Forbidden Alliance: A Werewolf's Tale (Forbidden Alliance Trilogy) (65 page)

“Talk to me, Duckie,”
Tanis
whispered.

“I...I...I need my brother,” I whispered, and his face dropped.

Thankfully
,
Tanis
didn’t press
the matter
and thumbed through the
Bluetooth connected
p
honebook on the digital display in the dash and pressed SEND when he found MONGREL...something I would address later.

After th
ree rings, the
other side
picked up.

“What happened?” Jarvis demanded, his voice echoing throughout the SUV’s interior.

“I...I...killed three people,” I stammered and started crying
again
.

“Sis?”
Jarvis
choked. “Count Suckula, what happened?”
he
stammered. “Is she okay?”

“Mr. Jarvis,” Tanis greeted. “There was an incident at the fair and the Spottedhorses demanded atonement for
your
indiscretion.”

“Shit!” he hissed. “I knew I should have killed all of those bastards. Is she okay?”

Tanis looked at me and sighed. “Not in the least.”

“Jay, it isn’t your fault. It’s
us or them
,” he reassured me.

“I know,” I whispered.
“But still-”

“The others took care of it,” Tanis interrupted. “
Miss Jay Dee spilt
no blood.”

Jarvis snorted. “But she ordered it,”
he surmised.
“Jay
has
no blood trophies
, and she detests those who boast of theirs...she’s a really shitty werewolf.”

“Hey!” I complained and he chuckled; only Jarvis could effortlessly pull me from hysterics and u
nfathomable despair to completely forgetting about the guilt I was harboring. “Not cool, Bro.”

He sighed. “I know, but still. Look at your arm.”

Of course I did as he asked, I usually did.

“What do you see?” he whispered.

I smiled. “
Smooth, light tan skin
,” I admitted.

“Just because you ordered it, Sis, doesn’t mean that their blood is on your hands. P
lease don’t...I’m sorry that I caused this.”

“Did you give him the gun?” I countered and absently
started playing
with Tanis’ ring, sliding
it back and forth on the chain while my fingers
spun it around on my little finger.

“They pulled a gun on you?”
he s
narled.
“Those bastards! They just started a goddamn war.”

I rolled my eyes. “Did you miss everything I just say? They are
dead.
Who are you going to fight? Ghosts?”

“That isn’t funny,” he hissed before chuckling. “Okay, that’s funny. What’d Mom and Dad say?”

I shrugged.

After a moment of silence, Jarvis groaned. “Dude, did she seriously just shrug?”

“Yes,” Tanis said, his eyes moving over my face many times.

“She’s so damn predictable,” Jarvis sang.

“And she’s sitting right here,” I sang in return.

“Why didn’t you just thrall them into shooting each other, Count Suckula?” Jarvis asked. “Or, at the very least, mess with their heads
so they’d only throw it in five-
hundred pound bitches. That would have been hilarious.” And he roared with laughter.

I
laughed
as well, but Tanis found no amusement in it.

“
Mythical creatures are immune to thrall,”
Tanis said, his eyes studying mine
closely
.
“It is a means, according to lore, to prevent the superior race from trying to take control
of
the mythical world.”

“
What’s wrong?
”
I mouthed.

Tanis
shook his head.

“Sis?” Jarvis said.

“Yeah,
I’
m here,” I said, looking at Tanis curiously; something was on his mind. “
I’m
sorry for bugging you so e
arly in the morning over there, Bro...
I miss you.”

“I miss you too, Sis.
I’ll be home for Christmas before you know it, and then you’
ll be trying to get rid of me before I even unpack
.”

“
Don’
t flatter
yourself
,” I mumbled; I hated him being gone.

Jarvis snorted, the way he did when
he was trying to be cool and sav
e face in front of the guys. “
Count Suckula, if you let anything happen to her, I’ll figure out a way to kill you, and unlike my baby sister, I
have blood
trophies.”

“I will not
let her out of my sight, Mr. Jarvis,” he assured him.

“I love you, Bro,” I whispered.

“I love you, too. I’ll call you tonight,” he assured me before hanging up.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I whispered, unable to look at him.

