“It’s an awful time for all of this to happen, I know,” Annabel said, sounding so sad and reserved as she turned back to her sons.“You two should be on the election trail right now, working on your political ambitions.And yet, they did this, maybe just to hurt us.Maybe just to hurt you,” Annabel said, with all of the bravado of a seasoned Shakespearean actress.“You understand, don't you?They hate us.They always have.”
“But, Dad,” Jonathan began slowly, his voice low and incredulous, almost like he didn’t believe it.He had to be the smaller one out of the two, Shawn concluded, the one who actually used his brain half the time instead of counting on his mother to do the thinking for him.
“I have no idea where he is.I have no idea what's happened to him,” Annabel said, and through the small gap in the closet door, Shawn could see her raise her hand to her breast, her head shaking, and her face twisted downward into a frown that she normally wouldn't bother to wear, largely because Annabel feared such normal things as aging.“They heard about us, about your grandfather and the family that I came from, and they came for him,” Annabel proclaimed, shaking her head once more.“The love of my life,” Annabel said as if anyone could believe that.
Anyone who wasn't a hopeless mother's boy who had been raised with their head practically to her bosom for the majority of their younger years, believing everything that came out of her mouth without question and looking at her like the sun shined out of her ass.Shawn realized why exactly the young men would choose to believe their mother over common sense as he had to physically restrain himself from smacking his head against the door.Unlike their sister, they had no reason to believe that their mother was capable of cruelty.Any harsh comments that they saw aimed at their wives or sisters, they had probably just shrugged off, proclaiming that anything that didn't happen to them wasn't really a problem in the end.
“Fucking self-centered rich people,” Shawn murmured to himself as Annabel began to spin her tale, carefully excluding little details about the past year as she spoke to her sons, her voice low and mournful, but if you were smart enough to just listen to her, you would realize that there wasn't really a true waver in her tone.Annabel was fighting off the urge to laugh.
After all, knowing the true story of the situation, it was funny, wasn't it?It must have been funny to her, the fact that she could play it off so easily because Joseph had been so uncommunicative.
The story, from Annabel's imagined perspective, took place over the past year.It was a story that began sometime around the time when her youngest daughter had gotten engaged.Her husband, who had always been a little distant and struggled with being faithful, had begun to drift further and further away from her around that time.He had begun to act like a stranger in her eyes, spending all this time Googling women whom she didn't know.He was engaging in the nightlife, going out to clubs, meeting strangers, and having affairs.
But, while he had always been unfaithful… “He always came back,” Annabel said with tears in her eyes, somehow managing to force herself to sob as she recounted the tale to her sons.Apparently, sometime after he had started going out, she had noticed something different about him, a certain strain to his behaviors.He was drifting more and more away from her; she started to believe that he was keeping a mistress of some sort, so just days before all of this had happened, the two of them had engaged in passionate intercourse.
Pro tip: if you want your children not to listen to a story that you are telling, mention having sex with their father of all people.It tends to make them less likely to pay attention to the details.
Annabel was a master of her craft as she spun the yarn, painting the story of a diligent wife who was waiting for a chance to be alone with her husband after so many years.She made it seem like Joseph had gotten caught up with the wrong crowd, getting involved with strangers and eventually bringing one of them to their house.At their house, they had noticed evidence of Annabel's former life, a life that she had insisted to her sons that she had left far behind.The life of a hunter.
They always knew that she had been a hunter, that shifter existed in that their bloodline had been the one to kill them when they got out of hand, but Annabel claimed at that moment to be so soft-hearted and kind that she had chosen to leave the life behind, knowing that she wasn't meant to kill others.
Despite the fact that she had always had a sort of cruel, domineering sort of way about her, she hardly ever seemed to care about anyone else.Her sons, of course, had seen a different side to her: a caring, dedicated mother.One who made it clear that she loved them above all else.Of course, they were prone to believe her tale.Of course, they were prone to believe that their father had been led into a relationship with a shifter woman, only for them to capitalize on his connection to Annabel.The shifter woman had earned his trust, finding her way into their house and into his bed.
And poor Annabel?Who had dedicated so many years of her life to her loving husband?Why, she was forced to sleep separate from him once more, forever wishing that he would love her.Truthfully, if you were stupid, it very likely could bring a tear to your eye.
If you were smart, however, you would begin to wonder if there were holes in her story, like the fact that said mistress had been led into his office of all places and then decided to abduct him from there, not the bedroom where they had shared far too many dalliances.Annabel had insisted that this was because the shifters were down on their luck; they needed money above all else, and therefore, they had decided to try and rob their family blind.
