Forbidden Alliance: A Werewolf's Tale (Forbidden Alliance Trilogy) (16 page)

“
Nu
huh,” he huffed.
“Not even close.”

“Shut
up
.
It went perfect with dinner…but, oh my god, ow.
I won’t be doing that again anytime soon.”

“Uh huh.”

“I’m going to kill you,” I mumbled and he laughed.
“What time is it…am I late for school?”

“Nope.
It’s six.”

“What?” I cringed at my own loudness.
“Why in the hell did you wake me up an hour early?” I whimpered, trying to cover my face with the blankets to block out the ungodly bright light coming through the window.

“Why not?” he asked with a chuckle.
“It’s totally something you would do.”

True.

“Touché,” I conceded.

“In case you
were wondering, I didn’t tell Mom and Dad
who you were with.
They’re rather suspicious though since you came home in a hundred-thousand-dollar SUV with a white guy.
It was very reservation whore’ish,” he scolded.

I groaned even louder; that was all I didn’t need today: parenting from Jarvis.

“Seriously, Sis, are you banging with this rich suckhead?” he demanded, pulling the covers back with his toes.

“Oh my god, what is wrong with you?” I whimpered, pulling the covers back up over my head.

Jarvis straddled me and pulled the covers back, pinning my arms to my sides.
“There is nothing wrong with me, Sis.
But then again, I’m not the one running around with vampires!” he hissed.

“Vampire.
Singular.
There was only one,” I corrected with a smirk.

“It doesn’t matter,” he harshly whispered.
“You’re a damn werewolf.
He’s a vampire.
You two were born mortal enemies!”

“Enemies of a feud that ended over a century ago,” I reminded him.
“Have you ever met one?”

The look on his face answered me.

“Exactly.
Neither had I!
But Tanis is different…he’s so normal.
He’s nice, polite, funny, self-conscious and cordial.
He calls me Miss Jay Dee...I hate it but I love it.
He opens doors for me and pulls out chairs
, spends ungodly amounts of money on fancy dinners
.”

“Lots of guys would do that
for you
,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, you’re right.
But only with the objective of getting in my pants! Tanis looks at me in a way that no one else ever has and I really like it, it makes me feel special and not special ed.”

He gave me the look that
I’
ve
seen one too many times from him while growing up.
The you-are-retarded
remind-me-again-how-we’re-related look.

“There’s awe in his expression with everything I say,” I tried to explain, “and a gleam of excitement in his eyes when he’s talking to me.
The way he looks at me makes me feel like I’m the first and only woman on earth in his eyes.”

He raised his hand as if he was waiting to be called on in class.
“You sound like a goddamn love-struck
bitch
in a shitty chickflick.”

I snapped my teeth at him and he laughed.

“You gotta give me something here, Sis.”

Damn it.

“Jarvis…it’s...I mean...damn it,” I huffed.
“All I’ve ever wanted was for someone to see me as a person.
Not as a white girl,
not as the demon sent by the white man to t
ake what little bit of land the Lhaq'temish
still owned,
not as a weird white wolf, not glass,
and
not
as
a little sister
who’s
sniffing your butt because I ain’t got no friends to play with me.”

“Ew,” he said, making a face but I ignored him.

“My best friend doesn’t even realize that I’m a girl-”

“No one could mistake
n
you for a boy with tit
s
as big as yours,” he interrupted.

Again, I ignored him.
“My brother treats me like I’m this little kid who’s still trying to hang out with him and his friends
because no one will play with me
.
Mom and Dad go out of their way to protect me from everyone, to make me feel part of the
Lhaq'temish
and pack, but all it does i
s
segregates me even more.
I’ve been kept from everything that reaches beyond the pack’s presence and territory...I’ve only been to Seattle a handful of times in the thirteen years I’ve been here
, and Arizona to see grandpa and grandma
.
That isn’t right,” I mumbled the last part, just
then
realizing it.

Jarvis looked at me curiously.
“What are...I don’t...” his words trailed off.

“I’ve lived here for thirteen
years,” I continued since I already ripped the Band-Aid off so I might as well finish the painful job, “so you’d think that the
Lhaq'temish
and pack would finally accept me.
But no, it’s just as bad now as it was that first day.
No matter where I go, Jarvis, I’m always going to be the outsider, that strange creature who never really belongs anywhere or with anyone.”

“That isn’t true,” he weakly argued, knowing better than to counter what I said because we both
knew that it
was
true.
“We love you,” he said, wiping the tears from the corner
s
of my eyes.

“And I love you,” I assured him.
“And Mom and Dad
,
and Grandma and Grandpa,
and Yahto and
his family, the extended family...
and
all of those who have treated me like a person and not an outsider.
I couldn’t imagine having a better family, pack and
tribe
, but it doesn’t make me one of you,” I said the last part on accident, something that had always been bubbling under the surface
and biting at my tongue
but I never lost the battle to keep the words from leaving my lips.

