When she could finally control herself, Reyna shoved out of Jorlan’s arms and glared at him accusingly. She asked the one question that had been burning on her mind for the last three days. “Why?”
“My silence was the price required for me to tend to you. Otherwise, you would have been taken from me,” he said simply.
Of all the reasons Jorlan could have given, she hadn’t expected this. “I don’t understand.”
He sighed. “I know, Kitten.” Jorlan sat up and lifted her onto his lap like he’d done many times when she was a child. Since she felt like one, it was appropriate. “Part of what I’m about to tell you isn’t my story to reveal.”
“This has to do with Isabella and my father, doesn’t it?” she asked slowly, trying to put the puzzle pieces together.
“Some. The portion concerning you does, but to understand all the nuances, I need to start much earlier, with Felini.”
“The home world?” she asked curiously.
“Yes.” He stared off into space as his mind traveled back. “I remember what it was like before we fled the planet. Pride fought against pride. They fought over land, resources, women—you name it. The planet was one big war zone. Isabella’s mother was stolen in a raid. Isabella barely escaped being taken herself, though she was too young to be bred. My mother brought her into our den to live.
“Ragnor tried to bring about peace, but no one was interested. The violence had gone on for so long, most of the males had gone feral. When he saw they couldn’t be reasoned with, Ragnor managed to convince a few like-minded prides to join together under his leadership and flee the planet. It was a risky undertaking. We had no idea where we were going or what we’d do when we arrived—if we arrived—but it was stay and die or take our chances in the stars.”
Jorlan glanced down at her. “You know part of this. We barely made it to earth. By the time we hit earth’s atmosphere, we were running low on fuel and supplies. Two of the ships didn’t make it. One crashed into the ocean. The vessel Ragnor, Isabella, and I were on crashed in the desert of New Mexico. It was the Vampaliens who rescued us.”
Though she’d heard bits and pieces of their history before, Reyna listened intently.
“Alvaro saved my life. We’d launched the escape pods as the ship began to break up. The one I was in malfunctioned. I and the others with me would have burned alive if he hadn’t gotten us out of it. It was fortunate we’d landed in his territory, and that he’d discovered us before the humans did. Alvaro, as the leader of the local vampyr clutch, eased our transition to this planet. He gave us a part of his territory to build on and helped us gather our scattered pride.”
Remembering all the horrible stories she’d heard about her father, when someone dared to mention him, she asked, “So he wasn’t the villain he’d been made out to be?”
Jorlan shook his head. “Quite the contrary. We had much to be grateful to him for and at the time, everyone knew it.”
“What happened? How did my father go from being a hero to the worst villain alive?”
“Alvaro and Isabella happened. She was his blood mate.”
“He took her?” Reyna asked, remembering the way Tariq had claimed her without her permission.
“No, because of her age, Alvaro tried to resist claiming her, wanting to give her more time to mature. Isabella hadn’t had her first estrous. The few queens who survived the trip believed the stasis we’d been placed in during space travel hindered it as Isabella wasn’t the only female whose sexual maturity had been delayed. I believed Ragnor noticed Alvaro’s attraction to Isabella and used it to push the vampyr to greater generosity—”
“Why do you say that?”
“Ragnor made sure Isabella was around whenever the Vampalien came calling. Practically pushed the two of them together. As you know, our females don’t concern themselves with business. The protection and safety of the pride is up to the males,” he reminded her.
Based upon Felini culture, Reyna should be seeing to the management and running of their den while Jorlan handled the business. It was the primary reason a few of the younger females had come to them requesting sanctuary. They wanted more than life in the pride could give them.
“Ragnor’s mistake,” Jorlan said, “was in not realizing or caring that the vampyr were different from us. Ragnor was so confident in our superiority, he assumed the vampyr would follow our rules when it came to matings. Even if Alvaro didn’t, Ragnor thought Isabella would share his same bigotry and prejudices. Had he bothered to learn more about Vampalien culture, he’d have known differently. The bond between them grew too strong to resist. Alvaro bit Isabella, injecting her with his mating venom. She went into heat and you were the result,” he said.
Reyna thought of everything Tariq had told her about Vampalien bondings. “If he loved Isabella, why didn’t he take her with him?”
Jorlan shrugged. “I can’t answer that. I knew a lot of what was going on at the time because Isabella confided in me. What I can tell you is that when Ragnor discovered Isabella had given herself sexually to Alvaro, he flew into a rage and almost killed her. To cover himself, he lied and told the other elders the Vampalien had raped Isabella and tried to kill her in retaliation for Ragnor’s refusal to give him one of our women. No one questioned him, and Isabella had been in no condition to say differently. They plotted to kill Alvaro, and I thought they’d been successful until the night of the dinner party.”
Her head spinning with all she was learning, Reyna pushed it aside to deal with the main issue. “It still doesn’t explain why you never—”
He placed a finger over her lips. “Only Ragnor, Isabella, and I knew the truth of your conception. I had to swear to keep that truth to myself. The price of breaking my word was your life.”
Her eyes grew wide. She’d always sensed the Felini leader’s dislike but hadn’t realized how deeply it went. “Ragnor would have killed me?”
Jorlan smiled grimly. “In a heartbeat.”
Reyna digested his words. “I understand why you didn’t tell me while we were with the pride, but what about later?”
“I’d given my word,” he said simply.
There was one thing Reyna knew with one hundred percent certainty. Jorlan always kept his word.
“Reyna, I’ve always been there for you and will always be here for you. Do you believe me?” he asked solemnly.
“Yes.” Jorlan had been the one constant in her life.
“Will you forgive me?”
She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. “Yes. I still have a lot of questions, but I understand why you kept quiet.”
“Your parents can answer them better than I,” Jorlan said as he released her.
Reyna turned her head away, not wanting him to see the expression on her face. Her father might not have been the monster she’d been led to believe, but he was still responsible for much of what she’d suffered in her short life. “I don’t want to see them.”
Jorlan captured her face between his hands and stared directly into her eyes. “No one’s forcing you to, but I don’t believe you’ll be able to fully come to terms with the past or move on into the future until you’ve dealt with this. I know he’s been asking to see you. Let him. All you have to do is listen.”
Reyna held his gaze, a mutinous expression on her face. “I’ll think about it.”
“And Reyna, don’t be hard on Isabella. Everything she did was to protect you,” he said quietly. With those words, Jorlan got out of the bed and left the room.