Lone Wolf (The Pack 5)

“They weren’t,” I denied instantly, tightening my grip.

She smiled, but there was no happiness in it. “It divided the Pack. Gran gave them a choice. Leave or die.” I nodded, for once in complete agreement with her Gran. “A few left.” She looked up at me, her eyes shimmering. “It was a mistake. She should have killed them.” Anger contorted her face. “They were no longer under oath. They had no loyalty to the Pack. Sparing their lives was not enough to keep them silent.”

“The Hanleys attacked us,” she murmured. “They thought we were weak. They weren’t prepared for Gran. Or my grandmother and mother. Three generations of powerful women.” She smiled grimly. “I can only imagine the chaos they unleashed on them. They drove the Hanleys away, but,” she paused, her jaw locking. “They managed to kill my grandmother.”

“The Hanleys,” I verified and she nodded.

“They tore her apart.”

I closed my eyes, picturing the horrific scene and starting to understand Gran’s hatred for wolves. During my travels, I’d been forced to watch a Pack kill a traitor in their midst and they’d ripped him limb from limb. It wasn’t an easy death and for a mother to witness it….Gran’s rage was starting to make sense.

“The wolves that stayed were older. Slowly, they all died. Various fights with other wolves who came thinking they could take the Pack and the land. My father was the youngest and he died when I was nine.” Remorse flooded through me, but it belonged to Dru.

“What happened to your dad?”

She tucked her head down, and the feeling of guilt increased. “As rumors spread about me, others came looking.”

“Others,” I repeated.

One of her shoulders tilted up. “Hunters, I’d guess you’d say, but they didn’t come looking for a trophy to mount on their wall.” Tales I’d heard over the years came back to me, stories of how some hunters captured shifters and sold them to the highest bidder. “I’d never met an outsider.” She smiled mockingly. “It’s not much of a defense.”

“You were…nine?” I commented, thinking back to when she said her father had died. “You can’t be held responsible.”

“Can’t I?” She inhaled, holding her breath for a long second. “I lead them straight to my father. They killed him….so quickly. One breath he was there and then he wasn’t.” A long exhale. “I had never shifted before and I didn’t then. I ran screaming for my mother.”

I waited, barely breathing as her eyes lifted to mine, brilliant blue and golden amber fierce in the dim light.

“You think my Gran is terrifying,” she whispered softly. “That day I watched my mother flay the flesh from their bones with nothing more than her raging grief.” She blinked, washing away any hint of tears. “She saved me, but I will never forget the look on her face when she realized it was at the expense of my father’s life. I had broken the rules and brought strangers into our home. A sin so great she would never forgive me.”

“You were a child.”

“I was the reason they were there,” she countered bitterly, her voice a barely intelligible snarl. “I cost my father his life. The only person who loved me, who didn’t look at me….,” she swallowed hard, “Paige never got a chance to know him or our mother because of my actions.”

“What happened to your mom?” I forced the question out, not wanting to know, but knowing she needed to tell me.

“Her grief was too much for her.” Dru tugged on her lower lip with her teeth. “At least that’s how Gran put it, but don’t ever ask her about it. Losing a daughter was too much, but a granddaughter as well and over a wolf?” I smelled the blood before I saw it as Dru released her lip, the spot where I’d bitten her bleeding again. “She watched me every day waiting for the moment I would shift.” She rested her head on the bars, her gaze searching mine. “She tried to stop it, you know. That’s why there are so many traps,” she whispered the words as if she was telling me a secret. “Unwary wolf shifters, curiosity seekers, or just foolish boys. She thought if she could reverse it, she could stop it.”

I had to clear my throat before I could speak. “It didn’t work.”

Dru’s gaze swept the dark, cold pen I stood in. “No, but she learned a lot.”

My spine tingled at the hollow words and the memory of bones twisting and breaking, an echo of Dru’s pain when she shifted, I suspected. “Your mother died right after your father?”

“My mother committed suicide,” Dru corrected me. “It was almost a relief.” I jolted at her words and she smiled bitterly. “The way she looked at me? If I’d known how I would have killed myself to escape it.”