Eventually, Kieran’s tears ceased and his crying subsided, but Logan kept him tight to his chest, unwilling to let go because he was afraid his mate would disappear like so many others in his life had done. He thought about what his mate had said, and it explained so much, but there was still something he was afraid to ask Kieran about, yet he knew exactly what his mate was referring to.
Logan waited. Putting off what he knew was coming, he was hoping he could be as honest as his mate had been with him. Finally, he said, “Mo anan cara,thank you for your honesty, and I intend to be just as honest, but first know this…I do not want the claiming reversed; however, you might once you hear what I have to tell you. But before I start, there is something I must ask you.” Logan held his breath until he felt Kieran nod. Then he exhaled and asked the question he knew could make his mate walk away from him.
“You said you ‘pushed aside’ all of your doubts about me…what were your doubts?”
Kieran sighed, then answered, “You have a wall higher and thicker than I ever believed was possible. I don’t know why it’s there, but it keeps a part of you hidden from me. I’m not sure you even know about it but if you do, then why won’t you let me inside it? At first, I was sure you would love me as I love you with your whole heart and soul, but then I began to doubt it. So, what should I do? Give myself to a mate who can only offer me crumbs, and be satisfied with them? Before I kissed you, I planned to talk about it with you so I could understand it, but when I felt your lips and tasted you, those plans flew out of my head, including my need to be loved by all of you. When we exchanged bites, I guess my decision was made…I would settle for whatever you wanted to give me.”
Logan closed his eyes as a shield against the sadness coming from Kieran’s voice and intense pain filled his body, knowing he was hurting his mate. He couldn’t do it anymore…not to Kieran and not to himself. So, he began to speak.
Chapter 24
“Mo anan cara,”Logan said, his voice cracking with emotion, “I know what you mean, and at first I thought I could be satisfied with giving only a small part of me, while protecting the rest, but if you hear nothing else I say today, hear this…allof me lovesallof you.” Pausing for a minute to put his thoughts in order, Logan then continue, “Let me tell you about my wall and how I built it brick by brick. I’m Jackson’s twin but I was second born so my father focused only on my brother because he’d be the next Alpha. That was both good and bad. Jackson got most of my father’s attention while I got the scraps. It sounds bad, but it really wasn’t, because my father was a harsh taskmaster and drove Jackson to tears more times than I can count.
“I remember my brother walking into our bedroom, barely making it inside the door before collapsing on the floor in tears. I would run over to him, hugging him, telling him I loved him; that he was the best Alpha ever. I know it sounds like I was doing all the giving but it wasn’t that way. Jackie did the same for me when bullies would make fun of me for being small…I was much smaller than my twin…or when my father made nasty comments about my love of art. My father’s voice still echoes in my head today whenever I pick up a pencil.”
Logan paused, distracted by the designs Kieran was finger drawing on his chest, trying to picture them in his head.
“And…?” prompted Kieran, eager to hear more about his mate.
“I learned to stay in the background to avoid angering him and I gave up my art and everything else he found fault with. As a child, I just wanted his approval, so Ichanged myself to conform to what I thought he wanted. I learned how to fight by hiding in the shed and peeking out as my father taught Jackie. I did everything to prove to my dad how ‘man’ enough I was. Dammit, I was an Alpha and I made sure the world knew. But Jackie was always there to back me up because I was a terrible fighter.”
Hearing Kieran’s laughter brought a smile to Logan’s face as he chuckled remembering how he was always getting his ass whipped. “I spent my childhood coming home with scrapes, cuts, bruises…you name it. But I always shifted before my father could see them because I was ashamed of how big a failure I was as an Alpha. In the end, it didn’t matter because it never changed my father’s opinion of me. And I ended up being miserable because I couldn’t do my art. Then it happened…the one thing my father never expected…Jackson and I realized we both liked male wolves.”
“We filled our room with posters of naked men, muscles oiled and gleaming for the camera. Spent hours fantasizing about having sex with them while jerking off to those posters. We worked out a system so the other would know when the other was ‘napping’…that was our code word in front of our parents and siblings. Looking back, I don’t think we fooled our dad but we were able to hide being gay for a while. Until the day our father walked in, looking for Jackie and found me in the middle of a hand job moaning the name of a guy in one of the posters I had above my bed.”
“You don’t have to go on,” said Kieran, sensing the distress in his mate.
“No, I need to finish this,” Logan said. “Well, my father dragged me from my bedroom down the stairs to the kitchen where my mother and Dakota were. I stood therein front of my mother with my dick hanging out because he forbade me to put it away. He told me he wanted to show everyone what a small dick a faggot had. When he turned his back on me, screaming at my mother about how she gave him a fucking queer for a son, Dakota snuck over behind him, tucking my dick in and zipping up my pants. I was so mortified all I wanted was for the earth to swallow me up, so I could get out of the hell I was in.
“Jackie heard the shouting and came running into the kitchen. When he realized what was happening, he threw himself at my father, hitting him with his fists, screaming at him that he was gay too, and whatever was going to happen to me also had to happen to him. When my father finally understood what Jackie was saying, he stopped…stopped yelling, threatening me, and berating my mother. He turned and gave me a look filled with hatred and loathing before stomping out of the kitchen. That’s when I started building my wall.”
“Ohmacushla, please no more! This is too painful for you,” Kieran cried, wrapping his arms around Logan.
