20. Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

Quinn

S he doesn't look much older than when I saw her last, but her scent is different. The stench of anger and hatred mixed with the sweet smell I remember. Many things are different, including the large knife she holds in her hand. When I was twelve, my dad gave me a blade, and she had a fit, stating she hated weapons. Now, she holds it easily.

The woman who disappeared is standing in front of me, and my steel control is gone. I have pictured a reunion between us for years. What would she say? Was she sorry? Would she hug me like she used to?

"Son," she says. "You came."

I swallow, my mouth dry. "You knew I would."

"I had hoped, but I have been let down before." She shrugs.

"Why? Why are you here?"

"I wanted to see my son," she says, but the words are followed by a sick smile.

"Really? Why now? How many years have you had to see me?"

"Don't be bitter," she scolds. I grind my teeth, transported to the past when she would get mad at us.

"What the fuck is going on? You sent the messages?"

"Catch up, son," she says, rolling her eyes. "I wanted to see the woman who captured you. "

"Captured me?" I narrow my eyes.

"I was disappointed to see the bond at work again," she sighs. "It controls us."

"Have you seen Dad?"

"Of course not; that was the point. I had to get away from him," she snarls. "The stupid universe thinks they know everything. They force us to conform, fall in line, have babies, and stay with who they choose for the rest of our lives. I was tired of it. Tired of being stuck in a family I didn't want to be in." Her face is twisted in disgust.

My whole childhood is crashing down. "You didn't love him? Love us?" I take a step forward.

"Love," she snorts. "The mating bond has nothing to do with love. Just because someone's scent calls to you doesn't mean you should be forced to mate and be trapped in a union worse than marriage."

"You left us because you didn't love us?" A sharp pain radiates from my heart, spreading through my veins.

She looks away. "I thought I did," she whispers. "The bond tricks you into thinking you are in love." Her face is cold when she looks back. "I woke up." She snaps her fingers. "One day, a light clicked. I didn't have to stay. I didn't have to play the doting mother and loyal wife. I could leave and find the life I wanted, that I deserved. I can travel the world without the crutch of a mate and kids." She pounds her chest. "My animal needed to be free."

"Play?" I ask faintly. "That's what we are to you…a role you played?"

"Quinn, wake up," she shouts, throwing out her arms. "You could be free. You don't have to be tied down to a mate. Join us. Be with me. We can do anything we want and go anywhere we want. Fuck the universe." Her carefree laugh rings out, and she twirls once. "You have no idea the happiness it brings. "

"I don't want to leave my mate," I growl. "How aren't you in pain? After all those years with Dad, severing the bond had to be difficult."

"It was excruciating." She shivers. "But as the days passed, it got easier, and soon I felt nothing."

"How the fuck can you say that?" I shout. "Why would you want to leave?"

"It was day after day of the same thing. Clean. Make food. Miss your dad when he was at work. Take care of kids." She spins her finger. "Over and over and over. Every fucking day," she screams. "Being in heat. It demanded the attention of your dad. My body wasn't under my control. I hated it. I hated him." She steps closer. "I hated you," she snarls.

I stagger back. I blink twice, hoping the fury in her eyes goes away. Hoping this is some kind of sick joke. How is this possible? I've seen shifters go off the deep end, but as far as I know, it has never happened because they didn't want to be mated anymore.

I suddenly remember an incident that happened in Heath's fight club. The shifter woman was mated and killed her whole family, including the daughter she birthed.

"How many people have you killed?" I ask.

"Quinn, I won't tell you our secrets unless you agree to join us." She pretends to zip her mouth and throw away the key. I would have laughed if I wasn't terrified by her actions.

"You have more people working for you?"

"Of course. There are plenty of shifters who believe as we do."

"Including the coyote you sent to my house," I say, and she narrows her eyes.

"How do you know about him?" I look at the shifter beside us, and he bounces back. "Your friend."

"You told him," she shouts.

"I had to kill time. He was going to hurt me," he whines .

"Pathetic," she spits. "I wanted to surprise you with your dead mate," she pouts.

"She is not dead," I sneer. "Did you think I left her without protection?"

"Pity." She suddenly swings her arm, the knife clutched in her hand, entering through her man's eye. She follows him to the ground, straddling him, stabbing his face repeatedly. His screams are ear-piercing. "You don't follow orders. You are worthless to me." She jumps up and wipes her blade on her skirt. "It's very hard to find good help." She looks at him with disgust. "He might heal."

I stare at her in shock, confusion, and sadness. "How did you know I found my mate?"

"I check in once in a while." She lifts a shoulder.

"Why would you? You hate us."

She frowns, and for a moment, I see the woman I used to know. "Just because."

