand or get it.
“I figured you would get tired of Terri telling you in full detail of how she wanted to see my brother die and knew the only place safe from her was here.” He said
This told me a lot about him. He was observant from the very beginning, and could read me very well, sometimes too well. As we were both having dominance stare down Michael must have smelt me because he started going crazy once more in his cell.
Shaun finally looked away to look at the window and I could he was fighting himself to rip open the door and take his brother as far away from here as he could. But he turned to me and asked me the multiple questions I didn’t have an answer to.
“Why hasn’t he changed back to his normal self, other people have, my brother is the only one left like this? Are you really going to kill him because he cheated on you so many times with that bastard and then left you for him?” He was yelling by this point.
I shook my head and put my fingers on my head trying to get rid of the head ache, where if felt like a million jack hammers were going off.
“I don’t know why, maybe he’s acting this way because I killed his true mate. Did you ever think of that?” I asked getting pissed off
“And if I was going to kill him for doing all that shit you mentioned I could have done that before I left for three months.” Still yelling at him
“I know you don’t want to hear it but your brother is going to die, not because he did anything to me but because of what he did to Moon Star pack and the Free Falls Pack. He is going to get a trial held by myself, Frank, Tony, You, and a few others. And before you ask me why I don’t care if he dies, well it’s really simple HE IS NOT WORTH THE EFFORT IT WOULD TAKE FOR ME TO FAKE CRY. IS THAT UNDERSTOOD.” By this time I was still yelling but my alpha power kicked in so when I was done I noticed for the first time Shaun bowing to me.
I looked through the window and noticed Michael was acting strange as well. He was on the floor bowing to me over and over again. But then he suddenly rushed up to the door and gave me the most evil smile I had ever seen on a person.
“I know all your secrets now.” Michael said while still grinning at me like a lunatic.
“Did you know that when I marked you our DNA combined for a while which meant I found the book you was so desperately trying to hide?” He spoke to me with a cruel face
I tried to keep myself calm; I didn’t need Sarah trying to kill him just for the pleasure out of it.
“I read it all then I burned the book so no one could ever know the truth your bastard parents were trying so hard to tell you.” He started full on laugh
I wanted to scream my head off at him but I knew that when I did that he would win. I would never let this man win even if it meant death. But I did have questions of my own.
“Did you know Luke’s father killed not only my birth parents but also gave the previous alpha of the Free Falls Pack my old home address, telephone number, and when the best time to kidnap?”
“You know I don’t get it, why did you follow me and act all happy when I told you the truth about us, and why did you mark me and make me believe we were happy?” I asked him in my coldest voice.
I happened to see a reflection and realized that the person looking back at me was me. I had grown into a very scary and dangerous woman. Not that I wasn’t that way before I left, but something in me snapped and I knew I needed it back as soon as possible.
“You were just a tool, I never loved you and in fact when we were having intercourse I was pretending you were him. I hated you but both Luke and I knew that the only way for you to gain my trust was to be with you. It was only a matter of time before we ended up back here and then I could be with my true mate.” He spoke and everything he said to me killed the rest of the little hope I had for love inside of me.
“Last question before I leave you to your fate. In all this plotting and scheming did you ever one think how it would reflect on your twin and how this is killing him?” I asked in a deadly voice.
I waited for him to answer I wondered if the Michael Shaun and I had known was truly ever in there in the first place.
“I never had a brother.” Was all he said.
I quickly left him standing there yelling at me he would have his revenge. He could try but he wouldn’t get very far. When I was little I had asked Sam how come we couldn’t be like the humans and her response made me laugh.
“Because being humane means bad stuff happens to you.” She said
When I heard that I believed her, but know looking back being humane was the one thing I wish I could be right now. Yeah they had their version of bad and evil but it was nothing compared to my world.
I ended up back in my bedroom. I had left Michael in the cell and talked with everyone and it was going to be a long day tomorrow. It would be the day that would tell us whether Michael lived or died.