Page 21 of His Curse
"Tell me what happened after you shifted back.” Zan puts his cigarette out on the heel of his flip flop then waits quietly for me to answer.
I have to give the guy credit. His patience is unmatched and despite the way I do not want to relive this shit, it's helping some.
"I woke up alone in the woods, covered in Lark's blood, but she was gone. After I had a fucking meltdown over what I'd done, I disappeared for a while until my dad found me.” I tip my head back and rest it against my bed, my eyes sliding shut as I replay what I actually do remember first hand. "I wouldn't tell them what happened, I couldn't, but they knew something bad went down. So he and my mother packed our shit, took our horses, and we moved again. We quit trying to be part of a pack then, quit searching out other wolves and eventually moved here. We settled down, and tried to live normally. Did for a while. I got better at recognizing the subtle signs before theotherwould come, so I started disappearing more and more, putting myself as far away from everyone as I could in order to do the least amount of damage.” Then I lift my head and meet his eyes. "I was gone when my parents were killed."
"I suspected as much."
"I thought maybe I had done it, thought I was the one who killed them. The only reason my sister was spared was because she had mated Ron by then and they lived on the other side of town, but I just assumed it was me since I still lived with them. Then Will gave me the report, told me about the other murders, and I at least didn't have that hanging over my head, too. Not their murder anyway, just the guilt that maybe I could have stopped it if I hadn't been dealing with my curse at the time."
Zan nods and gives me a soft smile. "My gem would say that happened for a reason, that it happened as it should, and though it brought great pain, it would not have changed had you been there. In a weird way it probably spared you the same fate."
"Great,” I scoff. "I'll make sure to thank theothernext time I see him."
He rolls his eyes. "So what else did you do after the incident with your mate?"
"What do you mean? I just told you."
"Not everything,” Zan grins. "I highly doubt you did not attempt to find proof of your suspicions, did not try to find the truth of what happened. That is what you do, after all."
Damn him for knowing me so goddamn well."A couple years later I went back to the Lunar King pack and spoke to the Alpha. He was glad to see me, which fucking hurt, but I didn't ask too many questions about Lark because I could tell he was carrying around some heavy devastation, and when he said his Luna died shortly after we left, I knew why. I stayed a couple days, spoke to different members of the pack, tried to get an idea of how she died, and if anyone knew what happened to Lark."
"And did they?"
I shake my head. "Everyone thought she went Rogue. I learned a lot about her, that she'd always been defiant, opposed to authority, free spirited, and rebellious. She didn't think she needed an Alpha to rule over the pack, and she wanted to be the first Luna to do it on her own. She had a lot of progressive ideas when it came to the hierarchy, and about pack customs, especially considering we met during the late 1880s. When Lark disappeared, everyone thought it was sort of afuck youto all of that but they found it odd because as much as she challenged her father, Lark was extremely close to both of her parents and they didn't think she was the type to abandon them."
"Which is another reason you believe you killed her."
I nod.
Why else would she have left?
If what I was told about her was true—something I knew without hardly knowing my mate at all—then why would she leave her parents?
Because I fucking killed her, that's why.
There is no other explanation, and my search for truth stopped there.
I was just relieved Alpha Rivers never found his daughter’s body, never stumbled across the scene of her brutal end. I've always thought maybe Luna Rivers did though, and that's why she died shortly after Lark went missing. It is pretty common for a parent to grieve over the loss of their child to the point of death, they just sort of give up and let the pain take them.
Alpha Rivers had lost everything by the time I went back to Devil’s Lake, but the fact that he hadn't succumbed to the madness after losing his mate—his Luna—is probably another reason I've remained hopeful. He thought he had a reason to live, and that was probably the naive optimism surrounding his daughter’s hopeful return.
"Have you returned to the Lunar King pack at all since then?" Zan scoots around until he's sitting next to me on the floor, both of us leaning against my bed and staring at the shit on my wall.
"Not until Kai asked us to search for other shifters. When I went back to Devil’s Lake the pack was gone. There was no one left. None of the packs I've been a part of were around anymore.” Then I chuckle morbidly. "None of the five surviving ones, anyway. Theotherslaughtered our fourth pack, totally destroyed everyone and everything, so I didn't even bother looking for any Wind Walkers."
Zan sighs. "So you do not know if Lark ever returned to her pack?"
I really love the way Zan totally ignores shit like that.
He doesn't give a rat’s ass that I wiped out an entire pack, just like he doesn't care that Havok played vigilante with unconfirmed deviants. Mostly confirmed, Vok tried to make sure he killed bad guys, but he wasn't always able to and the torture he delivered was gratuitous at best. But Zan doesn't care about that shit at all, doesn't let it change how he sees either of us, and that probably stems from a combination of how much he cares about us and the fact that Zan has very easily killed more people than the entire clan combined.
The past is just that to him, actions be damned.
"No, I don't have any idea if Lark ever returned to her pack, but based on what I see in my nightmare, I find it highly unlikely she would have been able to."
"So, it is possible she survived whatever was done to her? Was able to heal and return at some point?"
I shrug. "Possible, but doubtful."
