Taken By The Beast: Series 1

Chapter 36

Zander

William called me into his office and shut the door behind him. I loved my brother—adored him for all he did for me—but I hadn’t missed his brooding.

It was the equivalent of a Negative Nancy living in your home, always floating around in the background, with some pin to pop your balloon of positivity.

He stalked over to his desk, grabbed the newspaper, and handed it to me. I glanced down at the front page and cringed.

Father of missing woman hears unknown animal in the bayou near her disappearance site.

William’s humorless chuckle floated away as he began to pace his office. I read the article in silence, ignoring William’s banter, and finding out her father was not going to give up. He’d gone back to the police and begged them to search again.

Which opened a new can of worms for all of us.

Would Piper stay if her family came banging on the door this time?

“I don’t understand, Zander,” William’s hostile voice sliced through my reading. “Why would you risk going outside without me here? Now her father is even more suspicious. You know he’s going to come back, because now he thinks a wild beast is responsible for his daughter’s disappearance.”

“Well, isn’t he?” I asked with a smirk.

William snatched the paper from my hand. “This isn’t funny.” His gaze traveled down to my forearm to the fading rose tattoo. “You’re—we’re—running out of time, and you’re joking ... as usual.”

“Would you rather we both stalk around the castle and brood, brother?”

“No!” William shouted. “I would rather you make your fated mate fall in love with you so you’re not stuck this way forever!”

“Don’t you think I’m trying?” I shouted. “I’m doing everything I can think of, William. Priscilla came to her and told her the truth. Now I have that hovering over my head. How could she love what I used to be? How could she love a person that let that happen to a child? And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You know how I was with other packs, the cruel things father made us do—,”

William shoved his finger into my chest, his blue eyes vibrant. “That is not you, Zander. Father tried to make you that way, but that’s not the true you. I’m tired of you punishing yourself. It was a mistake. You’ve asked forgiveness, and you should not be punished for the rest of your life for an accident.”

I glanced down at his shiny penny loafers.

“We’re not going to find Priscilla,” William said. “I’ve done the research and it’s not going to happen. She is everywhere and nowhere. She is appearing whenever she wants. I’m sure she’s been watching us for decades. She is in control of everything but Piper. She’s told her the truth, and yet, she’s still here. She cares about you enough to stay, Zander.”

Sliding my palms down my face, I inhaled, her scent still lingered on my hands from the library. It’d surprised me that she hadn’t run from me. It’d surprised me more that she still felt enough of a connection to let me ravish her against the door.

It’d been angry—emotional—and it seemed that we both needed that release.

“Why don’t you take her to mother’s room?” William suggested.

My gaze snapped to his. Mother’s room sat untouched on the lower level. When Dad began slowly going crazy—well, crazier than he already was—he forced her down to where the slaves once lived in the castle.

Before our time.

The little shoebox of a room made me ill to look at.

“No,” I said, shaking my head, and turning toward the door. “I don’t want to go in there.”

William sighed. “Perhaps it will help you heal. To see her belongings. Remember the way we once saw her? Strong. Beautiful. She sacrificed so much for us. She took the brut—,”

“Stop it!” I shouted, fighting my tears. “I’m not going down there right now.”

William’s silence deafened the room.

I’d let out more emotions in the last few days than I had in decades. My body couldn’t handle anymore.

Someone knocked on the door, and it creaked open. I expected to see Vivian, but it was Piper. “Vivian is almost finished with lunch if you two want to join us. It smells good.”

William cleared his throat. “Sure thing.”

He maneuvered around her in the doorway and left the two of us alone. Piper stepped into the office, and her gaze moved toward the newspaper. She’d been eavesdropping, not that I blamed her after everything she’d found out about me.

I found it on the floor where William had snatched it and let it fall. I bent down, picked it up, and handed it to her. Her hazel eyes scanned the words, and I watched the sadness travel over her features.

“He’s not going to give up,” she whispered.

I stepped over and titled her chin up, swiping a tear from her cheek. “I don’t blame him, Little One. I wouldn’t give up on you either.”

She smiled, and two more tears raced down her cheeks. “What’s in your mother’s room?”

I dropped my hands and shoved them into my pockets.

Memories were in my mother’s room. Ones that would crack my heart open, and I was afraid I’d bleed to death.

“Nothing in particular.”

She stepped forward, so close her chest brushed against mine. “What are you afraid of? The past? The memories?”

I stroked my fingertips down the curve of her jaw. “I’m afraid of looking into the eyes of my failure, Piper. I failed my mother.”

Piper shook her head. “Come eat with me in your mother’s room—,”

“No,” I said sharply. “I can’t.