"You knew I lived here," I guess.

"I know where all of you live."

"I've never scented you." I would have known if she was close.

"I didn't go," she says. "I sent my people."

"How many people do you have?" I ask through clenched teeth.

"Enough." She tilts her head. "I can relate to your mate."

"You can't," I growl.

"I was stuck in a cage, too."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"My life was my cage," she says softly. She looks off into the trees. "Isn't being controlled every day, every minute, your life dictated by some outside influence the same as being in a cage? Growing up, you are told about the mating bond. You are only informed about what a gift it is to be chosen by the universe to be the one and only to someone. They talk about horror stories of shifters never finding them and going crazy for being alone for so many years without someone to love. Love. Love. Love." She says the word like a curse. "It's not love. Why should I live by someone else's rules?"

"So you decided to write your own rules," I say. "Rules that include killing humans and shifters."

"You don't understand," she stresses. Her expression brightens, and she leans forward. "Do you know the difference between human blood and shifter blood?" she asks, not expecting an answer. "Human blood is weak, runny, and dim. Shifter blood is so bright and full of life." She licks her lips. "Shifters are delicious."

My stomach rolls. "Why kill?"

She frowns. "Why not?"

"Jesus." I rub my palm over my head. "If you didn't want to be mated, fine, you left. You didn't want to be a mom anymore, fine, you left. It's going to take me years to wrap my head around your reasons, but that's my problem. Why kill? What are you getting out of taking someone's life that did nothing? Did these people hurt you in some way?" I ask, my voice getting louder with each question. "Were they bad people? Did they kill, hurt, rape? What the fuck did they do to you?"

She watches my anger rise and looks at me calmly. "It was fun."

I raise my eyebrows. "It was fun," I repeat roughly. "It was fun to take the life of someone who was doing nothing but existing in the same world and space as you?"

"Quinn, we were given these powers. Why aren't we using them? We don't have to live average lives. We can do anything. We are faster, stronger, shit, we can heal ourselves." She bunches her skirt in her hands for a moment and then lets go. "We turn into a fucking animal, and we are wasting it. "

"I can't believe this," I whisper, tipping my head back. "Who do you think gave us this gift?"

"Quinn, don't question it." She shakes her head. "Just enjoy it." She smiles.

"Holy fuck." I turn around and put my hands on my hips. "You make no sense."

"Son," she calls and grabs my arm. "We could be a family again. You don't have to stay in a cage with your damaged mate. Be free. With your mom. We can kill together. I know of all the kills you executed. I can't express how proud I was."

I throw off her arm and turn. She stumbles back. "Do not call my mate damaged," I snarl. "Do not speak of her at all." I take a step. "She is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I want to be tied to her in every way." I take another step. "You are not my mom. You haven't been my mom for years. Those kills I did were necessary. You know who I killed, don't you?"

"Don't speak to me that way," she snaps.

"You don't want to answer," I laugh shortly. "I killed shifters who were out of control. Shifters who killed humans, their families, and innocents, and they deserved it. Our world would have been exposed if I didn't. For a long time, I felt guilty for doing it. I would question myself and the work I was doing." The toe of my boots touches her feet, and I bend down. "I no longer question. Meeting the woman who looks like the mom who abandoned us, hearing the shit you believe is your right, just makes it more clear." I'm going to have to kill my mom. How can I? "The world needs monsters to kill the worse monsters." Her eye twitches as we stare at each other.

"I'm disappointed," she states.

"Fuck, me too." I grind my teeth when she slashes across my chest, but don't move .

"I have no choice," she says. "You have to die."

"I thought you were all about choices," I say. She cuts through my shirt, leaving a trail of blood across my stomach. "You choose to be mated and raise a family. You then chose to leave. You make the choice every day to be a murderer and vigilante." She raises the weapon again. "I am all about choices, but you threw away your family like trash."

"Fuck you." She cuts my upper chest this time. I don't move.

"You made my mate feel fear," I rasp. "For that alone, I wouldn't forgive you, but becoming an out-of-control murderer definitely forces me to do something I never thought I would have to." I step back when she swings again and extend my claws.

"You would kill me," she whimpers, her eyes filling with tears.

I rip my shirt off. "Did you enjoy this?" My blood is swirling in the air and down my chest.

"Son." She holds her hands out, splattered with my blood. "I can't let you ruin my plans. You have to understand." She smiles sadly.

"Your plans," I say bitterly. "What exactly are your plans?"

"Eliminate the humans and the shifters who don't fall in line. We want a world without them so the chance of mating is lessened. A world without the bond," she says slowly as if she is talking to the boy I once was. "We wouldn't have to hide what we are anymore. The power we could hold. You have to agree that they are weak. Love makes us weak. I had to show you the light before you got too wrapped up in the bond. You have to be set free."

