I turned back around and he retracted his hands. I showed him my abdomen again. “These are a-all from A-alpha,” I murmured.
He breathed out through his nose and closed his eyes, “Violet, honey, he’s not your Alpha,” he spoke softly to me, despite the evident anger radiating off of him. I lowered my eyes when he opened his.
I felt him staring.
“I will demolish that pack,” he gritted and I quickly brought my eyes up to him, alarmed.
“Derek,” I whispered, my eyes wide.
He gave a dark chuckle, “oh Violet, they’re going to regret ever looking in your direction,” he promised but it didn’t make me feel better. It made me feel worse.
“Derek, they didn’t do a-anything wrong,” I defended.
The seas in his eyes clashed of fury and disbelief. His eyebrows creased together and his eyes bored into mine.
“They didn’t do anything wrong?” he scoffed and shook his head, he closed his eyes again, regaining his slipping control. “Honey, you don’t- fuck.” he chuckled to himself.
“They were only listening to their a-alpha, a-and officials,” I rushed out, explaining. I didn’t want him to kill a whole pack, even if they hurt me. No. That wasn’t right.
His eyes shot open, blazing in my direction, trying to process what I just said. I couldn’t hold his gaze so I looked down, and he sighed.
“Honey. There was a time in history that is widely taught, know as the Holocaust. I’m not going to give you a history lesson, but basically it was a mass genocide of mainly Jewish people, not only but mainly,” I blinked at him, not know what that meant. He picked up on it. “Mass killings, very few survived. I think it was about six million people, and they were burned, starved, beaten, and gassed.
I frowned, flinching.
He shot me an apologetic smile, “sorry. But my point is, after everything was liberated, or freed, there were trails to prosecute the officers who did those things to them. And their defense for those crimes was that they were ‘just following orders,’ now, do you think that’s right?”
“I- uh,” my cheeks heated up. “Well, that’s different. That was s-six million people, and…” I frowned when I saw him sigh.
“Flower, I don’t want to have this argument right now. We’ll discuss that later,” I nodded and he came closer, slowly putting his hands on my waist.
I knew he was and he had my permission but, instinctively I tensed up and he glanced up at me, silently asking if what he was doing was okay. I nodded.
“He solely did all of this?” he questioned, this thumb tracing my most recent one, just like last night.
I flinched at the memories and I nodded. He glanced at me and looked back at the scars littering my body. “A-alph… um, he likes to c-cut when he…” I trailed, I couldn’t finish, I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
… He’s probably disgusted with me…
His grip tightened and quickly loosened so he wouldn’t hurt me. “Flower, I’m not disgusted with you. Never. You’re so unbelievably strong.”
I swallowed. “This one,” I started with the scar his thumb was over, “it’s my most recent, he did it a-about a day before you came,” he started to rub it. I pointed to one on the opposite side, it was small. “This was the first, I was a-about thirteen. That’s when he figured it was fun to c-cut while he, um… yeah.”
Derek breathed out. “Thirteen?” I nodded again. His hands started to shake against me, I could tell he wanted to talk about it, but I didn’t. He picked up on that. He continued to inspect my abdomen, often tracing some cuts.
Sage was happy. I was getting slightly uncomfortable. Very slightly. He moved his hands back to himself and I pulled my shirt back down.
He cleared his throat, “Thank you Violet,” I nodded. Should I just up and ask him?
“Um… D-Derek?” I asked, cautious.
“Flower?” My cheeks got red and I positioned myself back against the headboard.
“Can I a-ask you s-something?”
“Of course Flower, anything.”
“D-did you k-kill your father?” I squeaked out.
His lips set in a straight line. He hummed in agreement, “Yes.”
I tensed slightly and looked away.
“The rumors are true Flower. I tore him limb by limb- ripped him apart. I was, seventeen? Eighteen? But do they say why?” I shook my head, not daring to look at him. “Let me inform you. See, my father was a good man, at one point in his life. Even when my mother had me and my brothers, he was fine. A nice Alpha, respected. And he and my mom were happily together. I think it was about when I turned eleven. He started becoming slightly aggressive. He also became openly sexual to my mother. It wasn’t too bad, a little gross seeing my parents but, whatever.”
I looked up to him and his eyes seemed distant, reliving his years.
“But as time progressed, my mother was detaching from his assertive sexuality and his bond was following. My father picked up on it, and in an effort to save it, he began to do many things to her, and soon began to just take her whenever he wanted.”
I looked down when I noticed his hands shaking. I reached out before I had time to process it and I grabbed his hand, rubbing it. He seemed to break out of his trance and he glanced down at my hand holding his. He gave me a small smile and brought my hand up to his lips, giving a light kiss.
“I knew my mother was trying to fight back against him. She wasn’t too big. So he’d beat her. And one day when I was about sixteen, fifteen I walked in on him raping her. That was the last straw for me. I knew he was doing it before, but then I saw it. It was just-” he paused, eyebrows together, fumbling for his words. He breathed out, “you know? So I dragged him off of her, and it was like hell. My mom didn’t like seeing her mate and son fighting so she tried to help. That following week- he killed her.”