Chapter 29: Billie

Chapter 29: Billie

In an instant, my world ruptured and everything that had been a constant in my life was taken away.

After gathering his clothes left to soak in the rain, David knelt beside an eviscerated Catrina, stunned to see his daughter so suddenly reduced to flesh and guts. As if he hadn’t just threatened to assault me earlier that day, sudden humanity moved his hands to the body of his daughter and quaked his shoulders in disbelief. My own brother, who minutes earlier tried to force the marking ritual on me, who was once my only source of comfort, stood beside him and pleaded that it couldn’t be real. The skirmish came to a pause to allow for one side to grieve, but the worst part was that I knew David wouldn’t have called off his wolves had it been the other way around. All of us were covered in blood, some mortally wounded, but nobody dead—except for Catrina Hexen.

Gavin was back in his wet jeans, clutching his side where the gunshot wound was half-healed from Muriel and still bleeding through his fingers, squinting in his left eye where David slashed him. He rasped beside me, blood that was both his and not his dripping with the rain down his face. His guilt burned away within him, clawing through my sorrow and joining us in stinging heartache for our enemy. He never wanted to go that far. I may have begrudged Catrina, but I never wanted her to die. Coughing, Gavin mustered the strength to stand taller. “Take her and leave,” he said hoarsely.

A delayed response had David placing his hand on his mouth, like he couldn’t bear to let anyone see him fall apart. His eyes dragged up toward Gavin, but the disbelief that once stalled him had deteriorated into wild, burning anger unlike anything I’d ever seen before. “You killed my daughter.”

I felt the way his words punctured Gavin like a knife.

“I’m sorry,” Gavin said in a moment of shame.

David shot to his feet. “You aren’t sorry. She was dead to you the moment you found your fated mate,” he hissed venomously.

What shame Gavin felt was overwritten by anger, his empathy lost. “She was a monster even before you manipulated her into turning Lycan.”

Enraged, David lunged at Gavin, shoving his chest before Lothair and Oslo pushed between them, their differences set aside in the ceasefire. Colt hovered behind them. Despair stayed his feet; he couldn’t even move, could barely lift his eyes from Catrina.

“Perhaps the Lycan ritual wasn’t meant for Catrina,” Lothair said quickly to David, holding the man back.

“My pack needs a leader.”

“You can still be a leader. We’ll give you the power you could never otherwise have.”

Lightning flashed in David’s cold blue eyes. He considered the offering, as if there was some way he could become Lycan without risking his mind in the process. Was that even possible?

That wasn’t what concerned Colt. “But your mate bond with Mom,” he croaked.

Even if he and Rebecca were separated, David should still be at his highest potential now without the need for a Lycan form. He should be at his strongest—but from what we had all seen during the battle, it was clear that David wasn’t as strong or fast or in control of himself as he should have been, despite being marked by his fated mate. He’d been lacking power all this time.

“I have no mate anymore,” he growled. David’s eyes slid to me, threatening me to stay silent about what happened earlier, and with the gravity of a fact he had not shared. “Rebecca is dead.”

All of us held our breaths, though the news burdened our lungs and made our tongues feel heavy. It seemed the only one who already knew this was Lothair, who slowly took his hands off David and let the maddened man support himself, accepting our judgment. Accepting what this would create of him to tell us the truth about his wife, whose fate had at best been a nebulous mystery for fifteen years.

He bared his teeth at us. “I killed her!”

His voice lashed like a whip, causing us to flinch. My throat swelled with betrayal I was sure everyone else felt too; I could hear it in the way they gasped, uttering David’s name in shock and pain. He told me he had loved Rebecca. He wouldn’t have left her for the world—so how could he do such a thing?

Gavin heaved the question we’d all been choking on, “Why?”

Even though the rain, I saw anguish materialize on David’s face. “I didn’t want to.” He didn’t take responsibility with pride. Years of being haunted by his actions twisted his voice into desperation to be understood, but he seemed to know it was futile. “If I couldn’t have her, no one could.”

Of all the people to connect what came between David and his fated mate, it was Oslo who confronted it first. “Joshua Rathbone.”

“I killed him too,” David snarled. “And Shannon. Poor Shannon… caught in the crossfire. I thought death would be more merciful to her than living with the knowledge of Joshua’s betrayal.” He laughed sadly, angrily.

“Then that means…”

And suddenly, all eyes turned to me.

“That’s right,” said David. “The Grandbay Betas who disappeared fifteen years ago are survived by their daughter, Elizabeth Rathbone. I’m the one that took her.”

Time stopped as I finally understood my place in the world. It all made sense now. The Rathbones had been the Betas to Gavin’s parents before Oslo and Gretel, before they disappeared—before they were murdered for my father’s infidelity with David’s wife. I had been part of the Steele Alpha Line all along. I had always been destined to lead alongside Gavin as his fated mate, as the daughter of his parents’ most trusted friends, but David stole me away for his own selfish vengeance and injected Catrina into Gavin’s life instead. My name wasn’t Billie Jesper. My name was Elizabeth Rathbone and I belong to Grandbay.

