Changing Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 2)

He stands and starts pacing, apparently needing some suspense for drama, while I grow all the more impatient.

“Roslyn is so much stronger than you realize. My blood is pure alpha. Every sire in my line has been an alpha, including myself. We’re stronger than the rest of the werewolves, and Roslyn is no exception. In fact, she’s stronger. Where my line has depended on bitten venom, obviously, she was pure. No one under the age of seventeen has ever survived the bitten venom. Even if someone manages to survive the venom, they don’t survive the first change. It’s painful, and it’s exhausting.”

He looks directly into my eyes.

“My first change took several long, agonizing hours that seemed to go on forever. And I didn’t have full control of my wolf for almost a decade. Even you had problems leashing your beasts when you were new to powers. And you were immortal before you started shifting.”

He continues staring, doling out more unnecessary suspense.

“Roslyn changed in less than a minute her first time, and she had sole control of her wolf immediately.” He glances around before adding, “She was seven.”

Okay, so that’s a little disconcerting. She’s definitely stronger than I initially imagined. But all it does is piss me off as the pieces that aren’t getting talked about flick around in my mind.

“Those records were real. If you were in her life, then how the hell was she in so many hell homes?”

A snarl breaks the air, and I glare at him, unaffected.

“What was I supposed to do? Let her live with me? Explain to my pack of wolves that I somehow managed to have a child with a witch, even though that shouldn’t be possible? Then what? Watch her back all the time to keep them from using her against me?”

He laughs bitterly while shaking his head. “You forget what sort of pack I have. To be the strongest pack, you have to have a lot of nasty people who love death. I kept expecting more of them to conceive, but they never did. No one but me. Turns out, back in the old days when types of fey could breed, only certain ones could have children. Turns out, my line was one of them.”

Well, that’s news that would have been nice to know sooner. We’ve been scrambling for information like that.

“Where’s her mother? Who is her mother?” Kane asks, hopping up on one of the counters near Amy’s cage.

Reese purses his lips for a moment. “Her name was Rose. I barely knew her. We met after the purgatory incident. Lust was in the air for a while after that—all that magic coursing through the earth. It was intoxicating. We hooked up, and she got pregnant. Obviously I didn’t believe her at first, but I still helped her find a spot to lie low. I figured she was just scared of someone.

“But then Roslyn was born. One look at her, and I could actually feel my blood running through her veins. She was beautiful, and I knew it. I knew it was impossible, but somehow I had a daughter. And because of the world we live in, I also knew I had to keep her a secret. As terrible as it was, the humans were the best place to hide her.”

“Fuck that,” I spit out. “You know damn well Alyssa would have helped you. You could have come to her instead of making Roslyn live through all she did.”

He curses while running a hand through his hair. “No I couldn’t. Alyssa would have tried to make our world accept her. She thinks she has control over us, when really, she doesn’t have any more control than the old council did. They don’t give her the respect she deserves, because they don’t fear there will be any consequences. A loving queen is adored. But she’s not feared.

“Everyone would have found out, and Roslyn would have had more gunning for her than just my pack. And believe me, I dealt with the homes that were bad. Most of them were good, but Roslyn would run when she had an episode. She could control her wolf, but she couldn’t always control when she turned into a wolf. She knew that she couldn’t be seen.”

“And the foster dad who beat her?” Dice asks too flippantly.

I’d have killed him, too.

“That was handled very, very brutally, and I loved every violent second of it,” Reese says in a low, dark tone. “Got a problem with that, incubus?”

“Nah. I would have gutted him if it had been me, and then I’d have fed him to a real bear piece by piece. We just thought that was in dark user territory, so didn’t see how you could have done it.”

Reese looks away, his jaw ticking as though he didn’t need the reminder of Roslyn’s abuse. I sure as fuck wish it hadn’t been brought up.

“You don’t live as long as I have without making a few friends who owe you their lives. I told them there was a human who owed me a debt; they let me tear him to shreds and helped cover it up. I watched over Roslyn and met her in secret her entire life. I trained her to fight, taught her all about our world, and destroyed anyone who hurt her. She understood. She was always so strong and mature, and she understood why she couldn’t be outed.”

“What about her mother? Was her bloodline strong? How did she die?” Kane asks, getting back on topic.

Reese squirms this time, as though he’s uncomfortable all of the sudden. “Her bloodline was fairly strong. A spell backfired and had deadly consequences. Roslyn was young when she died. Still a baby.”

The rest of the conversation has seemed so easy and not at all forced. He’s been real and in pain until right now. Now… Now he seems like he’s lying. And he sucks at lying. But he speaks before I can try to call him out on it.

“You can’t reverse the spell. If you did, she’d be in all the same pain she was. If you’re going to help her, you’ll need a different spell. And keep Alyssa away from this. I don’t want everyone knowing who my daughter is, especially now. She’s left a trail that makes her seem vicious and feral. She’s not. At least, she wasn’t.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “You were assumed to be feral once. I’ve heard the stories. She can’t be worse than you, and you knew what was going on.”

His anger returns as he glowers at me. “I was around when you went through your change. I wasn’t the only one who loved the taste of blood through a kill, Thaddeus Maximus.”