“Wren,” Winnie started, and I looked up into her kind gaze. “If this woman, Alice, truly took you in and cared for you like a daughter, nothing you could have done would make her stop loving or wanting to see you.”
I took a shaky breath in. “It’s a complicated story.”
“It’s actually my fault,” Damien muttered bitterly.
I whipped my head towards him. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m the one who fucked up.”
“What are you talking about?” Rome pressed his lips into a thin line.
“It’s not his fault,” I said, a lump forming in the back of my throat.
Rhett placed his fork down on his plate with a clank. “She’s right. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Why do you think it is?” Winnie asked, her warm gaze directed at her son.
“Wren had a mate before all of us, but he rejected her when the bond formed. The bastard went to Fate Hollow too, and he tried to make her life hell. I’m not even sure what that asshole’s power is, but it doesn’t matter. He’s weak. He approached Wren one day in the forest, and he wanted to talk to her.” Damien’s eyes flashed silver. “He has absolutely no fucking reason to be talking to her.”
“What did you do?” Rome asked.
“I approached him very calmly and told him to stay away from my mate.” Damien’s tone turned innocent.
“Andhowexactly did you convince him to do so?”
“Well, a verbal threat wouldn’t have convinced him. He’s an idiot, so I took his pinky finger.” He huffed, digging his fingers into my thigh more. Pain erupted from it before Damien sucked it away, and I realized he was feeding off it. Between my legs started to ache, wanting the pleasure he promised with pain. “And I might have made him suck it clean of the blood.”
Rhett choked on a piece of his food and launched himself into a coughing fit. “What the fuck did you just say?”
Damien’s parents looked at each other with a little smirk on the corner of their lips. “We taught you right.”
So that was where Damien got his tendencies from.
“I guess it makes sense,” Rhett said, grabbing the glass of water and gulping it down. “You are vengeance demons.”
“Vengeance demons?” I turned to look at them, then glanced at Damien.
“Oh, yes. My parents were a mixture of vengeance and shadow demon,” Winnie explained with love in her eyes. “Damien got the shadow demon gene, and we just love his shadows. When he was a baby, they’d always lash out when he was angry.”
Damien shifted in his seat, and his grip on my leg loosened to where it wasn’t uncomfortable. A sense of discontent shot through the bond from him, and I made a mental note to ask him about it later.
“We feed off vengeance,” Rome started. “Making people pay for the wrong they’ve done. Damien feeds off their pain. We’re quite a trio when you get us together.”
“And just to offer our services, Wren, if you want us to take care of the rejected mate problem, we’d be happy to,” Winnie told me with an edge to her voice.
“There shouldn’t be a Grayson problem anymore,” Rhett said. “Her mates took care of that, and we haven’t heard from him since.”
My heart hammered in my chest as I thought about his expulsion. If he was sent back to the Arctic Wolf Village, I knew whatever Alice was going through wasn’t anything pleasant. Hopefully, her status as an herbalist kept her safe since they didn’t have anyone else in that village that studied the craft.
I sighed, and Rhett’s hand landed on the other thigh. The warmth from both of my mates slammed a calm veil over my heart.
“Are you having any issues controlling the mate shadow?” Rome asked.
A giggle burst out of my lips, and I covered it with my hand. “I’m having so much trouble. I think it has a mind of its own, and I am constantly hurting Damien. I don’t know why, because I love him.”
Rome scratched the back of his head as he picked up his fork. “Well, you know Damien loves pain, right?”
His wife elbowed him in the ribs, causing him to wince.
