“Why are you questioning this now, after all of these years?” Gerad finally muttered. “Why can’t you let the ghosts of the past rest?”
I snorted. “They’ve never rested for me. I suffered every single day for what my father did, and I wanted to ask every damn day for years, but if I even thought about it, I was punished. Now I’m finally in a position where most shifters would think twice about hurting me. So I’m finally asking the damn questions.”
“What about Simone?” Mika choked out, reminding us that we’d been heading to Torin for her. I hadn’t forgotten, of course, but killing two birds with one stone sounded like a great plan.
“You can drive and talk,” I reminded them. “We have plenty of time.”
We didn’t. It was at most a ten-minute drive out to the pack house, probably less at this time of the day, but they got my point.
“Your father was a complicated man,” Gerad said as he set the car in motion again. “Always searching for answers, even when no one asked the question. Right around your fifth birthday, he told everyone that you created a fire in the yard. Using just your hands. No matches. No accelerant. Not even a beam of sunlight.”
Mika cleared her throat. “There was evidence of a little fire that day, but it was determined to be from other pups playing with a lighter.”
What?Seriously, what?
I must have looked unhinged as I stared between them.
Gerad nodded. “Yes, it was investigated, but Lockhart couldn’t let it go. In his later years, he started to believe that you were not his child. He said that you had dark energy, that you’d turned your mother into an alcoholic, tainting her soul. Victor refused to indulge him in his insane ramblings, and your father grew more distant and unstable until eventually, he attacked.”
“That… makes no sense,” I finally choked out.
My father had been a loving figure in my life. At least in my memories, he had been. Were those early days of my life covered in a rose-colored sheen due to the unconditional love a child had for their parent?
Mika broke through my inner turmoil. “Lockhart had been trying to get Victor to use alpha coercion on all the shifters who’d been present at your birth. But we’d all been observing you as a child, and there was no sign of anything untoward. You were a normal, happy, sweet little girl.”
“His request was denied.” Gerad confirmed his mate’s story.
I wasn’t sure what answers I’d expected to get after so many years of wondering, but it really hadn’t been this. I’d never expected that the attack had been about me. Not for one second. I’d believed I’d been punished all of these years due to my father’s actions, but maybe there had been so much more to it. Maybe some of it had been my fault? Maybe Victor had hated me just a little extra because part of him had wondered if my father had been right.
“My father called me ‘Sunny’ because of my hair. Callahan hair,” I murmured, half-caught in the past.
Mika shot me a commiserating stare. “He called you ‘Sunny’ for more reason than one. He said you had the power of a burning light inside you. A demon power.”
I was floored, trying to merge this new information with the life I remembered in my head. The life before my father’s death had been the golden age, but maybe it had simply been Jaxson’s presence that had made it brighter. Maybe I’d never really had parents who’d cared.
“Has anyone ever given a proper single fuck about me?” My words were a sad, woe-is-me whisper, meant more for me than any other ears.
But, of course, one of the assholes in this car witnessing my breakdown had to answer. “Simone has always truly loved you,” Gerad said gruffly. “No matter how much it hurt her or our family, she would never turn her back on you.”
That knocked some sense into me, and I pulled myself from the dark thoughts that had been wrapping around my mind. “We have to find her,” I said, the emptiness falling from my voice as determination filled me. Fuck my parents and their bullshit that had been apparently ruining my life since birth. They would get no more energy from me.
It was time for me to focus on Simone. I had to save my one true friend and family, no matter the cost.
My palm itched and my chest fluttered at the thought, and this time, I was going with that being a positive sign that I was finally on the right path.
9
The rest of the drive to the pack house was done in silence. No doubt they were feeling sorry forpoor little Mera,who was once again getting kicked in the guts even as the alpha-mate.
Despite my best effort to not think about my father, two words lingered just a little longer.
Demon power?
My father had thought I had a demon power. Were demons even a real thing? I mean, outside of the Shadow Beast, who was often referred to as the demon of the shifters, there was no other reference to them in our lore.
Staring down at my hands, I tried to remember ever setting anything alight. Had I been a secret pyro as a child, with a flame obsession that had scared my father to the point he’d truly believed me to be a creature from the depths of hell?
“Could my memory loss be related to what happened to my father?”
