I won.
Granny fixed the food situation. She needs me working and when I’m all busted up, I can’t work. She’s also agreed to go back to how things started—fixing up the village and keeping people happy.
I’m pretty well-hated. For a while, she thought punishing villagers, including children, would make me come around. I held firm for the greater good. Even Granny has limits, it seems. Alexander never worked over the children much at all. Spankings and a few bruises. That helped me stay strong. Everyone else has accelerated healing. It helped them to hold out until we got what we needed to live.
I wish I could just leave, but I have nowhere to go. Beatings are still living. Life means mama keeps living through my memories. If I leave, I’ll be killed and so will she. Hopefully it’ll get better.
Her handwriting was hardlylegible by the end, simply ending it with “love you Mama.” She must’ve been deeply in pain, broken nearly beyond repair.
My entire body coiled as I struggled with a rush of rage so extreme I could hardly think. My wolf prowled within me, desperate to go back to that village and level it, kill them all. She was so young. Seventeen, judging by the date. Alone. Hatedbecause of how Granny had singled her out and focused on her. Hated even though she was sacrificing herself—her body and her dignity—for that village. It was disgusting. Heart-wrenching.
The lengths she went to push back against the alpha of the village, to her detriment, was awe-inspiring. Her courage was incredible, her morals noble. She was willing to be beat to death to ensure the people and children—children who weren’t even hers—had what they needed to survive. More, she held strong even when others were dragged into the beatings with her, knowing they all had to stand united, unbending, unyielding, against the tyrant in order to claim their victory. Battle commanders hardly had that clear a purpose, nor leaders of great packs, of kingdoms. And she’d been only seventeen with no experience and no training, just her conscience.
Everything in me wanted to go to her now, pull her from her horse and wrap her in my arms. I wanted to ensure she would never, notever,be harmed like that again. I would protect her, mind, body, and wolf. I would hunt for her and feed her, tend to all her needs, worship her body, make sure she never wanted for another thing as long as she lived.
But that was impossible. I was doing exactly the opposite, now delivering her to a punishment she likely wouldn’t walk away from. Granny had cultivated the problem, and to fix it I had to damn my true mate.
My thoughts and feelings were so fucking conflicted. I hated that I could see both sides of this, not sure which tugged at me more. I had to remember that she’d killed people. She’d saved her village but damned many others. She’d gone through hell—I couldn’t even think about it without the uncontrollable rage—but put many others through hell at the same time and for years to come. She was not innocent. There was a reason I’d been sent to find her.
But gods help me, reading her words, walking in her shoes... I didn’t fucking care. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t even understand it. Beating children so Granny could get her way? Serving people rotten food? Incomprehensible. What kind of monster ran that village?
Also incomprehensible was the change in Aurelia’s outlook. She’d seemed to hate Granny in these passages. It didn’t seem like the same woman who had burst into Granny’s cottage with an axe and faced four powerful shifters without flinching. To know her now, one would assume she had a great love for her benefactor. If nothing else, then loyalty and pride in her job. What had changed? How had Granny worked her back around?
I reached for the next page, waiting to hear my wolf grumble. Instead, he was silent. He wanted to know, too. He wanted to piece all of this together, because right now, my heart went out to young Aurelia. She’d had nobody on her side, but she still held firm for the greater good. She believed that their happiness was a direct result of her performance.
I shook my head, sweating a little, knowing I wouldn’t be delving this deeply into her past if it didn’t affect me directly. Fuck it, though, I had to know. I had to know if she’d been corrupted in the end, or if she’d been maneuvered so thoroughly that she honestly believed the things she had been telling me. It mattered. To me, it mattered. Her life ending might happen all the same, but at least I’d know my true mate wasn’t evil to the core. I wasn’t sure how I’d handle the knowledge that my supposed mirror was as rotten as I’d once feared myself to be.
Chapter 14
Aurelia
“There are forty-two!” I told Hadriel as we wound through the trees. I’d leaned forward against him, my cheek on the back of his shoulder and my hands randomly exploring his jacket. I could feel the threads creating the dicks, giving me something to do as we traveled. I didn’t dare uncurl my arms. A while ago I’d almost abandoned horseagain. It had stepped on a rock that rolled a bit and the horse adjusted gracefully.
My reaction was anything but.
I’d almost truly fallen by the time Hadriel had caught me, gripping my wrist as I half dangled over the side. This time Weston was useful, his hands on my ribs firm but the way he handed me back up to Hadriel gentle. He waited for me to get my leg back over then grip Hadriel tightly, watching me without a word. When I was settled, his acute focus switched to Hadriel.
“What is happening that she keeps falling off?” he asked, his tone scary, made evident by Hadriel curling over and his ass and thighs clenching. I was that close that I could feel it.
Hadriel had stuck up for me. I’d done the same for him.
“Only a fucking idiot would think it was his fault that I can’t stay on a horse,” I said, my anger evident. “I’ve never done thisbefore and I’m traveling without a saddle. It’s terrifying up here. If you’d let me walk as nature intended, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“And what mess is that, exactly?”
“The one where my instincts tell me I’d better save myself from being rolled over by a horse and trying to jump to safety.”
Weston’s expression did not change, his face utterly blank. His eyes started to sparkle, though. “You’re worried about the horse somehow rolling over on you?”
“In the moment it’s really hard to tell what, exactly, I am afraid of, actually. But yes, that would be terrible.”
“And you think falling off the side, onto the ground at its feet, would somehow prevent this horror?”
“Look, I don’t know. This horse could decide I’m a nuisance and buck me clear off. I’m ready to just do it a favor and get off by myself before that happens.”
He stared at me for a long moment before shaking his head. “Please don’t. Hadriel is an excellent and experienced horseman. His horse is well-handled and well used to that handling. You are in no safer hands. Trust him. I wouldn’t have put you up there if I didn’t think you’d be safe.”
Hadriel straightened up, clearly preening. He’d liked the praise. Job well done.
