Page 42 of To Keep A Wolf
“I could desert easily enough,” he says with a snort. “I was nobody to them. The product of a fated pairing. I grew up bullied for it too. And that’s how I knew your mother was right to spare you from it. But her…” He shakes his head sadly. “She comes from one of the strongest lines in our pack’s history. Her parents were warriors. Her father was a beta for years. And she’d already made a name for herself as a hunter. If she deserted, Crigger would look for her. Hell, he did come looking for her.”
“He did? She never told me that.” She never told me any of this.
“She wanted you to form your own opinions.” His smile is wistful, his eyes glazed over with some memory. “But damn, she was a firecracker. Kicking ass with you in that baby sling. She put down half the guards he sent for her right there in the front yard—broad daylight too, which is why she did it in human form. She was a stickler for that.”
I snort. My mother has always impressed upon me the need to fight in human form as well as—or better than—I can as a wolf. Now I know where that rule comes from.
“And the other half?” I press. “The guards Crigger sent?”
He looks back down at the cucumber he’s finished slicing. His eyes narrow on the knife in his own hand. He carefully sets it aside and says quietly, “I made sure they were no longer a threat.”
He killed them. For her. For me.
The knowledge brings with it a whirlwind of emotions I can’t begin to name.
“And then she went home anyway,” I say, forcing the rest of it aside.
Besides, warm fuzzies over Daddy’s protection isn’t the issue here. My mother’s decision to force him out of our lives is.
“She did what she had to do.” He turns to me then, chin raised in a stance I know well—and am shocked to realize didn’t, in fact, come from my mother. “We both did.”
CHAPTER12
Levi’s scent hits me the moment I step outside. With a quick tug, I pull the front door closed behind me and scan the yard. The sun has begun its slant toward the treetops, but there’s still plenty of daylight left for me to spot him near the edge of the trees. Across the distance, he meets my eyes. My wolf stirs, a low hunger in my belly that is something I know I’ll never stop feeling. Not when it comes to him.
But I ignore it as much as possible as I march over to where he waits. My conversation with my father has left me off balance but not so much that I can’t pin my mate with a glare that has him wincing.
“Oh, there you are,” he says in a horrible attempt to be funny.
“Where’s Tripp?”
“No cell reception. He went to find a landline to check in with Frankie—”
“Did you know?” I demand. Levi’s shoulders sag, clearly resigned to the inevitable. “All this time? Did you know where to find him? That he was this close to Blackstone?”
“No,” he says firmly enough that I actually believe him.
Something in me softens at that, and I realize my biggest worry was that Levi had kept this from me. That it would be another betrayal. The fact that it’s not soothes something that was in desperate need of reassurance.
“When did you find out?” I ask without quite so much hostility.
“Tripp and I did some digging a while back,” he says. “Back before Jadick joined us. Back when it was just the two of us and those first few Jades. We knew we needed allies. Resources. I hired someone to track down my parents, and Tripp suggested we look for your dad too.”
“Why my dad?”
“Your mom always mentioned he was against the rejection thing like us.” He shrugs. “Figured the guy must be a badass to have captured your mom’s interest. And fathered you.”
I blink, unprepared for the compliment.
“So, you’ve known his whereabouts for literally years?”
“No. The P.I. came back empty on that one. It wasn’t until recently that I learned of this place.”
“How—”
“The morning of your announcement with Jadick,” he says, and my cheeks heat in shame at the reminder of what I did to him. “Your mother escorted me outside. Told me, when the chaos broke, I should make a run for it. I had no idea what she meant yet. Just before the speech began, she leaned over and rattled off coordinates. She said if shit went sideways to bring you here.”
“My mother let you escape?” My shock is overwhelming, and for a moment, I can’t make sense of it. Of her. “That doesn’t make sense. She sold me out to Jadick. She wanted me to—” I can’t say marry “—agree to his terms.”