“And right before election season,” Annabel said, tears still spilling from her eyes and her voice still filled with concern.“It is lucky that I have an app installed on my phone to tell me when there are large withdrawals from our bank accounts.Otherwise, I would have never been able to save the family fortune.”
A hero, Shawn noted with a single raised brow.Annabel was trying to paint herself as a kind, selfless hero.He would have laughed if the situation didn't seem so dire.
“But, alas,” Annabel said, bringing her wrist up to her head and feigning a large, overly exaggerated sigh.“Over twenty-seven years,” she breathed, her bosom heaving with the very move.“And it all comes to an end.He sends me the divorce paperwork, and yet I note that the majority of it isn't written in his hand.It is my only hope,” Annabel said with a cry, “I held onto it night after night,” she proclaimed, and Shawn mentally fucking groaned to himself because, truthfully, the divorce papers weren’t in Joseph’s hand.
He knew that for a fact, largely because Joseph had been overly lazy in getting them signed and sorted out.He himself had been the one to recommend that Joseph reach out to one of the shifters on the compound, who are far more experienced with law, and ask them to fill out the paperwork for him if it was such a bother.Joseph had it sightedly agreed, eager to be done with his ex-wife, and did not have to think about the situation anymore.But it was that small slip-up that led to Annabel being able to capitalize on the situation.
“They've taken him,” Annabel said for the umpteenth time, making sure to make it clear to her sons exactly who it was who had taken him.“The Pantera and the Pride, two powerful shifter packs in this side of California, they've taken your poor father, and they've decided to milk him for all that he's worth, obviously having some idea of the vast fortune that we own, and seeking to line their own pockets,” Annabel said, and Shawn couldn’t help it, he growled.
He knew exactly what she was doing.He knew exactly who she was setting up.She was going to make it seem like El had been the one to lead the pride to them.Like their sister was responsible for the kidnapping of their father, and like Joseph had been brainwashed into loving his true mate.She was going to capitalize on the situation that she currently found herself in and re-spin it to suit her needs.
And those needs?
Shawn quickly realized exactly what was going on as beside him, Marcus and Trip struggled to maintain their composure and not give in to their beasts and leap into a shift.
After all, it was also transparent to him, having been with the hunters before.He knew how they worked; he knew how they used the world to their advantage.They had gotten Annabel into her position as Joseph's bride in order to capitalize on his connections and his capital.But that wasn't enough.Of course, it wasn't enough.Joseph was a disappointment; Joseph had failed to do the one thing that so many men in his family before him had managed to do.
Because it wasn’t just in the world of investment that the Forsythes had made their fortune—no, they were politicians, they made connections in the political sphere, and they pushed for laws that benefited them.Joseph was supposed to do that, and Joseph was supposed to be Annabel's in.
But he never had.Joseph had never had an interest in politics.He had never wanted to expand his power far enough.Yes, he had run for a few offices; yes, he had won, but he never seemed intent on holding on to them forever.He couldn't make a presidential run or anything like that.And so, Annabel was left to rely on all that she had left.Her two sons.
And the daughter, then Joseph had thrown all of her plans out the window.Shawn realized it with a jolt—the fact that Annabel had probably known immediately what El was and wasn’t protecting her for nothing.No, she was protecting her because, at the end of the day, Annabel had a plan, and she was going to use El for it.
From the very beginning, El had been Annabel's backup plan, the break in case of emergency acts hidden behind glass.And now, as the world went tumbling down around Annabel, she was forced to use the one tool that she hadn't yet utilized.It made sense, a horrifyingly large amount of sense.
As did the terrified yet quietly reserved looks that sat on both of Annabel’s boys’ faces, the two of them very obviously having never thought that it would come to this.Sure, they very likely believed their mother when she told them that she was a hunter, but Annabel was probably able to produce mountains of proof in order to show them that shifters were real.After all, her boys were hardly the first people that she had to convince to enter the hunter’s fold.Recruitment was done by everyone.
But Shawn had a feeling that Annabel had purposefully shielded the two from the realities of being a hunter if only because they were actually her children, and for them, she had a single maternal bone in her body.One that she could never seem to muster up for her daughter.But now, there was no point in protecting them anymore.Everything that Annabel had was slowly slipping from her fingertips, and even if she wasn't concerned with the future of the Drew family and their connections to the rest of the world, with the hunter oath and their pledge should defeat as many shifters as possible, Annabel was a prideful woman, and she wouldn't see all of life's luxury slip from between her fingertips.
She was going to convince her sons to kill El’s pride first, and then, at the end of the day, when that large portion of her plan was done and Persia was gone, then she would have them kill El as well, writing the young woman off as a casualty, one who had been kidnapped and brainwashed by the shifters.Shawn could practically see it in the back of his mind.