I met Gavin’s eyes, which widened with the realization of why our connection was so powerful. Our lives were meant to be invariably intertwined, our childhood together stolen. Gavin would have been my love from the very beginning. Aislin would have been one of my closest friends. I would have lived a happy, complete life, even if my father was a cheater. I would have been raised as the wolf I was meant to be, and I could have forgiven my father if he’d ever had the chance to correct the wrongs he committed. But I never had that chance. David had taken everything from me because of his own pain—but the forgiveness I reserved for my real father was not something I could extend to him. David didn’t deserve forgiveness for this, for anything he did or intended to do. I wanted David to suffer with his pain forever.

“You robbed me of everything,” I shook. “And you never would have stopped. You would have broken me down until there was nothing left of me. You… You piece of shit!” My voice rose with a fury that rivaled Gavin’s own. I spat words I never would have dreamed of uttering. There was nothing holding me back anymore, now that I knew what affection I had for my adoptive father was misplaced and undeserved. Now that I knew what he truly was. The desire to hurt him blinded me and before I knew it, I was charging toward him, my fingers arched in anticipation of ripping out his throat. Nobody moved, because nobody would have expected anger to possess me so, not even David as I clawed at his windpipe.

“Get off me, you fucking runt!” The instant David’s hands went on me, trying to push me away, was when everybody mobilized. He swung the back of his hand at me, but it was intercepted by Gavin who grabbed his wrist. Oslo gripped his other arm and kneed him in the ribs. Even Colt moved forward and was shoved by Aislin, who then wrathfully punched Colt in the jaw. This time, Lothair merely stood back and watched. Gavin, Oslo, Aislin and I clustered together while David and Colt reeled away.

David bent over, clutching his throat. My nails had dug into his skin and gouged out chunks, but it wasn’t enough to kill him. I wanted to kill him. His bright red blood gleamed under my fingernails.

Panting, I glared at David with my frenzied threat still sizzling hot. “You could die a hundred times and it wouldn’t be enough,” I cried. “You could lose everything you love and it wouldn’t be enough! Go to Hell, David! I hope you rot!”

And I meant it. It didn’t occur to me that I’d wished such misfortune on his only remaining son. I didn’t see the look of hurt my words inspired in Colt, and I didn’t want to, because as far as I was concerned he was just as bad as David. Obeying him, trying to mark me, shooting at Gavin—no, the Hexens were nothing more than criminals and low lives to me now. I was ready to sever all ties. I wanted to see them crawl back into their manor and die.

David returned my glare as he staggered upright. “Consider this a declaration of war then,” he hissed, his voice curdling from the strain of his wounded throat. “I’ll take everything from you, Gavin. The Mythguard are welcome to try to stop me, and I’ll destroy them too. I’ll kill you. All of you. You’ll regret denying Dalesbloom its right to sovereignty… Ingrates!” David whipped around to his packmates, and the dragons gathered around us. “Get my daughter into the truck.”

I didn’t even want to give him a chance to regroup. I wanted us to exterminate David and punish him for all he’d done right now, but my anger was a bonfire, and everyone else had become embers glowing in the rain. Even Gavin had come to clutch my shoulders, willing me to yield to the conclusion of the fight. He knew that if we kept fighting, it would only seal the annihilation of Grandbay and Eastpeak. David allowed us this armistice only because he wasn’t prepared to have lost Catrina.

Thunder belted solemnly across the sky and lightning lit up the bodies of David’s packmates gathering Catrina in their arms, and carrying her toward the truck. Colt followed after them, refusing to look back at us—at me—and all I could think as I watched him go was, Good riddance. He could live with the truth that his father revealed—that David has killed his mother—and if he continued to serve David, it just proved that I never could have trusted him.

As Dalesbloom and the Inkscales retreated, we were left in the heavy darkness of the storm, the yard stinking of blood, metal and bitter betrayal. There was no relief in seeing our enemies fall back. It had only unearthed in us a terrible foreboding of what would come next, and what had been revealed; what we now had to process fifteen years after it had been done.

Everett trudged up to us, rain trickling off his arms and the damp coils of his beard. “We’ll take Muriel and protect her,” he said.

“No,” grunted Gavin. “That wasn’t part of the arrangement.”

“Gavin,” growled Everett.

“You heard what David did. You saw what he’s done to us. The Mythguard has no reason to abstain from exterminating him now.”

Everett stared firmly at Gavin, but it was clear neither man would be willing to back down,  nor did they have the energy to continue arguing. Despite Eastpeak and the Mythguard’s assistance, Everett had only complied out of duty; there was no camaraderie in the wake of the battle. He turned away and gestured for his wolves to retreat as well.

My anger burned hotter in spite of the rain. Ambition had crawled out of the cage of my heart and towered over all else. I would prove to David that I wasn’t the weak, pathetic little runt he tried to make of me.