"I don't have to agree to shit," I spit.

"What will your dad say?"

"Why do you care?"

"What about your siblings? Do you think they will understand?" My chest heaves. "What if when I'm gone, my people go to them." She sways back and forth. "They don't have mates yet, so I didn' t bother, but they can easily be taken care of." She taps her lips. "That is a good idea. We can take care of them before they find their mates; cut off the head of the snake beforehand." I lunge and raise my claws. She gasps and crouches down, her hands over her head. "No, please, son," she cries.

I shout out and walk away, shaking. "Motherfucker." I pace back, and she is standing again, holding her knife in front of her.

"Do you think they will forgive you?"

"They don't have to know. They can go on as we have been, without a mother." Pain. My heart is in pain.

"Your dad will know," she mentions casually. "The bond is inactive in me, but he will be able to feel me gone. How could you face him?" she asks ruthlessly.

His face flashes in my head. The image of him crumbling after she left, but he knew she was alive. "What did you tell him when you left? Why did he let you go?"

"I told him the truth. I didn't love him. I didn't want to be a mother anymore. The thought of staying one more day in his house, in his bed, made me sick." She shrugs. "He let me go. He loved me and wanted me to be happy. Isn't that pitiful?" She laughs.

"No. No, he isn't the pitiful one," I whisper and close my eyes briefly. " She still loves you, son. You believe me, right? She'll be back, son. You believe me, right?" I think he thought she would come back. He would never speak to me again if he knew I killed the woman he loved, and I wouldn't blame him. I have felt the pull of the bond. I know what it's like now. The power of it is extreme. Once I mark Steph, I can imagine it will be ten times more powerful. If I let her walk away, she won't stop. My mate will have to constantly look over her shoulder. My family will be next. I will have to warn them and hurt them deeply in the process. My mom will continue to kill and torture. She is too far gone.

"Have you made a decision?" She lifts an eyebrow .

"Do you feel anything?" I ask. "Nothing at all?"

"I remember seeing you once," she smiles. "It was a few years after I left, and I was in a car. I don't know why I drove past the house. You were visiting your dad. All the kids were there. You were eating in the side yard." She tilts her head. "I did feel something." My heart pounds. "I felt relief." And it sinks. "I was so happy I didn't have to be there."

I drop my head. I know what I have to do. "Yeah, I made a decision." I look at her, and then I smell shifters. Many shifters of all kinds.

"Do you think I came alone?" Her laughter rings out. They appear behind her, a long line of shifters who have helped her kill.

"You don't have the guts to do it yourself?" I ask.

"Of course I do."

"Then do it," I shout.

"You want to die?"

"No, but you seem to think I need to."

"If you would join us."

"No."

"Quinn, you won't be able to survive all of us." She waves her arms.

"I don't want them to kill me; I want you to do it." I step close, and the tip of her knife meets my skin. "Can you?"

"What is wrong with you?"

"You talk big, but can you kill your own son?"

"Don't push me," she growls.

"Why not? Isn't this what you wanted?"

"Fuck you." She nicks my skin. "I don't give a shit about you. I want to kill you and your mate."

The blows to my soul are much harsher than the cuts to my skin. "I get it. You have been pretty clear." I put my hand on the handle of the knife. "Mom," I say softly. "You can stop. I will help you. I don't know how I can help you, but I will do anything. We can go see Dad. It might take time, but you can change this around. Please, don't do this," I beg. "Mom," I whisper.

She looks at my hand and then at my face. "Son, there is no going back," she says and pushes.

I fling her hand away before she can do permanent damage and jump back. "I didn't come alone either." Kade and Cash move through the trees behind me.

"Two tigers. That's sixteen against three." She curls her lip.

"Your mom is charming." I turn my head as Micah floats to a stop with my mate in his arms. Steph pushes away and bends over. "I told you it would hurt," he says. She heaves. "And make you throw up."

"Steph," I growl, taking a step.

"Quinn," she gasps, looking at me with her hands on her knees. "Don't blame them."

"I get to meet your mate," Mom says sweetly.

"Stay the fuck away from her," I yell when she starts to move closer. "Take her away, Micah," I order.

"Can't do that. We all wanted to join the party." He raises his arms, and suddenly, the forest is filled with panthers, wolves, vampires, dragons, cheetahs, lions, and a rabbit.

Heath walks through the line of my friends and doesn't stop until he is standing in front of Steph, shielding her from my angry mother.

"Why don't you use a monster to fight a monster," he says, smoothing his hand down his dress shirt.

I look at each of them, and my heart pieces back together a little.