His mate was right, the memories had been buried so deep behind his wall he’d forgotten the pain of them. But Logan finally saw why he had to bring them out into the open—so they could no longer control him. “Mo anan cara,it’s okay. I must. After that, my father ignored me but went after Jackie with a vengeance, trying to force him to be straight. Night after night, when my brother would finally be allowed to go to bed, I saw how my father’s abuse was affecting him. My warm, fun-loving brother was becoming distant, cold and silent.
“Then I realized why Jackie came to bed so late. My father was waiting until I fell asleep, so I couldn’t contaminate him with my gayness. So I went to bedearlier…soon my bedtime was shortly after dinner ended. I think my mom knew what I was doing and why, because one day she gave my after-dinner chores to Cody and Colton, encouraging me to go to bed as soon as I wanted to. While that helped…Jackie came to bed earlier…it didn’t change who he had become.”
Looking up into the tree, Logan remembered how guilty he felt for being the cause of Jackson’s problems. Sighing, he continued, “This went on for a while until it came to a head with Cody, Colton and Carson. They came out one night at dinner, announcing they, too, were gay. My father was apoplectic with rage. He rose and crooked his finger at me, wanting me to follow him, and as I stood, Jackie also did, demanding my father stop blaming me. My brother was dragged from the room while screaming obscenities at my father and taken out to the shed where he was tied down and whipped with a belt. When my father finished, he told Jackie that from now on, all my punishments would be given to him.
“When he came back to the table, my father refused to let any of us go to Jackie, insisting we finish our dinner. My mother defied him and left to take care of him. When we came home from school the next day, all our bags were packed and waiting on the porch and my mom and grandpa loaded them into his van. My grandma held a shotgun on my father until they were finished; then she got in and we drove off. We stayed with them until the end of the school year.”
Logan closed his eyes, as the pain pushed against his wall, widening the crack Kieran had already made in it, knowing he had to continue if he was ever going to be the mate Kieran deserved. “When we got home that summer, my father was different and never said another word about any of us being gay even when Dakota and Zane announced they were. He ignored me totally,wouldn’t even speak to me but it was the complete opposite with my twin. My father criticized Jackie about everything and nothing at all. Day after day, my father would cut my brother to the bone with his comments, but he never laid a hand on any of us.
“By the time the next summer rolled around, my brother was a shadow of what he’d been and my mother saw it and stepped in to save him. Over my father’s objections, she sent Jackie to spend the summer with our grandparents. When I found out he was going, I pleaded with her to send me with him, but she refused. She told me Jackie needed help, and I needed to stay home to help with my siblings. I was devastated. We’d been together since before we were born so when he left, it was like someone had cut half my heart out.”
Logan stopped, overcome with emotion. Then after calming down, he continued. “One day after my brother left, my father sent for me and as I walked into his office I got nervous. I didn’t know why I was there, but it soon became apparent. In the coldest voice I ever heard, my father began to explain the legal action he had taken, the consequences, and what it meant from then on. Listening, I felt like it was someone else my father was talking about, but when he handed me the papers to sign, it became very real. My father was disowning me. He would allow me to live with my mother and siblings and provide for my schooling, but as soon as I graduated I was to leave and never return.”
Falling silent, Logan thought back to that summer long ago and how it changed him—and not in a good way. “Jackie returned at the end of the summer and from that point on, whatever my father said, my brother would ignore. For the first few weeks, I waited for the hammer to fall, but it never did. I once asked my twin what happened because I wanted to know what had given himback the life he’d had before all this happened. He merely said he’d been taught how to handle it.”
“Later on, I found that my grandparents threatened my father with taking his pack away if he ever hurt any of us again. They were my mother’s parents, very wealthy, and my father knew they had the means to carry out their threat. In honor of them, Jackson named Daniel after our grandfather. It was a lucky break for Cody, Colton, Carson, Dakota and Zane. They never suffered as Jackson and I had about being gay. Later on, as I grew up, I realized my mother, who loved my father and was his Fated Mate, made a choice to protect her children even if it caused her mate pain. But she suffered for it the rest of her life.”
“She must have been an amazing mother,” Kieran said softly.
“Yes, she was,” answered Logan, getting lost again in his memories. Rousing himself, he continued. “While my brother benefitted from his summer with our grandparents, I didn’t handle it well at all. By the end of the summer, I was the silent, reserved one, never speaking unless I had to, always standing apart, making sure no one would or could get close enough to hurt, and I vowed never to leave Jackie again. I didn’t know how I was going to keep that vow, since my father had disowned me, but I put it aside to deal with later.”
Logan lapsed into silence remembering how afraid he felt when Jackson announced he’d found his Fated Mate and his shame at first thinking about not wanting it to happen. All those long-buried emotions were now coming to the surface and Logan wasn’t sure if he could handle them, but he kept going. “When my brother saw how introspective I’d become, he tried to help. but by that time, I didn’t want any. I had grown over the summer andwas now taller than Jackie, so no one bullied me again. I did my chores and then retreated to my room where I could lose myself in art. Then, one day I discovered interior design and I was hooked. Nobody knew about my new love except my twin and I swore him to secrecy. I wasn’t about to have that tainted by my father.
“I picked the same college he picked, made sure I enrolled in as many of the same classes, and roomed with him. No one would ever separate us again. Throughout all this, I just kept building the wall, burying my anger, helplessness and hatred toward my father. At times, it overwhelmed me, but Jackie always knew when it was happening because he’d whisk me away somewhere to soothe my troubled soul.”
