Chapter 24
Taking a deep breath, David paused, trying to quell the butterflies in his stomach, threatening to make him throw up.
He dearly wanted to believe what his mate told him, but after a lifetime of disappointments, it was hard to do.
He looked down at Zane’s thumb rubbing circles on the back of his hand, taking comfort in that simple gesture, before he began.
“I was born in the mountains of Northern Italy during winter. My mother was alone when she gave birth to me during the worst blizzard ever and how she managed, I do not know, but I survived. I don’t remember much about my first years of life except they were filled with love and fun.
“My mother had that way about her…always smiling and joyful. She called me her ‘miracle baby’ and I felt cherished. Looking back now I can see it was a hard life but no matter what chore she had to do, she’d make a game of it for me, so my life was filled with laughter.”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” asked Zane.
“No, I was the only child my mother ever had. I never met my father. It was always just me and my mother. She was my universe until I was five.”
“And then?” Zane asked.
“My mother had tucked me into my bed for the night and left to put our cow in the barn and then gather wood for a coming storm. I never knew exactly what happened until I was older, but she was attacked and left for dead in the barn and I was taken to the convent of the Sisters of the Four Gods in Tuscany.”
“Wait, are they connected to the Church of the Four Gods that Kieran was talking about at the Wolf Pack Pub when we were eating dinner there?” recalled Zane.
“Yes. They put me into a cell and chained me to the wall; all while I was crying for my mother. Then they told me she was dead, but I remember thinking they were wrong. I knew my mother was alive and would save me. I don’t remember much from that time except I was punished repeatedly when I refused to do what they asked. ”
“What the hell could they want a five-year-old to do,” asked Zane, agitation showing in his voice.
Sighing, David knew his answer might cause his mate to reject him but he plowed on. “Every day I was made to stand in the middle of a room where I had to recite different prayers until I could say them from memory. I refused a lot, and was punished for it.”
“Is that how you got the scars on the back of your legs?”
“Yes. I was caned for that and so many other things. When my mother showed up, she’d sneak into my cell and rub a healing salve on the welts.”
“Wait!” exclaimed Zane. “Your mother showed up? Why the hell didn’t she take you away from there?”
Taken aback by the force and logic of Zane’s question, David paused.
I better go back to square one so my mate understands everything.
“My mother,” explained David, “survived the beating, but it took a long time for her to heal. Our neighbor who lived on the other side of the mountain came by to check on us after the storm and found her unconscious in the barn. He brought her into our house and discovered I was gone. He had a terrible choice to make…go after me or save my mother. Luckily for me he saved her. When she recovered, she began her search for me. It took her two years, but by that time, I was fully immersed in my role as a High Priest.”
Avoiding eye contact with Zane, David gritted his teeth, feeling guilty at the way he’d treated his mother then.
“One day, when I was walking to the Church of the Four Gods, my keeper fell and sent me back to get help. It was the first time I’d been alone since I was kidnapped and the feeling was amazing.
So as soon as I was out of my keeper’s sight, I went into the woods that lined the path we were on so I could do what every seven old year boy wanted to do…
play. I’d been forbidden to do that, but I still remembered the games I played with my mother.
“Suddenly, my mother stepped out from behind a tree. I was petrified, sure she was a ghost. I started to run away but she grabbed my arm and told me she was there to take me home. To my great sorrow now, I refused and told her I was a High Priest and that she couldn’t possibly love me if she wanted to take me away from my calling.
She started to cry, begging me to go with her right away but I wouldn’t.
I broke loose and ran all the way back to the Convent, scared she was going to follow and kidnap me.
“Just as I got there, the High Priestess was leaving and she grabbed my arm, wanting to know why I was crying and where my keeper was. I told her about the fall and that I was sent back to get help…but I never told her about my mother. To this day, I can’t explain why but something inside me prevented me from saying anything. ”
“I think you were protecting your mother,” Zane said, softly.
“Maybe.”
“What happened then?” asked Zane.
“The High Priestess had another one of my keepers take me back to my room and lock me up. The next day, when my keeper walked me to the Church of the Four Gods, I kept looking into the woods, hoping to see my mother, wondering if she’d been real…but she wasn’t there.”
“Babe, I have a couple of questions.”
“Go ahead, ask me anything.”
“First why did it take your mother so long to heal? A quick shift would have taken care of her injuries, especially if your neighbor had treated them.”
“My mother isn’t a shifter,” David said.
“Huh? Then your father was one?”
“I don’t think so. When I was older my mother told me I didn’t have a father.”
“Then how did she get pregnant with you?”
Shrugging his shoulders, David said, “No idea. Her pregnancy was discovered by her father one day when she was sick and couldn’t stop throwing up.
When she couldn’t name the father, she was kicked out of her family and village and told never to come back.
She left, turning her back on her family and friends and hiked into the mountains where she found an abandoned house with a barn.
She told me the place called to her and she knew it would be where she raised her child. ”
“Wow! She was a very strong woman, just like my mother.”
“My mother is still alive,” said David.
Stunned, Zane stared at his mate. “I’m sorry. I thought she died.”
Taking a deep breath, then letting it go, David continued.
“After that meeting in the woods, I didn’t see my mother again for a couple of weeks.
Then one evening when I was led back to my room to be chained up for the night, my mother was there, mopping the floor.
When my keeper turned her back to get the chain, I looked at my mother and she was holding a finger to her lips, warning me to be quiet.
I was speechless so she had nothing to fear.
