Chapter 6 Carys #2
At first, she just had to spy on them and feed him information. Which she did from afar. Never the clubhouse, just the bar, she monitored who was there and when. Then he said she just needed to get inside and kiss Kansas. That was it. After he saw her with Monster, he changed everything again.
Now that her mom knew about her dad, and swore he couldn’t help, Carys was done with the man. This was the last time she’d see her father. She just needed to extract herself in such a way that Monster and the Kings didn’t pay.
She cried for her mom all the way across town. Even though her mom had been sick for a while, Carys hadn’t really accepted it. Instead, she clung to hope. At first, in the doctors, then her father. Now that it was an impossibility, she was grieving.
With a steadying breath, she entered her dad’s house for what would be the last time.
“Oh, my darling daughter. I’m in the office, come, come.” His disembodied voice floated toward her the second she crossed the threshold. Of course he was waiting for her. He was hoping her night had been fruitful.
She entered his ridiculously appointed office to find him sitting behind his desk, sipping whiskey with a smug expression on his face.
Before he could question her or brag about whatever had caused that smug expression, she forged ahead, hoping to catch him off guard.
“I want you to show it to me. Now. If it exists, I want to see it.” Carys placed her hands on the desk and did her best to stare him down. While he may not have a wolf anymore, and was a touch overweight, the man was still very intimidating.
After an uncomfortably long time, he dropped his eyes and shrugged his shoulders.
Carys knew for certain in that moment that everything was a lie.
She was a fool to think he would or could help.
It wasn’t even him she was mad at; he was, after all, just being himself.
It was all her fault. She knew better. Her mother had warned her for years, but she willingly suspended her disbelief to grasp at illusions of straws.
Carys had done this to herself … and her mother. Oh god. She’d tortured her mother with meds and trials, and why? For her inner child, who was abandoned by her father and would do anything to save the one person who loved her? She had wanted him to love her too and say he was wrong.
“You let me believe you could—hell, would—help Mom. Do you know what I put her through, just hoping you’d swoop in and save the day?
When you finally reached out to me, I thought …
” Carys trailed off. She wouldn’t beg to be loved, never again.
“Was it all a setup? Did you sever the mate bond or whatever to get to me?”
Her father didn’t say a word in his defense. Just looked at her with a raised eyebrow that said, what do you think?
“Mother is right, you’re using me. So, what was the plan? It can’t be experiments since the pack is gone.” Then it hit her. He’d never lied about using her. Hell, he’d given her the assignment. “Kansas?”
His expression changed then, not to one of anger but one of sinister glee, for lack of a better description.
“I’ll not help you take down that man or his club. I’m done with all of this, and I’m done with you. You’ll never love me, no matter what I do. I see that now.” She eyed the letter opener. She could grab it, bury it in his neck and end it. Monster and his club would be safe.
Her hand twitched, and she was reaching for it when her father grabbed it. He was holding the letter opener but still looking at her the same way. Fuck it, she was going to tell Monster everything and let his club handle it.
She turned to walk out before turning back.
“I do want to thank you, though. You finally opened my eyes to who you really are. Now I can forget about you for good. I’m free. I’ll never spend another minute wondering why you didn’t want me. No more tears missing a dad who isn’t capable of loving anyone but himself.”
He laughed. “Is that all you’ve got? You’re just giving up on your lifelong dream of having a loving father?
No histrionics? No wailing and pleading?
I seem to remember you doing just that when you begged me to help your poor, sick mother.
You told me how much you always missed me and was so happy to have your daddy back.
You’re just going to throw it all away, when the cure could be just there in the safe?
Tucked away and waiting for you to finish your mission. ”
“It’s not.” She said with confidence.
“No, it’s not, my wayward child. You’ve got me there. Oh, but you believed, didn’t you? You believed so much that you were willing to do anything to save your whore of a mother and, of course, to earn my love.”
Just when she thought the man couldn’t sink any lower, he found new depths to descend to. Of all the things he’d said, one stung more than anything else.
“My mother is not a whore.”
“She was.” He slammed the letter opener into the desk. “She was in the breeding program, and she would get fucked ten times a day. She cried and begged us to stop, but she enjoyed every minute of it. I could tell.”
Carys was horrified at his words. Her knees threatened to give out, so she locked them in place and clenched her jaw.
Her poor mother. Oh God. What she must’ve endured. She’d told Carys a bit about the pack, as a warning to steer clear. She’d never told Carys that she had been systematically raped by them, by … him. Carys was the result of that. How could her mother even look at her and not throw up?
Another thought filtered into her brain about what he’d said. Maybe he wasn’t even her biological father. Not that it would matter, all rapists are equal. His next words cleared up that possibility.
“Then when she got pregnant with you, they revealed whose mating serum she’d been injected with. Lucky me. I got a slut for a mate and one for a daughter.”
She let his slut comment slide for another thought.
She rubbed the crook of her arm where she’d woken up to him injecting her one night when he’d begged her to stay so they could get to know one another.
The night had been one she’d always wished for.
They’d sat and talked over a meal, and he’d played the part of doting dad to perfection.
But by the light of the next morning, everything had shifted.
After she’d woken up to the injection, he’d laid out his plan, as much as he’d tell her to play her part anyhow, and he was no longer playacting.
That’s when he’d informed her to do her part and she could cure her mother.
He said her autoimmune disease was exclusive to wolf mates, and his pack had found a cure years ago.
That was one thing he hadn’t lied about, she thought bitterly.
“That wasn’t a scent blocker you injected me with, was it?”
“Hahaha, little Carys, so clever. Alas, no. It was Kansas’s mating serum made from the last remnant of his DNA left with the pack. All you had to do was kiss him, and boom, instant recognition as his mate.” He took a deep breath.
“At first I thought something must’ve been off in the formula or the DNA compromised,” he mumbled to himself more than her. “But after my early morning wake-up call, I realized the answer. You do indeed have a mate.”
The word mate brought Monster to mind, but her father was now projecting his voice at her.
“All is not lost. Your mother will still suffer and die a painful death, and I shall have my revenge on the Kings after all. And the icing on the cake is that you, my daughter, will be the tool with which I do it. Your own mate will destroy himself when he kills you for the part you played.”
“You’re off your rocker if you think I’ll help you do anything. You’re a fucking monster.”
There was a muted sound from down the hall. She turned in that direction even though she couldn’t see through the wall.
Cliff, she would no longer think of him as her father, apparently didn’t hear it or expected it because he didn’t look away from her with that sneering half-grin look on his face.
Her first thought was another hired thug since the last one left, so she ignored it, but opted for a sense of urgency in case he tried to stop her.
When she finally felt as if her knees wouldn’t collapse, Carys turned to go, but her father had to take a parting shot.
“Speaking of monsters, how is your new fuck buddy? Did you gather any information for me or just ride his disgusting biker cock all night? So much like your mother. I will say, darling, I didn’t think you’d go so far as to fuck the man, but I respect your commitment to help take down the Kings.”
Carys wanted to scream at him and tell him every single thing that was wrong with what he’d just said, but she was rendered mute by the sight that filled the doorway.