Filed To Story: In the Shadow of the Past Luna (Lily & James)
I prompted him, sensing a “but”
coming. “And then Margie had a miscarriage while the alpha and beta couples were gone at a conference. It happened not too long before you were born. After that, Margie just was never the same. It was almost like Margie blamed your mother somehow.”
“Dr. Miller does not know about what happened with Tyler,”
Luke linked me. “No, it appears not,”
I replied. “After the miscarriage, Margie began doing things and saying things. It was like she suddenly started hating your parents and especially your mother. When Margie got pregnant with Stephanie, I thought things would get better. And they did for a while. At least publicly. But behind the scenes, Margie never stopped doing things to undermine your mother and the pack generally. In retrospect, I really think Margie’s business, Stephanie’s luna training, and the whole torture thing was some sort of weird power and control fight. It seemed as though Margie wanted to know how far she could push your parents before they would break. And yet, for whatever reason, they never did. It was like they were afraid of her.”
I sighed. Luke was right. Once again, things have looped back to Tyler.
(James POV) I stood up and began pacing. I was in information overload mode, and I needed a minute to work through it ail. “What is with all of the riddles?”
I asked, intentionally changing the topic for a minute. “What do you mean?”
Jessica asked. “Ever since I went to speak to Dr. Hyder the first time, there have been riddles. Planted seeds. Hints. Why? The three of you have apparently known most of the answers this whole time. Why not just come to me and tell me what has been going on? Why make me go through all of this work to find it all out?”
Dr. Miller glared at me as though I was the st upidest wolf he had ever met. “Sure. Telling you straight up would have made a ton of sense. Here we are, managing a group of werewolves who are getting ready to violently overthrow pack leadership. Then our alpha heir publicly and horrifically rejects his mate who happens to be the only she-wolf that has ever stood up for our members and for what is right. – Clearly at that point we should have contacted you and spilled all of our and her secrets. Nothing bad could possibly come out of that right? Low risk move, huh?”
“I do not appreciate the sarcasm, Dr. Miller. If you think so little of me, why tell me anything at all? And why are you telling me everything now?”
“The Moon Goddess does not make mistakes,”
Jessica replied earnestly. “If she thought you were worthy of being paired with Lily, there was a reason why. So I urged the group to take a chance on you. No one I wants war. If there was any possibility that we could get you and Lily back together and avoid it, we wanted to try. But the risks were high. So we fed you little pieces of information and waited to see how you would respond to it. Only after we saw how you responded did we give you more.”
“And?”
“And now we are here. And now we are ready to share almost everything that we know.”
“So I passed your test,”
I said sarcastically. “Not quite. But you did not marry Shella or run back to your father, so you are doing ok,”
Jessica replied in an equally sarcastic tone. “Dr. Hyder is part of your movement?”
I asked matter-of-factly. “No. He actually wants to bring the wolf council in to take over. We have been pleading with him to hold off.”
“Why hasn’t he?”
“Outside of just our begging? Because of Lily. He is bonded to her; he sees her like a daughter. I do not fully understand why. I think it may have something to do with her wolf, but I also think it is more than that.”
“Why would Dr. Hyder’s affection for Lily prevent him from going to the wolf council?”
“She is your mate, and she is the destined Luna of this pack. If he takes you down, it could interfere with Lily’s ability to choose you and accept her Goddess-intended position.”
“But she could also be Brady’s Luna,”
I said, trying to swallow the jealousy and vomit threatening to come up my throat as I said it. “Sure. And she still might. But the prophecy says that Lily needs to pick for herself. Those that interfere with her ability to choose will be punished.”
“Prophecy?”
“We have already told you that Lily is a special wolf.”
“Yes.”
“I believe that she is a Mission Wolf,”
Dr. Miller said. “What is a Mission Wolf? I have never heard of that.”
