Filed To Story: Chasing the Rejected Luna's Heart (Clara & Liam) Book PDF Free
I had always known he treated me differently from the way many of the other she-wolves were treated by their adoring fathers, but I never realized just how cold he could be. Something told me I was about to experience an entirely different side of my father. One I would rather not know existed at all.”Go to your room.”
That was all he said before getting out of the car and stalking toward the path leading behind the mansion and into the woods. I didn’t need to ask to know where he was going. Like most male shifters, when his emotions were raging and he didn’t feel like he was in control, he surrendered entirely to his wolf, and that meant disappearing. It meant getting away somewhere he could hunt and run and let the beast out to act on the rage bubbling just beneath the surface so he wouldn’t let it out on more inappropriate targets.
I didn’t know if it was me he was going to be ripping apart in his mind with some unfortunate deer as a proxy or Mom, or maybe whoever my biological father was. Maybe all of the above, but in any case, I was filled with shame and fear and confusion. So much confusion.
I went back inside and up to my room, curling up in my bed and hiding under the covers like I had done when I was little and I was afraid of a monster in the closet. Dad had never tolerated me coming into the bedroom to sleep with them when I was afraid. Even as a child, I hadn’t really been allowed to act like one. Not in front of him, at any rate. Not if it would inconvenience him in the least. The fact that that was him when he had reason to care for me and love me was at once confusing and terrifying, because what the hell was he going to be like now that he knew the truth?
As I lay beneath the covers, crying myself into a sleep that was no more restful than consciousness, a bit of anger joined the confusion within me as well. I didn’t want to feel anything other than love and fondness toward my deceased mother, but what the hell was she thinking keeping this from me? How could she?
Being unfaithful to your mate was taboo for any shifter, even if some alphas got away with it behind closed doors. For a she-wolf, though? It was unthinkable, and it wasn’t like she had cheated with someone else in the pack. That might’ve gone unnoticed. In that case, I probably would’ve shifted like any other wolf on her mating day, and I wouldn’t be in this situation right now. Instead, I was forced to contend with the realization that I wasn’t just some illegitimate wolf child. I wasn’t a wolf at all, not by the pack’s standards.
I was human. Worse than human, I was a hybrid. An abomination that wasn’t even supposed to be able to exist, and when one was unfortunate enough to manage it, they were treated like a pariah. An outcast.? I had heard all the horror stories about hybrids born to other packs. The rumors varied, from tales of inferiority to outright madness. Some people claimed they were horrible beasts who were better off being put down than suffered to live. Others were generous enough to allow them to exist on the fringes of their packs as social pariahs, to put it mildly.
I didn’t know what the case would be for me, if word got out. The only hope I had was that pride would keep Dad from letting it. That he would rather go on nurturing another man’s child, especially since I didn’t have much time left as his problem, than let the truth come out about his traitorous mate.
For once, his wrath was not beyond my comprehension. For once, I understood it perfectly. A wolf’s honor was only as good as his word, and that applied to females as well. One who had strayed from her obligation to her mate was destined to be an outcast, so it was no surprise she had kept my true parentage a secret.
From him, at least.
The fact that she had kept it from me as well…that just added even more pain to all the rest.
When I felt myself on the verge of a panic attack and total meltdown, I forced myself to shut down. I wouldn’t let myself think of anything at all, because each thought was only going to down a more dangerous path then the last. Eventually, I succeeded at falling asleep, but my dreams were far from a sanctuary.
* * *
It was three full days before Dad finally called me to his office. There had been part of me hoping he wouldn’t do it at all. That was by far the best case scenario out of all the potential events that had been conjured by my mind over the last few days, considering it had nothing else to occupy itself with. The prospect that he would just dive headlong into denial, and pretend like none of this had happened. Not to save face for me, but himself.
He was, after all, the alpha. The alpha could do whatever the hell he wanted, a prospect that at once comforted and terrified me.
I felt a bit like I was walking toward the gallows as Dad’s beta led me down the hall and up the stairs to his office. I never ventured to that floor, since it had always been off-limits to me as a child, and I still kind of assumed it was. I wasn’t sure if the tense way the guard was behaving meant he knew something of the truth, or if that was just a reflection of the mood his boss had been in lately.
I walked into the office, keeping my head high and determined to keep my emotions in check, since crying only ever angered my father. When I wasn’t expecting was to find the guys gathered as well, stationed around various points of his office. Damon was leaning against the wall, Liam was sitting in a chair adjacent to Dad’s desk, and Jax was pacing across the room when I came in. They all stopped and turned to stare at me as the door fell shut behind me. I jolted when it clicked into place.”What are they doing here?” I asked, looking right at Dad. It was probably not the best foot to get this meeting off on, but they were the last people I wanted to see right now, especially in this context. I felt like it was four on, and it probably was. Even Liam was looking at me differently. Like I was a stranger.
I couldn’t really blame him when I kind of felt like a stranger to myself as well. I had always felt like my sense of identity was a bit shaky, but not really any more than the average adolescent. Granted, most of my peers had managed to move into more confident states of being as they came to accept their roles within the pack. I just felt like I was out of place, even if I had never understood the magnitude of just how much truth there was in that feeling.”Why wouldn’t they be?” Dad challenged, his voice unnervingly calm. I preferred it when he was just outright angry. He rarely got like this, but it was never good.
I swallowed hard. “Did you–?””Tell them?” he challenged. “Of course I did. They’re the ones who are going to decide what to do with you.”
I stared at him blankly, but after moments of silence, I was no closer to understanding what the hell he was saying. “I’m sorry?””You are not my daughter,” he said slowly, matter-of-factly, like he expected me to have a hard time comprehending. I would’ve said he sounded like he was talking to a small child, but he had never actually moderated the way he talked to me back then in any way. Like everyone else, I was expected to conform to his ways and wants, not the other way around.”Since they started the process of marking you, they deserve to know the truth. So they can make an informed decision about how to proceed.””How to proceed?” I echoed. I felt like the world was moving at a thousand miles per hour, but my mind had slowed to a crawl. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?””It means you’re not a real wolf,” Jax said coldly. If I had thought he looked at me like he couldn’t stand me before, it had nothing on this moment.
I was at a complete loss for how to respond, or whether to settle on rage or hurt. I looked at the others, hoping they might interject in my defense as usual, but neither Damon nor Liam was willing to meet my gaze. They weren’t avoiding it, exactly. Alphas didn’t do that kind of thing. Especially not when it came to a she-wolf who was clearly so far beneath their station now. They just seemed to be looking away, as if they found the sight of me unpleasant and cumbersome, something they would rather avoid, if I was important enough to be acknowledged at all.”Are you serious?” I asked, looking between them. “I’m the same person.””You’re a hybrid,” Jax countered, as if those two things are in opposition. “You’re not even the alpha’s daughter. You really think we want to be stuck with you?