After my keeper locked the chain to my collar, she asked my mother how much longer before she finished cleaning my room.
After my mother answered, my keeper told her to finish up and make sure she locked the door behind her.
“I remember sitting down on my bed, watching my mother, wondering what she was doing there. When she finished, she opened my door and peeked out. Closing it quietly, she then sat next to me on my bed. That evening, my mother told me what had happened to her the night I was kidnapped and that she never stopped looking for me. It was so confusing, I didn’t know what to think because in my mind I was the High Priest who was supposed to save the world.
“And now my mother was asking me to abandon everyone who was counting on me…I didn’t know what to do and I began to cry.
Looking back, I realized the High Priestess had done a real head job on a five year old child.
By the time I was seven, I honestly believed what she’d told me.
Anyway, my mother gathered me in a hug and held me until I stopped crying.
Then she told me everything would be all right, tucked me into bed, and kissed me good-night. ”
“Your mother left you there? Chained up like an animal?” Zane asked, disbelief in his voice.
“Yes, but it nearly killed her to do that. My mother had applied for a job and had just started that day as a cleaning lady. After wandering around looking for me, she’d finally found my room…
and me. I think she hoped I’d changed my mind and would go with her, but seeing her only confused me more.
For two weeks, I spent my days convincing myself she wasn’t real and that I was being tested by the Four Gods as to my worthiness to be a High Priest.”
“Did you really believe the Four Gods wouldn’t want your mother to be with you?” asked Zane.
“Yes. I know it sounds crazy now, but that’s because you don’t understand what those two years were like for me,” David said, becoming agitated.
Wrapping his arms around David to settle him down, Zane kissed his mate’s forehead. “Babe, it’s all right,” he crooned. “I love you.”
David felt his mate’s love flowing through him, helping to calm his soul.
Just talking about this period in his life was horrible but trying to explain it to Zane was worse than he imagined.
Taking several deep breaths, he tried to explain what had been done to him.
“After I’d been taken, I was sure my mother would rescue me and I dreamt of her every night.
Then, in the morning, I woke up back in my changed world. Why hadn’t she come for me?
“After a while, two months or maybe four, the High Priestess had me brought to her and she showed me a picture of what she said was my mother’s grave, explaining she’d been killed by some bad people. I was saved, she said, because the Four Gods sent someone to protect me and bring me to her.
“I asked her why they would do that for me, and that’s when she told me the gods had chosen me to be the High Priest on earth.
The High Priestess told me I was the savior sent by the Four Gods to bring order into the world and to do that I had to learn how to be a High Priest so I could lead the world and enlighten my followers.
She went on and on about how special and lucky I was until I fell asleep in her room.
That was the day dreams about my mother stopped.
I was a five year old child, all alone in the world…
at least that’s what I believed then…and the only person who cared about me was the High Priestess.
“From then on, I did everything that she asked of me, spending hours learning everything about the religion of the Four Gods. The High Priestess had me so twisted by the time I was seven, I truly believed being chained up every night was normal and I never objected. In my mind, it was necessary to prove my worthiness. The only time I didn’t follow orders was when I entered the woods without the keeper by my side.
I still can’t understand what drove me to do that.
“Now, I look back at that time in my life and wonder why I accepted everything the High Priestess told me, so much so, that I would reject my mother just a couple of years later. My mother! Who I loved with my whole heart! And in two years, my love was gone…all gone. I was so dumb, believing the High Priestess. You should know this about me…I’m easily taken in by what people tell me. ”
“David, look at me. You are not dumb…”
“I was…am…I believed her instead of trusting my heart.”
“Babe, you were five years old! What did you know about the world? Very little…certainly nothing about knowing that someone would lie to you about the death of your mother! You know what I think you were suffering from?”
“A massive case of dumbness?” asked David, with a wan smile.
“Stop it! Stop putting yourself down! You were only five…five. If there is any blame it belongs to that bitch of a High Priestess.”
Grinning at his mate’s words, David said, “She’d be very angry if she heard you say that.”
“No offense, but fuck her. Did you ever hear of the Stockholm Syndrome?”
“Nooo, I don’t believe so. What is it?”
“It can happen when someone is held hostage and in order to survive, the hostage bonds with his captors. In this case, once the High Priestess provided proof your mother was dead, you turned to her because she offered to keep you safe. And for a five year old, torn from the only home he knew, that was what was most important to you. As you found out two years later, it was a lie but by that time, your bond was firmly in place so when your mother wanted you to come with her, your mind rebelled because that threatened the security you had. I’m not surprised you chose not to go with her. ”
“You’re not?” asked David, somewhat surprised.
“No babe, I’m not. Remember you were only seven when your mom found you…a very sheltered and protected seven year old who had already gone through one traumatic incident. What surprises me is that you never said anything to the High Priestess.”
“I know, I know. I never did, not even to any of my keepers.”
“I have a theory about that too.”
“You do? What is it?”
“You think your love for her was gone, but I don’t.
It was still there, buried deep in your heart where you were protecting it from the world.
It was your love that stopped you from telling anyone about your mother in the woods and then later, when she showed up in your room.
You knew the High Priestess would’ve hurt your mother if she’d found out about her. ”
David’s chin dropped as he stared at his mate.
How does my mate know this? Shaking his head, he said, “Well you’re right about one thing.
When I finally ran away to Scotland, she chained my mother up in my place.
When she came to visit me in my room one night at the pub, the High Priestess told me my mother was her insurance so I better do exactly what I was told to do. ”