Chapter 10 - April

The drive back to the cabin was completely silent as both Jasper and I processed the events from our outing. I'd been shocked by how quickly he had sprung into violence and unsure of how to proceed. The last thing I wanted to do was provoke another attack, but if I was going to live with this man, I needed to know more about him.

Our silence continued until we entered the cabin. Jasper sat down on his bed without removing his shoes and covered his face with his hands.

Tentatively, I sat beside him, hoping that my presence would continue to be as calming on him as when I'd interrupted his episode in the parking lot.

"Jasper," I began quietly, "can we talk about what just happened?"

He sighed deeply without moving his hands from his face. "I'd really rather not," he said.

I placed a hand on his knee, trying to bring him into the present moment with me. "You surprised me today," I admitted. "I know that the Dark Moon Pack values strength, but I've never seen you rush to the defense of someone who was being hurt the way you did with that girl. Was that the first time you've done something like that?"

Jasper let out another deep sigh, this time removing his hands from his face. He folded his hands and placed them on his lap but didn't respond. I didn't want to push him too hard, so I decided to wait as long as it took for him to answer my question.

My patience was rewarded when, after a few minutes, he spoke. "No, that wasn't the first time."

I had assumed as much, but I was glad he seemed to finally be engaging with the conversation.

"The children who live here aren't orphans, are they? You took them away from their abusers." It wasn't a question, because after witnessing his reaction to seeing a child being hit, there was no doubt in my mind now.

"Yes," he said tersely.

"Why?" I asked. "You seem like you have other priorities as alpha, like gaining territory and wolves to your side. Why do you care so much about kids you don't know? Kids who aren't even part of the pack?"

"I really don't want to talk about this, April," he answered. He stood up from the bed and moved to the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of water from the sink.

"Jasper, please," I said, standing to join him. "I need to know what's going on here."

"'What's going on here?'" he repeated back to me, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "What's going on here is that the world is full of terrible people—women—who use and abuse anyone they can get their hands on if it serves their purposes. I've seen it time and time again, and every once in a while, I can't help myself. I have to do something about it. Or do you think I should have just left those kids to be abused?"

His question was an attack, and I got the impression that he genuinely thought I was on the side of the woman in the van.

"Of course not," I said. "I'm not a monster. I only want to understand why you wanted to kill her in the middle of a parking lot instead of, I don't know, calling the police or asking the girl if she needed help."

"You wouldn't understand," Jasper said, waving his hand in dismissal.

"Help me understand," I said earnestly. "What happened back there?"

" Fine. " He slammed his glass down on the table, water spilling over the side. His eyes burned with anger as he paced back and forth along the length of the wall. "You want to hear about how that woman reminded me of my mother, and how I wanted to kill her because of it?"

"Your mother?" I asked in surprise.

"I wasn't born in the Moonstone Pack," Jasper began. "My mother wasn't a wolf. She worked in a brothel and fell pregnant—by a shifter, it turns out. He may have left me behind, but at least he also left me with his power and abilities."

Jasper had struggled to begin his story, but now the words poured out of him.

"By the time I was six, my mother had made her way up in the hierarchy of the house to become the owner of the brothel. I was already used to the daily torture she and the other women put me through, but I had naively hoped that once she achieved some version of success, she would stop holding my birth over my head. She had been disappointed to have given birth to a boy, and she made sure I knew it. As if it was my fault I had been born.

"Turns out I was wrong. The more power she got, the worse things got for me. She continued to beat me and force me to work so that I could earn my keep.

"I didn't meet Killian until I was ten, when his mother got a job working for mine. She wasn't quite as bad as my mother was. She was neglectful but not outright cruel. When my mother told Killian he needed to work as well, he worked alongside me—cleaning, cooking, anything the women of the house demanded. Anything we had to do to survive my mother's wrath. She nearly killed both of us on more than one occasion.

"Killian and I had our first shift on the same night about a year later. If he hadn't been with me, I would have thought I had finally gone insane, but together, we figured out what had happened. We ran away that same night, traveling from place to place until we found a wolf pack that would take us in."

His eyes were unfocused, looking off into the distance as he paused his story. He had clearly traveled back in time as he spoke, remembering all that he had experienced.

"And that's when you found the Moonstone Pack?" I asked quietly.

Jasper nodded, still looking away from me. "They helped me get revenge on my mother," he said coldly.

I paused, unsure of whether I wanted to hear the answer, before asking, "Did you kill her?"

"She deserved it," Jasper said coldly, and I had my answer.

"I feel like there's more to the story than you're telling me," I said.

I knew I was prying, but I also had a feeling that Jasper would never speak to me about this topic again. This was my only chance to understand this part of him.

Jasper took the tip of his finger and drew it down the scar that lined his face. "This is the first thing people notice when they look at me. What they don't know is that it was given to me by one of my mother's clients. You see, he had a thing about inflicting pain on people, and my mother had a thing about getting paid," he said bitterly.

My mouth dropped open in horror as I understood what he meant. "Your mother allowed someone to cut your face? For money?"

"Allowed? That makes it sound like she was unwilling, which is far from the truth," he said. "She watched the whole thing. She was there while he held me down and dragged a dull blade across the length of my face. She laughed while I screamed for her to help me."

"Goddess," I cursed. I couldn't imagine a mother who could do such a thing. I was beginning to understand why Jasper had killed her.

"That woman we saw today is exactly like my mother. All women are the same," he spat. "Your kind doesn't have the ability to love or care for others. There is only power and pain. And when women are allowed control, like in Sparkle Hollow, all that pain gets spread to the whole community. I've seen it time and time again, and I won't stand for it."

Somehow, Jasper had managed to conflate the idea of his mother's evil with all women. While I sympathized with his trauma, I couldn't condone the belief system that had stemmed from it.

"I'm sure that after experiencing so much, it would be hard to trust a woman again," I said diplomatically.

"Impossible," he said. "All women betray the people around them. It's who they are."

He said it with such finality that I wasn't sure what else could be said.

"Jasper, I'm so sorr—"

"Don't," he interrupted, cutting me off. "Don't you dare say you're sorry for what happened to me, or any other platitude you feel like throwing out there."

I was unnerved by the venom in his voice. After hearing his story and everything he had endured, I understood why he viewed women as such terrible creatures. The abuse he'd suffered at the hands of his mother, the sex workers at the brothel, and their clientele was abhorrent. It was a miracle he had managed to survive, let alone be even partially well-adjusted.

"I didn't mean it like that," I explained. "I'm not offering platitudes. You didn't deserve to go through any of that, and it breaks my heart that you did."

"Keep your pity," he spat at me.

I stepped toward him, wanting to comfort him, but he pushed me back in disgust. All I wanted was for him to know he wasn't alone anymore, but he was having none of it.

"I don't pity you," I assured him. "I have sympathy for you. You may not be ready to accept that or know what to do with it, but that's okay."

"Whatever," Jasper said dismissively. "Just leave me alone, alright? I'm done with this."

I nodded, knowing that I had pushed as far as I could take things tonight. "I'll head to bed, then," I said.

I retreated to my room and hoped that he would take whatever space he needed tonight. While I was aware that his anger was misplaced, I could hardly judge him for his feelings. He needed time to process the fact that he had just opened up to me—a woman, just like those who had hurt him.

I could certainly afford to give him that time, but I knew my task as luna had just gotten more complicated. Jasper had never met a woman who hadn't hurt him. It might take forever, but somehow, I would make him see that not all women were like that. If I could change his mind, then maybe, just maybe, he could become an alpha I could look up to.