Chapter 5 #2
Not that she’d tell him that.
She shook her head instead. “He had a mate, Dad. He had a mate, and now he doesn’t. He has a five-year-old son to raise, and finding a new mate isn’t on his agenda.”
“Oh, honey,” Mel whispered then cupped her face. “I’m so sorry.”
Gina didn’t cry. She didn’t think she had anything left to cry about. “It’s okay, Mom. I tried. I put myself out there. He didn’t want me. I get it. He doesn’t want another mate.” He doesn’t want a witch. “There’s nothing I can do about it.”
“We can beat him up for you,” Ben put in.
“Yeah, I’ll tie him down,” Tristan said.
“No one is allowed to hurt our sister,” Drake said.
“We love you, Gina,” Mark said. “We don’t like it when you cry.”
“We really will hurt him for you,” Nick added.
She sniffed then kissed each brother, even standing up so she could kiss Finn’s cheek. He looked down at her, still frowning.
“I’d kill him if I could,” he growled.
She shook her head. “That’s the exact wrong thing to do, Finn. You know that.”
“I don’t care if he’s a freaking Talon. He hurt my family. From the way you reacted, it wasn’t just a brush-off, Gina. He hurt you.”
She closed her eyes. “I know, Finn, but you need to remember that you’re the Heir. You can’t kill a member of another Pack because he hurt your sister.”
“You think I don’t get that? You think I don’t know that I’m the Heir? I’ve been the Heir for as long as I can remember, Gina. I’m not going to mess things up for my Pack because of what he did, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to. I want to put family first. Can’t you get that?”
“We all get that,” Kade said from behind her, and she opened her eyes. “You know we all get that. The whole family has had to put some of their own wants and needs on hold because of the war with the Centrals. Now with the treaty with the Talons, we’re forced to do that again.”
“When Logan and Lexi first joined us, we wanted nothing to do with the Talons,” Mel said.
“Gina, you might have been old enough to remember when they first came to us. We wanted blood for the way the previous Alpha had treated them, but we had to step back.” She cupped Gina’s face.
“But if we need to, we’ll fight for you, Gina.
Never forget that you are our daughter. You are Larissa and Neil’s daughter.
Your heart matters just as much as whatever the Talons mean to us.
You matter more. If you want us to take matters into our own hands with this, we will. ”
“Just because he’s a Talon and we’re trying to find a way to make our treaty work with them doesn’t give him the right to hurt you,” Kade said.
She pulled back and shook her head. “I don’t want to do anything that will hurt the Talons or the Redwoods.
In fact, this is good, right?” She tried to smile and failed.
“Okay, so the rejecting thing is horrible, and I’ll get over it because I have to, but that’s not what I’m talking about.
You know we formed the council because of many things, but one of those was because there hadn’t been any matings between the Talons and Redwoods in all this time. This is huge.”
God, she knew she sounded like an idiot, but if she didn’t move on to something she could talk about without breaking down, she wouldn’t be able to speak at all.
“Gina, you don’t have to try to make this better,” Mark said from her side.
She shook her head. “I’m not really, but think about it. There’s a mating between a Talon and a Redwood. We’re moving forward.”
“And if the goddess sees you both reject it and doesn’t allow another mating?” Finn asked.
Kade growled. “Then that is something we deal with, Finn. We won’t force Gina to deal with Quinn for the sake of the Packs.”
She blinked. She hadn’t thought of that. What if Quinn rejecting her and their potential mating brought them all back a step?
“No, we can’t think like that.” She took a deep breath. “We need to tell the others about the potential mating. They need to have hope.”
Mel shook her head. “Honey, then you’ll have to face the world and tell them that you won’t be mating him.”
She clenched her jaw. “Then Quinn will have to do the same. We are the council leaders. We will show the Packs that we are closer to becoming a strong unit. The others will understand that we chose not to mate. He has a child. He had a mate. That’s all they need to know.”
They didn’t need to know that he’d rejected her for not only that but because she was a witch.
Her palms heated, and she closed them into fists. She was only a half witch. She didn’t have full powers. She didn’t have the control she needed to use them on a daily basis. Yet he didn’t know that. He’d seen only who he thought she was and rejected her in the worst way possible.
For the sake of her Pack, she wouldn’t be able to run away from her problems. It wasn’t as if she could do that to begin with. Her wolf would never want her to do so.
She was stronger than that. She’d fight for her Pack as well as learn to negotiate and strengthen her Pack.
“Gina, you don’t have to do this,” Kade said softly.
“Yeah, I do. If I don’t, I’ll just end up hiding when I don’t need to.
I know everything hasn’t hit me yet, and I’ll deal with it when it does, but I need to be strong.
I need to be a council and Pack leader. This is good for the den, Dad.
” She sucked in a breath. “Maybe more matings will come out of it. Maybe more trust.”
“Do you really think trust will come out of the fact that Quinn rejected you?” Finn asked, and Gina winced. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
“Language, Finn,” Mel whispered.
“You didn’t stop me before,” he said, a small smile on his face.
“We were upset, and I let one pass. Not again.”
Gina’s mouth twitched. God, she loved her family. They understood her even when she didn’t understand herself.
“Finn, he rejected me because he already had a mate.” And he didn’t trust me. “People will understand. It’s only been five years. He’s not ready.”
“Until you find a mate of your own, you’ll always feel the mating urge when you are near him,” Mel said softly. “Are you going to be able to work with him knowing that?”
She nodded. It was going to be harder than hell, but she was stronger than she gave herself credit for. At least she hoped so.
“We can move you off the council,” Kade added.
“Not yet,” she said. “I need to work through it all. I mean, I don’t understand it yet, and I can’t just run away.”
Mark hugged her from behind, and in a few moments, her other brothers hugged her as well. Finn stood in front of her, his hands in his pockets and his brow raised.
“You need help, you call,” he said. “You know I’ll be there in a heartbeat, Heir or no Heir.”
She smiled at him then and let another tear fall. “I love you, little brother.”
He blushed and ducked his head. “Love you too, big sister.” He hugged her, too, as the other boys squeezed her harder. Soon her mom and dad joined in, and her wolf whimpered, rubbing along her skin, needing the contact.
This was her family, her Pack. They would help her heal, so she could move on.
She just hoped that one day she’d be able to face Quinn and not remember his words, not remember the pain.
The wolf had edged his way under her skin, and now she’d have to pry him out.
Once and for all.