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“What?”
“Yeah, he thought that they would be mates, but your mother wasn’t into him. They had a couple of dates and then she was done with him.”
“I can’t blame her, he was a damn jerk.” I flinched at my words. “Sorry.”
“No, you’re right, he was. And he was also proud and stubborn. When your mother said she wouldn’t go out with him anymore, when he insisted and she kept turning him down, he demoted your family to omega. As punishment.”
I gaped at him. “Are you serious?”
He nodded. “My mother told me and your mother told her.”
Wow, one surprising punch after the other. This was not going the way I thought it would. “What? Your mother talked to my mother?”
“My mother was kind and had a big heart. Did you know she admired you? She really did.” That brought some heat to my cheeks. “And because of you and your hardworking mother, she wanted to see what she could do for you. So since my father wouldn’t tell her what happened, she talked to your mother and your mother told her. My mother confronted my father about it, and he admitted it. Because your mother turned him down, he demoted her entire family to omega.”
“Wow … and my mother wasn’t even his mate.”
“Right. He demoted your family before meeting my mother and mating with her. What I hate the most is that even though he had found out he had been wrong about your mother, he didn’t undo his mistake. He let your family be the omega because he was a bastard.”
I took a moment to process that information. So … the truth about our demotion was a lot less dire than I thought it would be. It had been because Franc hadn’t gotten his way. And what would have happened if my mother had liked him, had dated him, and then he found his mate? He would have left her, heartbroken and alone.
But we probably wouldn’t be the omegas.
There were so many wrong things with this.
“I’m sorry,” Shane said, his voice low. He rubbed his hand on my bare arm under the blanket. “I didn’t want to tell you before because it’s so stupid, it doesn’t make any sense. But I also didn’t want any more secrets hanging over our heads. You deserve the truth, always.”
Ouch.
Way to make me feel guilty. Because I had a big secret and I didn’t want to tell him yet. Because I had no idea what this secret meant, why I could move the shadows, why I could control them in certain situations. Because we had too much on our plates already.
Because I was afraid of myself. I didn’t want other people afraid of me. I couldn’t handle it.
I swallowed hard, trying to get past it all.
“You understand now why I want to promote your rank? Because it was unjust, because you deserve better.”
I nodded, but I didn’t agree. Right now, I felt like I didn’t deserve anything.
I fell silent as I staked another marshmallow and placed it over the fire. I wasn’t hungry anymore, but I needed to do something with my hands, occupy my mind.
“How’s the search for the crystals and the witches going?”
Shane groaned. “Not well. We killed most of the Nightmist witches last year.”
“And now Lorie and Keeva are dead too.”
“I had to kill them. I was using my curse as my plan B. If they saw me, they would have told Conri about it, and then the element of surprise would be gone.”
I nodded. “The ones who are left are probably hiding.”
“Right. As for Dixon and the crystals, every trail the vampires find goes cold. It’s like he’s playing with us. And what I can’t stop thinking is, what if he doesn’t have the crystals anymore? What if he sold them to someone more powerful? What if he used them, drained them of their magic? We’re chasing him, but what if we find him and the crystals are gone?”
“You can’t think like that.” I placed the stick and the marshmallow down, letting it burn completely. I turned a little more and looked at Shane. “You have to have faith. And maybe … we need to think of a plan B. Didn’t you say Lavinia tried contacting the original witch coven who spelled the pack lands and gave us the crystals?”
“She did, but we don’t even know the name of the coven.”
“We can continue looking for them, even without a name. There are plenty of older supernaturals in this world and libraries filled with books about our kinds. Someone is bound to know something that will lead us to them.” I considered. “And we can come up with a plan C too.”
