40. Confrontation
CHAPTER 40
Confrontation
ALIA both children had their eyes locked upon their father.
My heart broke. These two would forever adore the man meant to love them unconditionally, but they would someday have to come to understand what he is, and I hoped it didn’t break them when they found out.
My sister and brother stood right behind them, Jacob gently holding Anna upright. She gave me a weak but radiant smile. She had already gained some weight; her cheeks weren’t so sunken, and her eyes were a little less dim. What this man had done to her would leave scars, but with time, she would heal.
That was the thing about broken things: they could always be mended with a little elbow grease and hard work.
“We’re by your side, hon, every step of the way,” Mom said, her smile wide and her eyes sparkling with a mixture of rage and love. She wanted to tear Rey to pieces, but she was holding his child and would do nothing of the sort while the kids were around. But when they were not?
Her wrath should terrify the man-boys at my back, but they stepped forward. I felt the grazing of wind, but when I turned, Shen had an arrow in his mouth, holding it by the shaft. He slowly bit it in half, his eyes never leaving the man who was once my sister’s husband.
The man-child paled, his face stricken as if he finally understood what danger he was in. He slowly lowered the bow in his hands.
Shen stepped forward, his eyes glowing red as his lips peeled back to reveal fangs the size of a finger and a half. The people took a collective step back as Rey soiled his pants.
I touched Shen’s shoulder, feeling the muscles roiling beneath his fur, readying to pounce.
“His children are behind us. Please…,” I whispered.
Shen turned his head, his eyes meeting mine. There was murderous rage in the depths so profound I had never seen the like. But he slowly nodded. He turned to Rey and Bill, both of whom were hemmed in by the people they’d manipulated. A slow grin teased my lips. Those people wouldn’t let him get away any more than I would. Anna wasn’t the only person they’d manipulated and abused.
Shen curled his tail around my waist as he walked by. His steps were slow and languid, belonging to a hunter who knew his superiority. It was a thing of terrifying beauty to watch.
I nearly stepped forward, but I needed to trust him as he’d trusted me and let him handle this.
As he moved, Rey fell on his butt and crab-walked backwards until he hit the front of his dad’s store.
Shen pulled his lips back, his eyes never leaving his prey, and a low growl rumbled in his chest.
Rey whimpered, curling into a ball at Shen’s feet.
“Daddy!” cried a little voice.
Jess jumped out of Mom’s arms and scrambled around me. She got between Rey and Shen, holding out her little arms with tears racing down her cheeks. “Please, don’t hurt my daddy,” she said. Her tears washed twin white streaks down the dirt on her face.
My heart cried out in pure, screaming pain.
Some people didn’t deserve the love of a child.
And the child didn’t deserve the hate of the parent.
Shen immediately dropped to his stomach with his nose to her feet. He licked her bare feet—we can never keep shoes on those toes—and she giggled in surprise. Shen’s posture morphed from killing intent to puppy in that split second. He gently reached up and licked her cheek. She recoiled from him, and his whimper broke what was left of my heart.
Jess wrapped her arms around her quavering father. I glanced back helplessly as a child loved a manipulative bastard who was still her father.
Was there any hope for their relationship? One could never know, but I hoped someday, somehow, things would change and the sweet little one would have her happily ever after. Hopefully, it would be before she was scarred inside from a father who didn’t know love and couldn’t give it to her.
Dad met my gaze, and in the timelessness and wisdom of his eyes, I saw that he understood. Mom had tears down her cheeks so much like her granddaughter that it caused a spasm of pain in my chest.
Shen turned as if he felt the pain of my soul.
Rey looked at Shen. “Don’t,” Rey hissed. “I know you. I know what you’ve done. You killed him?—”
“How dare you!”
I nearly jumped out of my skin at the shout directly beside me. I was so engrossed and honestly shocked beyond measure that I hadn’t even realized my family had come up beside me. My sister had released a yell so loud I feared my eardrum might have burst.
“You’re a piece of scum. How I didn’t see it until now is beyond me. Are you so very stunted you’d seek a way out regardless if it’s at the cost of another secret I told you?—”
“If you weren’t a harlot, it never would’ve come to this. If you weren’t too sickly to provide, we never would’ve come to this point. No matter how you make me the bad guy in your mind, never forget how all this started: you were a runt born with magic who wanted to fall in love and live a normal life. You never will, because you aren’t normal .”
While he was speaking, Shen stayed still, but my family was moving. So was my town.
It was time to pull myself together and be the leader this place needed.
Shen darted his eyes at me. They were golden, not red.
“Daddy?” the little girl asked. Her voice was soft, nearly numb except for a little quaver.
“It’s alright, darling. You want Daddy to be ok, right? All these people want to kill Daddy. Will you help me get out of here?”
As the girl nodded her little head, the blood boiling in my chest burst into my extremities.