I suppose I could have blamed it on the wine hangover induced mental incoherency, but it wasn’t.
For my entire life I had kept everything inside because I never let it get to me, worried about it or let it eat away at me.
But
mostly, I kne
w the words
and my feelings
would
hurt those
I love. It wasn’t their fault
and they weren’t
respon
sible for the way I was feeling, it was just something
that I silently struggled with
, so it was never worth mentioning.
Hurting
those I love
would
have
hurt more than keeping
everything inside, so for thirteen years
I just smiled and brushed it off.

But for some reason, I couldn’t do it anymore.

Realizations are a bitch, and this one was just one of many that I was pretty damn confident would turn my world upside down and inside out.

“Where is this coming from?” Jarvis whispered.
“Did that
rich
suckhead say something?” he growled.

I groaned, shaking my head;
that was exactly
why I never said anything
about how I was feeling
.

“No.
He didn’t say anythi
ng at all,” I assured him; that was
only partially a lie
.
Tanis hardly ever shut up, but I actually liked that about him.
From what I saw of him at school
the day before
, he never said anything to anyone, even the other vampires.
If I hadn’t known any better, I would have
pegged him as
being a cute, manic-depressive teenager with severe anti-social behavior
al
issues.
But when
he was
around me, he apparently
couldn’t
shut up and I thought it was adorable and endearing.

I licked my dry lips before speaking next.
“After spending time with Tanis, with a fellow outsider, it made me realize that I don’t deserve to be treated that way.
Jarvis,
I’m a person, a good person...a goddamn saint compared to most of the bitches in the pack and the bro
ads on the Res
.
And I’ve never done anything wrong to anybody, even when I should have, and yet I’m treated like a serial killer junkie
, street trash whore
.
Mom and Dad shouldn’t have to sacrifice, or have their position
s
in our society questioned, because of me.
It’s total bullshit!
They took in a child, a nameless orphan, and raised her as their own, loved her, and gave her the world.
What’s wrong with that?” I demanded, now I was in full out
h
ysterical
bitch-mode.

Jarvis sighed and rolled off of me, then stretched out on the floor before pulling
me into his arms and hugged me tight.
“There’s nothing wrong
with any of that,” he whispered against my hair.
Jarvis wasn’t an emotional person, but my words hit him hard, and tears stained his dark cheeks.
“How long have you felt this way, Sis?” he asked, his voice catching in his throat.

“A long time,” I admitted, my pale, compared to him, cheeks streaked with tears
as well
.
“I don’t mean to upset you, Bro, but I’ve been thinking a lot lately.”

He rested his chin on the top of my head, his breathing shuddering in his chest as he struggled to compose himself.
“What have you been thinking about?” he
asked
after a while
, once
he was
semi-composed
.

I shrugged and wiped his tears away with my thumb.
“Where I came from; who I am
; why I’m so different...why hadn’t
anyone come looking for me?
Seriously, if your child was missing, or thought lost at sea, wouldn’t you look for
them
?”

“Of course, but you already know the answers to most of those questions,” he said with the unmistakable sound of a smile in his voice.
“You came from the
Pacif
i
c
,” he teased.
“You washed up on shore, a little pale angel covered in seaweed.
Who are you?
You are Jay Dee Lightfoot, m
y little sister, the only daughter o
f Reign and Sky Lightfoot, the Princess
of
the
Lhaq'temish
,
and the
white
fur covered point of light in a sea of dark fur.
You’re different because you’re amazing.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes.

“
I think someone g
ot into the Peyote this morning,” I dryly informed him.

Jarvis ignored me, he was really good at doing that when he was trying to make a point.
“Why would you want to be like everyone else?” he
countered
.
“I have no idea why no one looked for you.
I would have searched to
H
ell and back for you, and would still.
It doesn’t matter if you’
re called Jane Doe, Jay Dee, or Unknown Child Number Five.
To me, to us, you’re our little pale princess and always will be, like it or not.”

My bottom lip quivered and I wiped away
the
tears away with the back of my hand.

“Thanks,” I sniveled.

“It’s the least I could do,” he cheerfully said.
“Get dressed and I’ll make you some breakfast before taking you to school.”
He g
ot to his feet and offered me
a hand
up.

“Toast and fruit sounds perfect but
I already have a ride to school
,
” I admitted, biting my bottom lip, looking at the ground.
“Be nice,” I
begged
when he growled.

“Whatever,” he snorted and headed for the door.
“Don’t take too long.
I don’t know how long I can play nice with your
friend
when he comes over,” he hollowly warned.