When You Were My Mate (Demetra and Emris) novel Chapter 101

101

“We have a cousin?” Silver’s voice cracks. I’ve never heard my brother sound like that.

“Yes.”

“The Deltas who left with Jacob were the most exclusive of them all. Strong. Built for war. Kael let them go because he felt guilty for what had happened…they saw him as an enemy anyway. Especially to Jacob’s son that was born.”

“Why would he be an enemy to a little kid?” I ask.

Ronin’s expression hardens.

“I don’t know.” Ronin shrugs one shoulder. “You can’t blame them for believing anything, especially after Jacob just died. Fast forward. You three were born and Kael learned that someone had been hunting Jacob’s mate and her son. Vigorously. Across all states-”

Ronin isn’t even done speaking when mom yells

“My father did that!”

She looks at me as if I deserve an apology for something I don’t even understand yet. Her eyes are wet and begging.

“You hunted them… why?” I rasp.

Her mouth tightens.

“Because rumors spread that Flora’s son would one day come back to the Black Covenant Pack to claim his rightful position!” she tumbles fast. “My father was head of the pack’s military, and against Kael’s instructions, he sent private gammas to kill the boy.”

“What sort of evil is that!?” Silver yells at her, his fists slamming against the table.

“He is our cousin-”

“I… I… I was young then. I was not the one making the decisions. My father believed that the exclusive Deltas would all come back and kill my own sons for revenge.”

“Oh please,” Allison coos. “Don’t lie, Derisha. Are you sure you were just young? A damsel in distress? You, Flora, and I were friends. And you were always very jealous of her.”

What?

I look at Allison, Now I realize why Ronin brought her here.

Allison and my mother know each other that well!?

How many fucking secrets am I sitting on in this pack house? How many lies have been baked into the walls, the floors, the very air I breathe?

“You hated Flora because she dated Kael in the past. And if not for the fact that she

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was mated to Jacob, Kael and her just might still be together today.”

“That is a fucking lie!”.

Allison just tilts her head toward the monitors.

“Look at the monitor. Do they lie?”

I lean back in my chair, and it feels like the whole room is collapsing inward.

All these years, I thought the rot came from somewhere else.

I thought it was the Lion Pride Pack that was diseased.

I thought they were the ones with bloody secrets hidden in every crevice of their pack. I didn’t think my own family lore was the rot. That we were all confused all these years. And there was my mother…the one who had most of the answers watched me and my brothers hate, detest, and speak about the abolishment of others who played no part in any of this.

“Emris…” My mother looks at me with tears in her eyes. Or maybe that’s just the performance of them. I can’t tell anymore.

“Maybe I did not like Flora. But I never wanted to kill her son-”

“Put the ropes on her.” I murmur and the specialists move immediately. They bring out a different chair for her.

“Emris, I am your mother!” She shrieks as they guide her toward it.

“You are a fucking liar,” I growl, rising halfway from my seat. “Now sit down in the chair and answer my question!”

–

She turns to all of us me, Silver, Regan…searching for the one son who will save her, who will step forward and stop this madness but none of it changes anything.

They seat her and begin to strap the equipment.

And for the first time since this interview began, I look at my mother like she’s not family but evidence.

“No wonder Demetra doesn’t feel safe enough to want Amira near this family.”

I murmur the words more to myself but Ronin hears them. My heart is racing so much I can hardly breathe.

I feel tears at the corners of my eyes. But I never cry. When they are done strapping mom, I ask the question.

“Did you like Flora?”

My mother says nothing at first. Her mouth opens. Closes. Opens again at the three of us.

“Answer.” Silver grits.

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“No.”

I look at the monitor and it’s readout is green.

“Emris, please… don’t do this-”

“Did you want her kid to die?”

“No!”

I look straight at the monitor again and it flashes false.

She screams and yanks the rope from her hand at the pain-

“No, no, you don’t understand! I didn’t want her kid to die, but my father said… he said the boy would grow up to kill my own kids if he didn’t die. I was… my father painted a bad image of what Flora’s son would grow up to be. So… maybe that’s why it’s reading that way. But I would never want an innocent baby to die. I wanted the person who would cause harm to my kids in the future to die instead. So I didn’t tell your father that our gammas were hunting them secretly.”

My mother starts crying and the monitor reads true.

“Well, can I continue-”

“NO.” Mom doesn’t let Alpha Ronin finish. Her body is straining against the ropes with loud tears. “I know what you want to say. Please allow me to say it to my son by myself.”

“And that will be?” I bring myself closer to the table.

“That’s…that’s…the reason you were kidnapped as a boy.”

I rise to my feet.

“The people who took you must have been Flora’s Deltas. As a way to warn us to stop hunting them. Now I see it. That must have been it-

Wicked little flashes tearing through my head.

A dirty floor.

A pile of newspapers beneath me like a mockery of a bed with the ink of its headlines smearing across my skin as I tossed and turned. Being starved to the point of malnourishment. So thin I could count my own ribs in the dark. My stomach collapsed against my spine. My lips cracked and bleeding. My throat so dry that swallowing felt like swallowing glass,

The voices of my captors but never showing their faces. The sound of whistles at odd hours, meant to disorient, to break, to remind me that time was something they controlled and I did not. Silence that stretched for hours, days, years… eternities. Silence where I could hear my own heartbeat slowing down. Silence where I wondered if anyone was looking for me at all.

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I remember the chains around my ankles. The way they fed me just enough to keep

me alive…sometimes nothing for so long that I started hallucinating my mother’s face in the cracks of the ceiling.

“Emris, I’m sorry.” Mom starts crying louder.

Everything in the room feels compressed around me, and Silver rises from his chair so fast it scrapes the floor.

“So…how did my father die?”

“What do you think?” Ronin gets to his feet as well. “Who do you think attacked him? of course, the Deltas of Jacob caught up with him. They massacred the gammas that were with Kael at that time. Smashed them to smithereens. Kael escaped with the most brutal injuries I have ever seen on a living wolf. And he came to my pack gate to give me his last words.”

“Which were?” I growl.

Ronin’s eye meets mine, and for the first time since he walked through the door, I see something other than confidence in them. Grief that never heals.

“That’s between me and him.”

Then he exhales.

“I hope with all of this, you can see that I had nothing to do with any of it. Kael was my best friend. And now, you’ve by all means made my daughter and my granddaughter a part of this pack. I’m going to need you to swear on your life that if Jacob child comes for your throne one day, you will leave it. And if you want to fight, return my family back to me so they are safe. Then go ahead and kill yourselves.”

“Amira is the heiress of the Black Covenant Pack.” I say slowly. “She was born before Milo.”

Ronin’s eyebrows draw together. “She is the granddaughter of an Alpha. She doesn’t need your heiress title=”

“No.” I shake my head, stepping around the table until I’m face to face with him. “What I am saying is… the world will have me in a thousand pieces before they can hurt my Luna. Or my daughter. Or my son.” I say it as a vow.

“I will release your territory immediately. I apologize..” I breathe hard and can hardly finish my words as I storm out.