Tanis
too
k my hand in his and kissed it
. “I am simply deep in
thought
,” he assured me.

I huffed and nuzzled my face against the side of his neck. “You lie nearly as bad as I do,” I grumbled under my breath and continued to
preoccupy myself
with his ring. “When you’re ready to tell me, will you?”

He kissed my head. “Of course, Duckie.”

For some reason, I didn’t believe him.

The soft knock at the door was followed b
y
a
gray mist that crept from under
it. The mist
swirled
along
the flo
or
and
halfway across the room before M
um solidified.

“How is she, my precious one?” she whispered
,
her eyes moving over the face of the girl using my lap as a pillow as she softly purred in her sleep.

I shook my head, not entirely sure what t
o say, and continued caressing Jay Dee’s
hair
.

“Her parents requested that she stay the night,” Mum continued, taking a seat in the chair across from the couch where Jay Dee fell asleep.

I nodded.

“My precious one, please, talk to me,”
Mum
pleaded.

“They were
going to kill her,” I whispered, choking on the words.

“Yes, they were. However, they did not,” she reminded me.

I looked up at her.
“Only because she told them to stop.”

She cocked an eyebrow.

“Mum, something is…can mythical creatures be thralled?” I asked pointblank.

The response I was hoping for, surprise, wasn’t the one I got.

She forced a smile and merely shrugged.

I nodded. “
Very well
, who are these people?” I asked, handing her the
photo
I had taken from Jay Dee’s house the night of her birthday.

Mum reluctantly took the
photo
from me and her forced smile instantly fell and tears
flooded
her eyes when she looked at it. “Where did you get this?” she whispered
, her hand covering her mouth
.

“It was hidden at Miss Jay Dee’s house, behind a picture of a young woman
with a striking resemblance to
Elderess Lightfoot. I recognize four of the six in the picture, y
et the other two have haunted me
mind since first seeing
the
photo. Mum, who are they?”

“They...”
she
stammered, her dark cheeks stained with tears. “The man is Olaf and the woman is Aesa.”

Those names were vaguely familiar.

“They are Miss Jay Dee’s parents, are they not?” I asked pointblank.
“She has Olaf’s strong jaw, chin and brows, and Aesa’s cheekbones, eyes, lips and long neck.”

Mum shook her head
and shrugged
. “I can neither confirm nor deny, because I honestly do not
know. H
owever,
I will attest that
the necklace Miss Jay Dee wears is the same as the
one
in the picture
around Aesa’s neck
,” she
pointed out, though I couldn’t see the necklace in the picture so obviously Mum knew more than she was letting on.

“Those werewolves were going to kill her but they stopped
because she told them to stop
,” I whispered, trying to believe the
simplicity of the
words myself as I said them
aloud
, but they were anything simplistic
. “That is not possible…is it?”

“You are obviously asking because you have seen it firsthand.”

“I
believe I
have.”

“It is her genetic makeup, my precious one. Her mother was able to use compulsi
on on werewolves
, yet she vary rarely did because Aesa was a firm believer in freewill.”

My eyes widened. “
So you do
know who her biological mother is?” I choked.

“Was,” she instantly corrected and wiped the tear
s
from her eye
s
.

“Bloody hell,” I choked, looking back to the young woman
purring in her sleep o
n my lap
,
and my mind started doing the math.
“That unimaginable depression
that took you
…” my words trailed off.

Mum nodded. “Coincides with her birth. My sister in heart, the Queen of the Shadow Wolves, died on the night that you
ng woman took her first breath. I swear to you, I did not know, not until I saw her necklace
that night
.
I had suspected when I first saw her,
the
resemblance
was striking
...
I will admit that I thought my mind had finally snapped because of the approaching anniversary of my sister’s death...however, Miss Jay Dee
did not have the mark of the crown.
It
warms
my he
art with joy to know that Aesa and Olaf’s daughter, my niece,
is alive and well, however, I am flooded
with anger and rage
because
your father kept it from me.
There is nothing I would not give to have been there to see her...to raise my niece, however, I cannot disagree with your father’s decision in the Lightfoots; they are wonderful wolves with more love and compassion than those three times their age.
”