The look on his face told me he was haunted by what he’d learned when he’d been researching my mom, and my gut twisted. “I’m guessing you found something out about your family while looking into mine?”
“Yeah, but I’m not even sure what it means. This might freak you out a bit, Millie,” he began, “but when I was investigating your family, I found something interesting.”
I was confused and intrigued. “What did you uncover?”
“Well,” he said, scratching the back of his head, “as a baby, the only thing I was found with was a blanket. The initials on it were N.F. For the longest time, we all assumed those initials were mine.”
Tears welled in my eyes, though I worked hard to suppress them. I just realized now, Flint didn’t even know his name. Laurence must have picked it for him when he found the boy based on those initials.
Not wanting to make this about me though, I bit my lip and nodded for him to go on.
“The one good thing about the Tupilaq pack is that they’re an old and well-established family. Because of that, they’ve kept good records. You know, of all their pure blood families so they can lord it over the rest of us,” Flint bitterly explained.
“How did you access them?” The Tupilaqs didn’t seem like the kind of people to share such valuable, not to mention personal, information.
A wry smile split Flint’s lips. “Money has a way of getting you what you want, no matter what side of the bedsheets you’re born on.”
“You bribed someone in the pack to turn them over?” I guessed.
He chuckled. “Yup. Some low-level pack member was tired of being passed over for breeding rights, so he broke for afairly low price. Hey, I can’t help it if wares are horny sons-of-bitches!”
Besides being disgusted that the Tupilaq pack had something called “breeding rights”, I was grateful that Flint had managed to obtain the documents he needed to uncover such an old and important mystery.
“I’m dying to know what you found, but I’m also going to need to know what the fuck “breeding rights” are, because it sounds absolutely barbaric,” I told him with a full body shudder.
“Well, it’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s a really antiquated system by which those at the top of the pack hierarchy get to decide who mates with whom. It’s really taboo nowadays, but old families like the Tupilaqs haven’t given up the practice, though they don’t readily admit they still participate in it. It’s how they control their people. Through fear, intimidation, and, when you’re a really good boy, they reward you in the form of sexual access to a limited supply of females. When you’re subpar or naughty, they starve you of it.”
Fuck, it was worse than I’d even thought. “Okay, that’s disgusting. Do the women get a say in who gets access to them?”
Flint stared at me hard. “What do you think?”
Wow. Just when I thought the Tupilaqs couldn’t get any worse, they somehow sink even lower into the pits of hell.
“Why don’t people rebel against the system if it’s like that?” I wondered aloud.
“It’s all they know. Plus, they’re scared to incur the pack’s wrath. It’s terrifying for a shifter to be on their own. They aren’t wired for it, and community living is all they’re usedto. For a woman, it’s practically a death sentence. If male wares get a hold of an unmated beta, or omega, it can be a brutal existence.”
Ethan had tried to explain this to me when I’d first learned who I was. Even though I was only starting to understand this world, I was beginning to see why mating me had been so damned important. By claiming me, he’d probably saved my life. In return, he’d unfairly inherited my father’s blood feud with a powerful pack. As soon as I got that man alone, I was going to give him a very special thank you gift to show him exactly how grateful I was.
“That makes sense. I can only imagine how hard it must have been for you and your brothers all these years.”
“It wasn’t easy, but we had Laurence. That man saved us all from being lone wolves, a fate worse than death for most shifters.”
God, I’d never thought about it like that. When all this was over, I was going to see that Ethan taught me about our history and what I could do to help Cascia House, the safe haven for so many children who would otherwise be alone in the world. It was the place that had saved my mate from possible death and damnation. There was no way I could ever repay Laurence for what he had done, but I certainly was going to try, for the rest of my life.
Getting back to what Flint had been telling me, I asked, “What did you discover when you paid this guy to get access to pack records?”
“To be honest, I wasn’t even looking for myself. I’d just been looking into Jenny and Osyrius. That’s when I noticed something about your family tree that stood out to me.”
My skin began to tighten, alongside my stomach, with anticipation.
“Jenny has four siblings. Three older brothers and a sister. The oldest boy, Joshua, passed away as an infant. The youngest, Marlon, died in a fight with a rival pack known as the Armingtons about a decade ago. The Armingtons are another old and fucked up family that live in the area and love to remind everyone how far back their lineage goes. Fucking inbred pieces of filth,” Flint griped.
“I can see why you and Ethan decided to leave Alaska,” I noted wryly.
“Yeah,” he said, “I needed a fresh start. Too much history resides back there for me. Too many bad memories involving pack drama. Plus, I wanted to see the world, experience new places and people. That’s partly why I joined the military.”
I wondered what the other part was but didn’t push. Flint had something to get off his chest, and I needed to be patient and hear him out. “What happened to the middle brother?”