“A Mission Wolf is a wolf specially chosen by the Moon Goddess to accomplish a specific task or goal. At any given time, the Moon Goddess may have three to five mission wolves in the entire world. Each one has a different goal and a different destiny. Each one is given different powers and talents to help them achieve their goals. The Mission Wolf whose goal is most important to the Moon Goddess is marked with a crescent moon symbol, and that wolf will receive the most gifts.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“He is not suggesting anything,”
Jessica interrupted. “I have seen Lily’s wolf. She is the destined one.”
***TRIGGER WARNING: This is the final chapter that will talk in detail about the horrific things that Stephanie and Sheila did, which include references to elder abuse and sexual assault. Warning: this is really sick stuff. I promise this is the worst of it.*** (James POV) I stared at Jessica for a moment, words escaping me. “What are you saying?”
Jessica did not say anything. Instead, she held on tighter to Joey and looked over at Dr. Miller. Suddenly, Dr. Miller’s words rang through my head as well. Around the time that Lily was being tortured, there was an increase in the number of wolves experiencing betrayal pains from otherwise faithful partners. Oh, Goddess. Oh, no. “Are you… are you saying that Stephanie and Sheila intentionally caused other wolves to experience betrayal pains as a form of torture?”
I asked. I did not even try to mask the sound of fear in my voice. Jessica nodded. I glanced over at Joey and Dr. Miller. Neither of them looked surprised. “What… what did they do?”
I asked hesitantly. Jessica looked down at the list. “Are you sure you want to know?”
Fourse, I do not WANT to I groaned. “Stop asking me that and just start answering my questions. know. But I do not have a choice. I have gotten this far. At this point, I NEED to know.”
Jessica frowned. She stared at the list as she began explaining. “This list does not represent all of the stories; just a few of them. I really did think they would be willing to talk to you. I am sorry that they did not.”
“Stop stalling, Jessica.”
Jessica took another deep breath. “Dorothy’s husband got really bad dementia, and Dorothy had to move him into the pack’s senior care facility. Just before he died, Stephanie and Sheila took advantage of him, if you know what I mean. That caused Dorothy to experience severe betrayal pains for several hours. Apparently, they used a dress that they had stolen from Dorothy to convince her husband that they were her. Brandon was drugged by Stephanie and Shella the night before his wedding while he was out with the comfort her. Brandon’s wedding was postponed. Brandon and his mate eventually got back together, but his mate refused to ever step foot in West Mountain again. Kelly found her mate seven years ago. The night before Kelly’s wedding, Sheila took Kelly out for drinks to celebrate. Kelly started feeling betrayal pains, and she went home. She walked in on Stephanie sleeping with her new mate, who unlike Brandon had not been drugged but was completely wasted drunk. Kelly ended up rejecting her mate the next day. She left the pack not long after, when your father refused to even talk to her about what Stephanie had done. up Eric’s parents were involved in a car accident and they both needed surgery. They were placed in the same room after the surgery so that the mate bond could help them heal. Eric’s mother woke after her surgery unable to move; Stephanie or Sheila had injected her with something while she was unconscious. She had to watch as Stephanie and Sheila took turns with Eric’s father. The experience was so horrifying and traumatic that neither of his parents made it out of the hospital. Eric’s mother died of a heart attack while watching it happen, and Eric’s father is said to have died of a broken heart.”
As I listened to Jessica’s recap and as reality set in, I suddenly felt the need to sterilize my lips, my hands, and my tongue. How had I ever kissed Stephanie? How had I ever allowed myself to think that she was my mate? How did I never notice how much evil flowed through her veins? How had I ever convinced. myself that both Stephanie and Sheila were trustworthy? Thank Goddess I never slept with either of them; I would have felt the need to cut my own di ck off.
Then I realized that Jessica had missed one. “What about Lynda?”
I asked. “That one happened just a few years ago.”
Jessica sighed. That one Sheila did by herself. I do not know what triggered her to do it. Lynda’s husband had minor surgery that required that he be hospitalized for a few days. After the surgery, Sheila convinced Lynda to go home and rest while she and Sheila stayed at the hospital. While Lynda’s husband was still coming out of the anesthesia, Sheila ‘took care of him’ in multiple ways. Sheila later feigned innocence, saying she left while Lynda’s husband was still sleeping. Lynda had a hard time getting over what happened, she and ended up rejecting and divorcing her husband a few months later.”
