Katya
I stayed in my room. I heard my father pledge to Ezra and felt the pack link snap into place through the bond. I couldn’t face him, I could barely look at him after everything I have learned.
Ezra, I could tell, is angry. I directly went against what he told my father, and I could tell he was holding back from having a go at me, trying to calm himself down. It made me feel guilty, but he is my father, and I understand his need for revenge, his need to make Jackson pay for everything he had done.
I am worried about going to war with Jackson. I can’t escape the vision the Moon Goddess gave me, I couldn’t imagine ever picking anyone over him. What could be worth sacrificing a mate?
A knock on the door makes my stomach clench. Was it time to pay already? The door creaks open, and relief about knocks me over when Mateo steps in and not Ezra.
“On a scale of one to ten, how mad is he?” I ask nervously.
“11,” Mateo answers with a shrug.
“I should have kept my mouth shut,” I sigh, and he comes over, sitting next to me on the bed.
“He is just seeing them go. Andrei says he will be back tomorrow. Same as your father.” I sigh, great, now I will have to see him again. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but maybe speak with your father, babe, you only get one.”
“He lied and cheated my mother out of her mate and abandoned his son,” I growl. Mateo nods before gripping my knee.
“There are two sides to every story, your mother did some terrible things, Kat, and you forgave her, I just don’t want you spending so much time hating him that you forget to love him too. Nothing worse than waking up one day, and they are gone, and realizing that you spent so much time hating them, and the only person you hurt was yourself.”
“You want me to just forgive him?” I ask him, and he shrugs.
“That’s up to you. You don’t have to forgive him for what he did, forgive him for yourself, that’s why it is called forgiveness, only you can give it when you have been wronged, only you choose who deserves it. Nobody can make you do it, you choose that when you realize you have no time for hate, or to stress over what you can’t change. Forgiveness isn’t about forgetting what they did, it allows you to move on, though, freeing you from the hate of what they did.”
I think over his words before glancing at him. Who did he hate but never forgave? Who filled him with regret?
“You wanna know who, don’t you? I am an open book Kat, I don’t mind you being in my head. I am not ashamed of anything in my past,” he offers, and I nod, “But if you don’t feel like snooping, I can just tell you?”
“Then who do you regret not forgiving?” I ask him.
“My biological mother. Andrea was my real mother. She raised me, but my mom was cold, distant, not a motherly bone in her body. No maternal instinct.”
“Then why do you regret not forgiving her?”
“Because when she died, I didn’t even cry, didn’t shed one tear for her. She was never cruel or hurt me, it was just like I didn’t exist. It wasn’t until I got older that Andrea told me more about her. She had me when she was sixteen, though that is not an excuse, there are some wonderful young mothers, but after speaking to Andrea and learning about my mother’s past, her parents were the same.”
“But wouldn’t that make her want to change, not be like them?” I ask.
“You’d think, but still, I at least had a loving father. Both her parents hated her and were cruel to her, I got a medical chart once of hers, and my mother was abused from when she was a baby, so many medical reports stated abuse. Hence, it made sense that she didn’t know how to love me when she was never shown love herself by her parents, she was blamed for her parent’s divorce, which is obviously unheard of with mates. Andrea told me my mother was the same, she thought I would come between her and my father. Genetic upbringing, I call it, she turned out exactly like her parents, hated her child because that was all she was shown, doesn’t make up for what she did, but made it easier to understand why she was like that. Once I realized it all, I felt guilty for blaming her.”
I sighed, I still didn’t agree with his mother treating him like that, but he forgave her. Could I really find it in myself to forgive anyone else?
“Your parents were good to you, Kat, until all this went down. Your father cherished you every day. You don’t have to agree with the things he has done, but maybe you could understand his reason for doing them,” Mateo suggests. “I am not asking you to forgive him. That is your decision, just make sure you aren’t hurting yourself by thinking you are punishing him when really you might be punishing yourself,” Mateo gets to his feet.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“Ezra is back,” he points out, and the back door opens and closes.
“Argh, great,”
Mateo chuckles. “Chicken.”
“I am not afraid to say I am,” I agree before hearing Ezra walking up the steps. I duck in the walk-in, hiding amongst the clothes.
Ezra enters, his scent wafting through the room, and Mateo stands in the doorway of the walk-in, leaning on the door frame. “Is she hiding from me?” Ezra asks Mateo, who is laughing his ass off at me.
“Not very well either I can see her feet,” Mateo says before the clothes are ripped apart, Ezra stares down at me.
“Any reason you are hiding in the closet?” he questions, arching an eyebrow at me.
“Maybe she has finally decided to come out of it,” Mateo pipes behind him. I glare at him while Ezra smiles.
“No, Mateo, I am not coming out of the closet, and I was hiding from you,” I confess to Ezra.
“I can see that, but why?”
“Because you are mad at me for going against you,” I bite my lip. He presses his lips in a line, and he is still pissed off.
“That doesn’t mean you hide from me,” he says, gripping the front of my shirt and jerking me toward him. His hand goes to the back of my neck before he tilts my face up toward him, his lips crash against mine as he kisses me before pulling away. “Don’t hide from me, if you are going to go against me, at least have the guts to face me afterward. I would never intentionally hurt you, Kat, don’t fear my reaction, I may be mad but never enough for you to fear me,” he scolds.
“So you’re not mad then?”
“No, I am. But he is your father, just know that if he gives me a reason to, I will banish him or kill him, as long as you understand that, we are good,” he instructs, and I nod.
“Come on, we should go have dinner, Andrei will be by in the morning, and I want to head to bed early tonight,” Ezra offers, pulling me out of the closet and toward the bedroom door.
“Kiss and makeup? Good, because I am starving,” Mateo whines as he rises from his seat on the bed and follows us.