Chapter 311: Betrayal of a Bond I
"Harper...please understand, I never wanted to leave you! It simply wasn’t a good time for me to pick you up!"
"Wasn’t a good time?" I repeated with a scoff of disbelief. "Mother, you were missing for years. I thought you were dead when I turned four. Guess how old I am now? Eighteen! You’ve been gone for a whole fucking fourteen years!" I bellowed with sheer hurt.
Fourteen years of her absence. When I said it out loud, it fully dawned on me how much time I spent without her, believing she was dead for good. Fourteen years of summers and winters, all spent without my mother by my side.
"This isn’t something as simple as you forgetting me at a grocery store or a friend’s house," I continued, my voice cracking as I quickly wiped away the tears that were beading at the corner of my eyes. "Even if you didn’t — couldn’t — get me when I was younger, what could have kept you away from me for so long?! I was stuck at the same place for fourteen years, surely you could have spared someone like Gus to pick me up, since he’s working for you!"
"Or were you too busy killing werewolves to remember I existed?!" I all but screamed at the end, as I recalled Elise’s words about my mother. She belonged to a family of hunters.
"You― you know? What I am?" She spluttered weakly.
"Of course. I did my own investigations," I said bitterly. "Was it meant to be a surprise?"
Clearly, she was a pretty shit hunter, if she couldn’t even spare the time to slaughter the werewolves that were making her only daughter’s life miserable and pick her up while she was at it.
My mother stared back at me, stricken at my display of emotion. Her expression crumpled like a napkin touched by water. She reached out for me, presumably to draw me into a hug, but I all but shook her hands off, wanting a proper answer.
"Harper, you must know I never wanted to stay away from you for so long, but circumstances did not permit me to find you," she began. "Let me explain, please? If you still resent me afterwards, I... I won’t bother you again."
"Fine," I said bitterly, crossing my arms.
"Take a seat then, this is going to be a long story." My mother sighed and her hands twisted in her skirts. "Now that you know that I’m a hunter, I can start from there. It’s true, I was born into a family of hunters. We were a prestigious family that prided ourselves on killing werewolves."
"’Were’? What happened?" I asked, immediately zeroing in on the past tense. "Did all of you decide to go into real estate instead?" This place definitely didn’t come cheap. Maybe hunting werewolves didn’t pay the bills.
My mother laughed, but there was no joy in it. "I wish, my dear child. But like what I’ve always told Gus, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. No, Harper, I used the past tense, simply because my family has already ceased to exist."
My blood ran cold at her words. My mother’s family... my maternal grandparents... how could they simply cease to exist? "What... What do you mean by that? Did all of them die?"
I hoped it was by old age, but from the weary look in my mother’s eyes, I knew things weren’t so simple.
"Your father killed them. Apparently, he had been plotting to kill them for a long time, the same way he tried to get me killed," my mother said, her fingers clutching the fabric of her skirt so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
Her eyes were full of unshed grief.
"It didn’t matter that they were the beloved family members of his mate, or that they were his in-laws. He had them poisoned and killed, while I stayed in his pack, with you, clueless until it was too late to change the outcome."
"You stayed in Stormclaw before? Why don’t I remember it? Why didn’t anyone say anything?" I asked. My earliest memories of my mother involved the both of us staying in a small house far away from people.
"You were too young to recall things then," my mother said. "I only spent a year in Stormclaw, after you were born. Then I fled with you after news of his deeds came to light, once you were old enough to travel. It was impossible to stay in that pack any longer."
"I see... Mom, forgive me for asking, but what on earth did you see in him? He’s such a scumbag!" I demanded. "Why did you even go with him in the first place? After all, he’s a werewolf and you’re... not."
She was a hunter. Not even a regular human. If I were in her shoes, I might never have given my father a chance― hell, I barely gave Damon a chance back then, and I wasn’t raised to abhor all werewolves.
"Well, I was hoping that having a child would be able to resolve the tensions between us. After all, I was his fated mate. Didn’t the werewolves claim that it was such a life-changing bond? I thought this was a sign that both sides could try for peace."
A dry laugh escaped her lips.
"Foolish of me." She gritted her teeth. "The mate bond is nothing more than a falsehood of the highest order. The claim that they would never ill-treat their mates, due to their reverence to the Moon Goddess? Complete and utter bullshit. Your father sold me such a pretty lie to hook me in, only to stab me in the back the moment I turned around," my mother snarled.
"To think I had forsaken ties with my fellow hunters for him, only for that scoundrel to have the nerve to start another family with another one of the werewolves in his pack. He even had a daughter your age!"
Aubrey.
"And then he had the nerve to poison my family, sending his wolves to slaughter them all when they were all incapacitated and weakened. I fled with you, and we managed to remain hidden for a few years. Then, he finally caught up to me and sent his men to finish the job."
"But who knew that his people would be so incompetent? They thought they killed me, but I survived after they threw my body into the woods for the wendigos. I spent years recovering from what they did to me, and even more years planning to make my return. I had to re-establish contact with the hunter community, and build up my own people to take down Stormclaw."
"But Stormclaw is gone now," I said. "If you want revenge, you can’t get it anymore." I knew that better than anyone.
My mother stared unblinkingly at me, before breaking into a smile that sent shivers down my spine.
"But there are so many other packs filled with filthy werewolves. How could I stop?"