Never had I known that one could see red. Never had I been so filled with rage it seemed as if the heart in my chest would combust. Never had I seen a man so broken that he first kidnapped his daughter and then asked her to help him escape punishment for it.
“If you want your secrets to remain secret, I suggest you let me and my daughters go,” Rey said.
“What about me?” his father asked.
Rey ignored him. “Let us go, and nothing need be said about any of this,” he warned. It made me wonder if he knew about Shen and about my grandpa. If that got out, it could be disastrous and might break the peace I’d slowly been growing between my people and those who came into our tribe with needs and magic.
Rey was a despicable soul.
If I had not seen a real man, I would’ve signed off on the male species once and for all. Heck, I might’ve become a deranged hermit, never wanting to see a human again. But I had my dad and now I had Shen, a werewolf assassin who had more honor in his pinky finger than many of my Reds.
I would change that as much as I could. And it began with the children.
A child who knew no love and no mercy became Rey. And if Rey had both his children, they would either become him or become the opposite, which would be one who was attracted to a person like Rey to try to plug the hole from an absent father.
I hoped and prayed my family and I could change that and break the curse of Rey from his children. That we could help them see how much they’re loved and accepted as the little blessings they are. Imperfect little creatures of pure joy and (mostly) happy chaos.
At a flick of my fingers, Shen growled, and two of the Reds near Rey pounced. Of all the things my Reds weren’t, one thing they were, were well-trained assassins.
Rey had no chance as a civilian.
As my family took in the crying little girl and wrapped her in love with her mama, I met Rey’s eyes.
“I don’t accept blackmail from someone my sister lowered her standards to be with,” I hissed.
I don’t know what he saw, but his face drained of all color and he went limp in the Red’s arms on either side of him.
Shen’s arms wrapped around me. I realized I was quavering with a mixture of rage and pain and adrenaline. My throat had stopped functioning and my heart was trying to fly from my chest.
“Take him and his father to the dungeons. Matriarch Alia will return shortly after her family is settled,” Shen told my Reds. They saluted him and darted to do his bidding.
Shen took my shoulder and guided me out of town.
“My family,” I whispered.
“Your family is fine, Carissimus. They are safe. Your father is watching over them and knows you are with me.”
My lips quavered.
“It is just me, Little Red. Let it out.”
I glanced up at him. “I don’t know if I can,” I said. It had been so long. “I think I’ve forgotten how to?—”
“How to cry? Did you see Rey’s face when I stalked him?”
I blinked at him. “He crapped his pants.” I nearly giggled.
“And his father. I do not know if you saw it, but he went from beet red to lobster red and whiter than your pretty, little dragon.”
I did giggle then, even though it wasn’t that funny. “That was pretty epic,” I said.
Shen grabbed my chin, lifting my eyes to meet his. His were concerned but pinched in a smile. “And your sister. She told him where to shove it?—”
He cut off as I laughed. But the laugh was odd. It changed quickly, catching in my throat.
“There she is,” Shen whispered, kissing my forehead and then pushing my head so it fell against his chest. The soothing rhythm of his heartbeat against my ear. “Come now, Little Red. You are safe to break with me. We will pick up the pieces later. Together.”
I clutched his tunic as if I were drowning and he were the lifeboat.
“It's too much,” I whispered, my breath coming in panicked gasps as my mind threw all the things that could go wrong at me. All I had to lose. All I had done, and it still wasn’t enough. My eyes grew hot, my head pounded, my heart fluttered in my chest.
“Shhh, little one. I have you,” Shen said softly, smoothing my hair back from my forehead and placing a gentle kiss there as sobs rose from my chest and tears cooled the heat behind my eyes.
Shen was there through it all, holding me, purring, and gently soothing my broken spirit.
I fell asleep on his chest.
Shen
I kissed her hair, gently cradling her. Her breathing had evened out, although she still hiccupped from the force of the tears.
Years of emotion had been pent up inside her little body. I was honored to be the one to hold her through it. I had seen beyond her walls. She had trusted me to watch her break. And that was the single most precious item in this world besides her heart that I would forever hold dear.
She had set me free. And now it was time I did the same for her, even if it took years.
I would support her, uplift her, and be there for her until she could lay down her armor and be just a girl without the strength. Oh, she needed her strength. I respected it and loved it about her. She was a warrior through and through. But beneath the armor, she also needed to be human, to be vulnerable, to be seen as a capable, independent woman who also sometimes needed to just be .
To not be seen as a fixer. To not be seen as a healer. To not be seen as matriarch.
To just be… her.
It would take time. She had been meeting needs for so long, it was hard for her to accept her needs being tended to. I had seen the guilt in her eyes when she had left the village. I had taken in the concern in her father’s eyes as he had nodded to me and mouthed for me to take care of his little girl. I had watched how hard it was for her to show the brokenness on the outside when she had already shattered inside.
I would help her pick up the pieces. And then I would allow her to be however she wanted to be. Even more so, how she needed to be.
I wanted to be the person who knew her needs and met them.