“I know you are angry with me, I am sorry, Kat. Your mother and I shouldn’t have kept things from you, but I knew you would hate me if I told you. And I also knew she would hate me if she knew.”
“Did Andrei hurt you when you were there?” I honestly can’t blame him if he did.
“No, barely would look at me. Anthony surprisingly wasn’t too much of a dick either, he was more worried about Andrei’s mother.”
“What did she say to you?” I wonder how that went down, meeting your ex with her chosen mate there, that had to be an awkward situation.
“She said nothing I didn’t deserve,” he admits, rubbing a hand down his face, and I know that is going to be all he says about her. “I thought Anthony had something to do with your mom’s death, I was shocked when I realized it was Andrei.”
“How could you, though, how could you just leave them to fend for themselves?”
“My intentions were good when I went and sought help from Jackson. When I turned up to the packhouse and saw your mother, everything slid downhill from there. I was scared she would reject me if she knew I had a child to another,” he whispers. “I did go look for Andrei, but then I stumbled across Anthony and took him back to the packhouse to meet Jackson. He was also looking for a new pack, I couldn’t find Andrei and his mother. I was going to make sure they found somewhere safe, but I couldn’t risk Katherine rejecting me, knew bringing them back, there would be a chance she would”
“Was he your mate too?” I ask, but my father shakes his head.
“No, just Katherine’s, I thought it odd when she kept going to see his wife, always wanting to be over there”
Anthony had a wife?
“Then she came home one day and told me Anthony was her mate, I was furious, he had a wife, and she was willing to see past that. He had two daughters too, and she didn’t seem fazed, which made guilt eat at me, angered me. I knew I did the wrong thing, but I had to keep up the lie by then, realizing she didn’t care and would be disgusted with me for abandoning my family. Anthony, I found out, told her straight away, and she didn’t mind, neither did his wife, she understood mate bonds were sacred, and both were willing to share. Katherine would have marked her so that he wouldn’t have lost his family or been put in a position to choose.”
“Then why didn’t you come clean?” I demand.
“Because I was a coward, and I also didn’t want to share her, not with anyone, so I asked Jackson to force her to reject him.”
“So Anthony’s wife and daughters, what happened to them?” I ask him. My father looks away.
“I swear, Kat, I didn’t know. Jackson was meant to banish them for me, it wasn’t until I found out he had them kept in the cells beneath the packhouse a month later. Jackson is sick in the head, we all know that, but not even I thought he would stoop that low,” My father tells me. I see the regret in his eyes, the way he swallows down his emotion before clearing his throat.
“Jackson killed them, didn’t he?” My father put his head in his hands.
“If only that were it,” My father says, and my stomach drops.
“Pardon?” I ask, and my father looks up, and tears stream down his face.
“Your mother kept saying something was wrong that she could feel he was close, she rejected him, yet she could still feel him and his anguish. So I asked Jackson where he banished him to, told him I had a change of heart and would let Katherine accept him. Jackson said Anthony wouldn’t want her back, and I didn’t understand why when Katherine said he felt broken after the rejection for some reason. She could still feel him, and I think it was because she was a lunar wolf. Like a 6th sense or something, then Jackson told me he never left, and I asked to see him. Jackson took me to the cells, and I was angry, thinking that is why she could feel him still, because he never left with his family. Only when I got down…” I watch his lips quiver before my father starts hysterically crying before he suddenly gets up, throwing up into the bushes behind us.
“Dad?” I ask him, handing him my water bottle, and he rinses his mouth out. I don’t want to know, but I have to hear it. My father regathers himself, sitting down.
“Anthony had two teenage daughters. He was 14 years older than your mother and me. Jackson let the unmated wolves have them, his wife was dead next to him while tied up and forced to watch them do unspeakable things to his daughters. Then, Jackson had them killed, both of their naked bodies were left to rot in the cell along with their mother next to where he was chained to the wall. Anthony begged Jackson to kill him, and he was going to, but I knew your mother would feel it, so I asked Jackson to set him free and banish him, in return, I would convince your mother to heal his wife.” Whatever I thought he was going to say, this wasn’t it. After learning this, I wouldn’t have blamed Anthony for killing him when Andrei took him.
“Then we found out we were expecting you, and your mother continued to help Clara throughout her pregnancy until your mother Shirley arrived. Your mother hated me for making her reject Anthony, but she never once asked me to reject her because she was her sister, and Katherine wasn’t like that. She could never hurt anyone like that, and the only reason she rejected Anthony was that she knew Jackson and I would kill him if she didn’t, she did it to protect him, but in the end, my selfishness destroyed him.”
He pauses, scrubbing his face with his hands, before continuing.
“I was shocked when I found out Anthony started his pack. I was happy for him that he found some sort of peace after I destroyed him. Though I was shocked to learn he marked Andrei’s mother, took him in like it was his son, he could have killed them to get back at me, but he didn’t. Instead, he raised him, proving he was a better man than me. So when your mother died, I assumed it was him finally getting back at me for what I did. Only it wasn’t, and after meeting him again, I found it was Andrei and couldn’t go through with it, I hurt him enough, and he is my son. Anthony said he had no room for hate, but Andrei had plenty of it, and it wasn’t unjustified, this is my karma for the things I have done, Kat. Andrei isn’t to be blamed, this all falls on me,” my father tells me, and I don’t know what to say.