Gigi’s eyes close as if bracing against a phantom pain. Part of me wants to go to her, to comfort her. But I’m frozen to the spot. If I move, I might explode, unable to hold the torrent of information overwhelming me.
Jameson lets out a humorless laugh. “Your security detail was plenty thorough. No matter how many times I tried to break my way through, you wouldn’t let me even see her. Not once.” His voice grew hoarse with rage and grief. “Finally, I had to return to my pack. After being away for months, I barely made it back before dying. I needed my pack’s connection to survive, especially after being rejected by my mate. I thought my heart couldn’t break anymore, but I was wrong. When I returned, the alpha cast me out. He said I had betrayed our pack by leaving. That I made my choice when I chose a witch over my own pack.”
Jameson scrubs a hand through thick dark hair, generously peppered with gray. “I thought I could have both my pack and my mate. I ended up alone. Banished from my pack, I began to waste away. Do you know what it’s like for a wolf to go rogue? It feels like your soul has been ripped from your body, and all that is left is to lay down and die. But I have one thing to thank your grandmother for. My hatred for her stewed in my depths, keeping the embers of my will to live stoked enough to go on. She turned the woman I loved against me, and when I heard Samantha died, my hatred grew. With each passing year, I learned to live as a lone wolf, but my heart darkened with contempt for the woman smiling from every aisle of the market. I festered in my never-ending grief as I saw her face plastered across billboards.”
Jameson’s expression cools as his back straightens. “So, I called in my one favor. I’d held onto it for years, waiting until it was the right time. The pup I saved grew up to be one of the most effective assassins. It was the perfect opportunity, as if made by fate for me. So I sent the Big Bad Wolf to kill Grandma.”
I swallow hard. This is too much to take in. At some point, I lowered myself into a chair. My legs can’t hold up the weight of all this. Brexley is still petting my fur babies but watching me closely. His presence is reassuring and grounding, even as I reel into outer space like a spinning top.
“Gigi?” My voice is hoarse. This is only one piece of the story. And the other woman in the room likely has some of the missing pieces. Can I handle it? I have to. I have to know everything, even if it destroys me.
Gigi shuts her eyes, as if in pain. When they open again, an apology is deeply etched in her pale blue irises. I know whatever I’m about to hear, I won’t like it.
“When Samantha returned home from Alaska after the accident,” she starts slowly, “she told me all about you. About mating with a werewolf.”
“And you couldn’t stand it, could you?” Jameson yells. I flinch. He sees and regret crosses his face.
Gigi doesn’t rise to the bait, instead her tone remains even. “She also told me she was pregnant. And that she had to leave to protect you for your own good.”
All the color drains from Jameson’s face. I watch him carefully. The shock for both of us rocks the earth beneath our feet. Again, I’m grateful I already decided to sit down.
My grandma turns to meet Jameson’s gaze. “She loved you more than anything. And before she could tell you, your alpha cornered her. He scented that she was with child and was enraged. He called the baby an abomination and Samantha’s presence a curse. But he said he still respected you, which is why he’d give her a choice. If she left, he wouldn’t exile you.”
“No,” Jameson growls. “He wouldn’t.”
“Samantha seemed quite knowledgeable about what would happen to you if you were cast out. Heartbreak and certain death, is what she said.”
“She would have told me,” Jameson protests, despite the evidence of my presence.
“If she told you, you would have fought your alpha and likely died. If she stayed, you both would have been cast out and she would have had to watch you die as your baby grew inside her. My sweet Samantha, she couldn’t bear the thought of you wasting away, knowing it was her fault.”
Gigi reaches up to fiddle with her pearls. “Then you showed up,” a small smirk pulled at her lips. “You were a determined bastard, I’ll give you that. I even vouched for you. I told Samantha we could find a way to keep you alive. She wouldn’t hear of it. A wolf without his pack will die. That is what we knew with certainty. So, I sent you away again and again. I too watched the fatigue and distance from your pack wear on you. You seemed to fade away before my very eyes. Though I wanted my daughter to speak to you, I knew she was right. If you knew she was pregnant, you’d never leave. If you stayed, she would have to watch you die. But then you finally left.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Jameson snarls. “If they had exiled me with Samantha, we would have been fine. Samantha and the baby would be my new pack.”
Grandma shakes her head slowly. “She didn’t know that. Not until years later.”
I realize I’m clutching my chest. My heart shatters into pieces. For my mother who desperately tried to save the love of her life. For my grandmother who tried to protect her child, and for Jameson who was left alone and confused. So much love and so much pain existing in one story.
Gigi pushes her way out of the chair and walks to stand by Jameson. He’s a full foot and a half taller than her. Next to him, Gigi is a tiny, fragile bird. My breath catches in my throat as I fear he will claw her face right off. She reaches out and touches his arm. “She never stopped loving you. Not for one single moment. But it wasn’t until years later that she found the solution. It had been so simple, but so little is documented about Weres . . . but she discovered that with a new family you could form a pack. She told me she couldn’t keep your child from you any longer, and that she was going to get you back. Samantha was going to fight the alpha for you if need be. I tried to get her to take some of my people with her, but she was adamant she wouldn’t be able to get near the pack if she didn’t go alone.”
He straightens in alarm. “I had already left. They wouldn’t know where I’d gone.”
“She went and never came back.” Tears freely flow down Grandma’s face now. “I knew when I didn’t hear back after a week, she was gone. And it was just me and you, darling.” She turns to me, and I realize I’m holding my arms tightly, tears streaming down my face too.
I have to push my words out through the lump in my throat. “You told me it was a car crash.”
“It was meant to keep you from following her footsteps. To keep you from following her to Alaska in search of your father. I was terrified. So, I tied up the loose ends and told you that she died in a car accident and your father was a human who left before you were born.”
I hate her lies, but I understand her logic. Would I have left home to find my father? After feeling like such an outcast in my own world, I likely would have tried to seek out my biological father.
“I hated you too,” Gigi says, turning back to Jameson. “I wondered if maybe it wasn’t you who killed her. One way or another you took her from me, but I had Red to think about. And I couldn’t live in hatred if I wanted to raise this sweet little girl. I had to turn to love. And when the bitterness threatens to blacken my soul, I throw myself into work. And somehow, I drove my granddaughter away too.”
“Oh Gigi, no,” I say, running to her and throwing my arms around her. I fight the soft sobs to say. “It’s not you. It’s never been you. There were so many other things. The academy, Hunter, and I was so ashamed of not having magic. I was sure you were too.”
Since meeting Brexley, I’ve come to realize that her shadow wasn’t too big. I simply made myself small. But having the permission to be myself fills me, makes me bigger than I could have imagined. I knew striking out on my own path could help me find my way, but part of me knows I’m strong enough to be myself anywhere now. Even if that is in the background of Gigi’s awesome empire. As long as I love me, all of me, no matter how emotional, or needy, or neurotic, I can be larger than life.
Gigi pulls back so she can run her soft, crepe paper thin hands over my face, smoothing my hair back. “Oh darling, I never cared about that. You have always been perfect to me. I knew I didn’t make an easy life for us, with so much attention and fame. But my work has never been about money or acclaim. It has always been about holding onto the thing that kept me alive after Samantha passed. But by choosing work, I turned away from what mattered most. You’ve always been here, and I should have held on tighter to you.” Her delicate arms wrap around me to prove her point.
