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“But I wasn’t just like you.” Sadness there. “I was like my dad.”
Theresa’s head jerked. “I should have been mated to the alpha! Helovedme! We were supposed to be together, but then I screwed everything up and?—”
“And had me.”
Her mother’s mouth snapped closed but she gave a grim nod.
Honesty, at least.
“You had me,” Erin continued, “and you didn’t think I was good enough for the pack—or for you.” Thishurt.
“I wanted to be with him.” A stark whisper. “I loved him.”
Erin knew thehimhadn’t been her father.
“He saw me,” Theresa said, voice soft. “Such dark, dark eyes that saw into me so well.” Her shoulders sagged. “He didn’t look at me the same way after he learned about your father.”
And what? That was Erin’s fault? Her father’s? Erin bit back the snarl that rose within her.
“When I got pregnant,” her mother said, “he knew I wasn’t his mate. Knew that somewhere out there, another woman waited...only a matter of time.” A tear trickled down her cheek. “I lost you.”
Not like it was difficult to lose something when you threw it away.
“But first, I lost him.” She swiped away the tear with the back of her hand. “He left the pack before you were born. I-I kept thinking he’d come back, but he...turned his back on everyone. On me.”
Just like Erin’s mother had turned away from her. The woman wasn’t going to be getting any sympathy from her.
“Why did you come here tonight?” Jude’s gravelly voice.
Her mother blinked. “To...see Erin. I caught her scent at Mort’s. I wanted to...talk to her.”
“And what? Make up for lost time?” he demanded. “Or just jerk her around some more?”
Theresa’s hands fisted. “I wanted to make certain she was happy andsafe. I didn’t know what you were to her, I was afraid—” She exhaled. “Shifters go after the weak.”
Weak.Was that how her mother truly saw her? Erin glanced down at her hands. Her claws were gone. But they could come back in a second’s time.
“Other hybrids were in the pack,” her mother said, swallowing, “but you were the only one who couldn’t change. You were in danger, you were?—”
“When I was fourteen,” Erin said softly, cutting through her words, “the girls in the pack jumped me.”
“What?”
“They thought I was weak, too.” They’d taunted. Teased. Then attacked her with claws and teeth.
But, luckily, they’d been in human form.
So she’d wiped the floor with their asses.
Erin met her mother’s shocked stare. “They were wrong about me, too.” She’d bet some of them still had the scars to prove just how wrong they’d been.
“Y-you never said—and they didn’t?—”
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry.” She’d always tried to protect her mother. Stupid really. Theresa was the last person on earth who needed protection. “They didn’t tell—well, I guess because they didn’t want everyone knowing the little freak had kicked their furry butts.”
They’d left her alone after that. No more teasing. No more taunts. She’d thought she was fitting in?—
Until she’d been forced out.