Piper looked over her shoulder at me. “You will. Because you need to heal from more than what happened to Xavier. You need to heal from everything because you can’t truly love a person until you love yourself.”

Piper insisted on holding both of our plates, while I led us down the staircase in the very corner of the castle. It was dark, gloomy, and tucked away so tight that no one would ever think to go there.

The lights flicked in an eerie way that made me nervous.

Piper never flinched when I opened the old wooden door that creaked with the tip of my boot and led her down a long hallway.

The art and the evidence of old money vanished. This was strictly living quarters. The bare minimum. We stopped at the last door on the left, and I put my hand on the knob.

Piper waited patiently, I felt her eyes on the side of my face, but I couldn’t look at her. I shoved it open, and I swore I smelled the distant scent of mother”s perfume.

Cobwebs hung from the corners, and a dusky scent lingered in the air. We’d placed blankets over everything years ago. Her chair was out from under her vanity where it normally sat, like she just got up, and forgot to push it back under.

There was no widow in the room, but the light surprisingly worked when I turned it on. “This is where your mother stayed?” Piper asked, surprise in her voice.

“Yes,” I whispered. “After my father went mad he forced her down here. I would come every night and sleep with her, while he was out screwing around with shewolves in the pack. Or destroying someone’s home. I would sneak back to my bed before he woke the next morning. I hated her being down here alone.”

Piper sat down on the bed, the plastic that draped over the mattress underneath the blanket crinkled, but she didn’t care.

I took the plate she offered me, and sat in the chair by the vanity, looking around at her belongings. A scarf she knitted hung around the inside doorknob, her slippers neatly placed under her nightstand.

I imagined her sleeping where Piper sat eating her meal, and my anger began to rise. My fingers clutched the plate in my hand, and I heard it crack beneath my grip.

“Are you okay?” Piper asked.

“No,” I answered honestly, my voice hoarse and strained. “We shouldn’t have come down here. I want to leave—,”

Piper stood up and put her plate down on the bed beside her. “No. You’re going to stand here and tell me everything you loved about your mother. You hate yourself for so many things that aren’t your fault—,”

“I could protect her!” I said, putting down my plate and standing up. I pointed at myself. “I couldn’t protect her and she died. He made me bury her body so that no one would know where she was. I was an alpha-to-be, I should have challenged my father and I didn’t.”

“Because you were a child!” she said, grabbing my t-shirt in her hands. “You were a child, and you need to let. It. Go. Please. You’re going to kill yourself from the grief of your life.”

She was right.

I knew it.

But maybe a part of me wanted to die.

Wanted to give up all this grief and be set free.

There had been a time I wished Priscilla would have killed me instead, but I knew she wanted me to suffer.

She’d gotten her wish.

I’d done nothing but suffer for years.

“Zander,” Piper said. “You were a child. He was your father. He was the boss. You did what he said because you had no other choice. You have to let it go.”

Tears built in the corners of my eyes.

I stared at Piper through a hazy, watery gaze and felt myself slipping. How could she tell me something that I’d told myself for years, and it snap something inside of me? If I didn’t stop, I would become the Weeping Wonder of the castle.

Piper nodded, placing her hand on my cheek, she kissed me. I tasted my tears in our kiss.

My weaknesses flashed like a neon sign above my head.

But Piper seemed blind to them.

She didn’t care that I cried like a baby.

Or that she had to beg me to do it.

She held onto my deltoids and kissed me until I was a blubbering mess at the foot of my mother’s bed. I wrapped my arms around her, and lifted her feet from the floor, tangling my fingers into her hair, I kissed her like the first time in the hallway.

Her warmth bled into me and warmed me from the inside out. She tugged on my hair and rested her forehead against my own. “You need to remember your mother at her good times. Remember her kindness, and know that you aren’t just your father’s son. You’re your mother’s son, too.”

I nodded. She was right. Our mother tried her hardest to make us kind, even if our father came behind with a bulldozer and tried to demolish it.

A chill settled over my skin, a vast contrast from Piper’s warm body in my arms. I glanced over her shoulder, and my body went still. Priscilla stood in the doorway of my mother’s room.

She looked like she did all those years ago.

The same age.

Wearing a similar multi-colored skirt, and white paint on her face. Her eyes changed a familiar yellow, and her anger—wasn’t evident on her face—but it traveled between us.

“She’s here?” Piper asked without looking over her shoulder.

“Yes,” I whispered, not daring to look away from her.

“She’s scared,” Piper whispered. “She’s scared you’re going to break the curse.” Piper searched for the floor with her feet, but when she turned to look, Priscilla disappeared. “And she should be. Because you’re about to show her the monster she thinks you are doesn’t exist anymore.”