Page 104 of Touched By Moonlight
“You asked me to level with your pack, Grayson, and you can’t even level with them. How could you hide something like this fromthem?”
“I’m alpha, Sienna. I will not risk letting them know what other blood runs through my veins. They follow me because I am wolf.” His upper lip lifted in a fiercesnarl.
“And that means not telling them what you are? Maybe your family wasn’t perfect, but they’re your family now andthey…”
“My family tried to killme.”
He began to shake, as if controlling rage and grief. “They tried to kill me in the same way your family tried to kill you, Sienna. You kept wondering why we dream shared because I am wolf and you are Fae. It wasn’t because I was the wolf that saved you when you were younger. Now youknow.”
I could only stare. It all made sense – how we had shared in that intimate way of the Fae, connecting in our dire need to have someone accept us for who we were. Even in the dream world, we had desperately needed thatconnection.
Grayson’s expression turned miserable. “My mother was Fionn Fae and my father had an affair with her. When I was born, she left me at my father’s cabin in the woods in Alaska with a note I would never be accepted at her colony because I had a wolf father. My stepmother agreed to raise me as her own son, but she hated me. My father never truly accepted me and my brothers and sisters tolerated me, until I reachedpuberty.”
“And your Fae powers manifested.” Oh damn, I knew this story. It was myown.
He paced, hands fisted. “I was thirteen years old and my hands started glowing blue. Like a damn neon sign. It happened at dinner, the first meal I shared with the family. Usually they wanted to eat without me. After that, my father locked me away in the basement. He was ashamed to call me kin. I… begged him to not do it. I promised I would never be Fae, only wolf. But he didn’tlisten.”
“When did you leave your pack?” My heart ached for the child he’d been, the boy who only wanted to please hissire.
“I was 18. My father struck a deal with me. He gave me a million dollars to leave and never return. I invested it. I divided my time between New York and Chicago and LA. Worked in the human world with a business partner and then created Calmarth, then took the company to Colorado. I tried to live as a human. But I never was happy because my wolf longed for freedom, not the confines of city life. I felt restricted andrestless.”
Again, I was struck at how similar our stories were. “City life is a cage for mostFae.”
He nodded. “I found trustworthy human partners and then struck out on my own to wandering and met other werewolves and witches who had also been shunned by their families for being different. I bought this land, brought them into the fold and formed my pack. My newfamily.”
His expression hardened. “They’ve been through hell. I promised them they’d have a good life here and I would be a strong leader. I’m not going back on that promise. They don’t need to know about the circumstances that brought me here. They need to feel safe and accepted in this pack. And the only way I can assure them they will be safe is if they believe I am purealpha.”
More insight filled me. “The land you bought that was inhabited by the Fae… you bought it for thepower.”
Eyes closing, he nodded. “My father had told me my mother’s colony was located in western Colorado. After I left my father’s pack, I sought her out. They told me she came to this area of the state to heal herself. Her colony had been using this land for decades to infuse themselves with magick. I found her lying on the forest floor in the campground near an abandoned shack, trying to siphon the power to heal herself. The magick is ancient and simmering just below the surface, but she lacked sufficient power to transform it into healingenergy.”
“Why was your mothersick?”
Grayson rubbed the back of his neck. “She fought with a werewolf hunting in her forest. My mother lost. When she saw me, I could see her disgust. Her son, the wolf shifter. The enemy. Then she told me if I used my Fae power to heal her, I would receive my inheritance of forty acres of prime forest in her colony. Everything I had ever wanted – acceptance by my mother and her people – would bemine.”
Jaw clenched, he stared into the distance. “I had hoped so much she would love and accept me for myself. She only wanted to use me. I wanted to hate her. But I couldn’t. I tried to pull enough energy from the earth, but she was too badly injured. Ifailed.”
My heart broke as I realized the hardships he endured as a child. Grayson, desperate to be a wolf to blend in with his alpha father’s pack. Finding acceptance with his mother, purely for selfishreasons.
“I’m sorry.” I placed a hand on his arm, feeling the muscles tense. “She died on thisland.”
He nodded. “They didn’t even want her body. I buried her on the campground property near the lodge office. Sometimes Ivisit.”
“I’d like to see hergrave.”
“Thank you,” he saidquietly.
“What did her people say when they found out you buriedher?”
“They were angry. But I made a pact with them to forgo my inheritance on condition that they warn others away from the campground. They started rumors that the ancient ones had punished my mother for setting foot on their ancestral home. It kept other Fionn away. They would have been too drawn to the powerthere.”
“Power, always the struggle for power with most Fionn Fae. Yet I want nothing to do with it,” I saidquietly.
His eyes flew open. “I need you, Sienna. You’re a light in my dark world, an anchor who makes me stronger. You’re a woman who showed me that all Fionn are not evil. When we shared our dreams, you gave me hope. I grew up fearing my Fae blood. When you and I dreamshared, I realized I could choose evil, or good, just as youdid.”
“I killed my family, Grayson. That doesn’t make me exactly a goodperson.”
He swept out his arms, anger glinting his eyes. “I wish I had been there to destroy them as well, lass. They were greedy bastards who cared only about taking what you had. It was self-defense.”