What, the F&&k. That was all I could think at that moment. What, the. F&&k, “Why the f&&k would Sheila and Stephanie do anything like that?”
I asked, largely rhetorically. No one responded. “If the victims never talked about what happened, how do you know about all of this?”
“Stephanie and Sheila took videos,”
Joey said simply. My stomach dropped. I suddenly felt like I was going to be sick. “You…. you have videos of all of this?”
“Not all of it. But some of it. One of our members found them in Stephanie’s room after she died. They are really hard to watch, so no one did so until recently. It turns out that Stephanie and Sheila were pretty slo ppy about turning on and off the recording, so the videos catch a lot of conversations towards the end that I do not think either of them expected to be captured on video. It helped to fill in a lot of the blanks.”
I rubbed my temples. “Where are the videos now?”
“Dr. Hyder has them. He is ready to turn them over to the werewolf council at a moment’s notice.”
“You are telling me that all of this was going on -she-wolves being trafficked; Lily being badly and horribly abused; and Stephanie and Sheila using the mate bond as some sort of sick a&& experiment- and my parents KNEW this the whole time?!?!?”
a Dr. Miller shook his head. “No, I told you before. I do not think your parents have any clue about most of known. But they did not know, in large part because they did not want to know. They chose to trust Margie with everything. Questioning or challenging Margie was not something they were willing to do, and it was not something they were willing to let others do. Even when there were clues that things were not right, they chose to bury their heads in the sand and look the other way.”
“Tyler,”
I whispered to myself and to Luke. “All of this keeps coming right back to Tyler.”
Had the Tyler incident never happened, would Margie have ever been empowered to do what she did? Would all of these wolves ever been hurt? Or would my father have stepped up like he should have from the beginning and stopped everything from day one? “This is too evil to be explained just by Tyler, James,”
Luke linked me. “This runs deeper than just Tyler. It has to.”
***END OF FLASHBACK*** The hatred I felt towards my parents right now was unmatched. There was no longer any doubt in my mind that they were unfit to run this pack, and they had not been fit to run this pack for many years. A plan slowly formed in my head. It would take careful planning, but I cannot think of anything I want more than to take Margie, Sheila, and my parents down. J Lady Gwen Author With this chapter, I will go and bide now. I am scared to read the comments. I hate the last few chapters probably as much as you do, even though this is where the story has been building for weeks. Two more chapters will go up soon; they are from Lily’s POV. We are done with the evil horrible awful stuff.
Then I realized that Jessica had missed one. “What about Lynda?”
I asked. “That one happened just a few years ago.”
Jessica sighed. That one Sheila did by herself. I do not know what triggered her to do it. Lynda’s husband had minor surgery that required that he be hospitalized for a few days. After the surgery, Sheila convinced Lynda to go home and rest while she and Sheila stayed at the hospital. While Lynda’s husband was still coming out of the anesthesia, Sheila ‘took care of him’ in multiple ways. Sheila later feigned innocence, saying she left while Lynda’s husband was still sleeping. Lynda had a hard time getting over what happened, she and ended up rejecting and divorcing her husband a few months later.”
What, the F&&k. That was all I could think at that moment. What, the. F&&k, “Why the f&&k would Sheila and Stephanie do anything like that?”
I asked, largely rhetorically. No one responded. “If the victims never talked about what happened, how do you know about all of this?”
“Stephanie and Sheila took videos,”
Joey said simply. My stomach dropped. I suddenly felt like I was going to be sick. “You…. you have videos of all of this?”
“Not all of it. But some of it. One of our members found them in Stephanie’s room after she died. They are really hard to watch, so no one did so until recently. It turns out that Stephanie and Sheila were pretty slo ppy about turning on and off the recording, so the videos catch a lot of conversations towards the end that I do not think either of them expected to be captured on video. It helped to fill in a lot of the blanks.”
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?