Chapter 113 MONSTER
GALLAHAN'S POV
Willa prepped sweetened chamomile tea for the two of us and warm milk for the twins before finally joining us in the living room.
She handed us our respective drinks and then settled on the opposite end of the couch. The twins were sitting snugly between the two of us, but Gillian was very mindful of keeping a bit of distance from me in consideration of my lingering injury and the balm that was spread evenly all over it.
"What are we going to talk about, Dadd?" Gillian asked quietly as she gazed at me with mild curiosity burning in her eyes.
"My childhood," I said vaguely. "But you shall hear a very clean and glazed version of this story. Because my past, the one that goes beyond my years leading a war as the General of the Culling Army, is very violent and traumatic. It's not quite suitable for your young ears and pure minds. But I will make sure you will still understand Daddy."
"Okay," Gillian replied as she looked away from me with a pensive look on her face.
"I wasn't hateful towards humans when I was a kid. In fact, I was quite fascinated by them and their unique ways. This fascination soon changed on the night of my Ascension Rite. It was a private ceremony, held in the homey villa my Dad had in the outskirt forests of Moonshire. Because even though I am the heir of the Alpha King throne, my mother had insisted that my Ascension Rite shall not be an extravagant public spectacle. So she and Dad organized it to be a family-only ceremony."
Images from that night surged to the forefront of my mind, bringing tears to pool in my eyes.
I had barely begun with my story and yet, I was already on the brink of losing my composure.
Still, I stubbornly carried on.
"But what we didn't know was how that night of celebration was going to end with a tragedy."
Thick silence, one that even the sharpest of knives couldn't slice through, hung in the air. It almost seemed like Willa and the twins were all waiting for the core of the story with bated breath.
My gaze flickered to Willa. She was holding her mug so tightly as she stared intently at the golden hue of the chamomile tea, a little frown tugging at the corners of her lips.
"Creature hunters were prowling the area," I went on, moving my attention back to my drink I hadn't even taken a sip of. "There was no doubt that they were scouting if there was any lone and wandering werewolf they could get their hands on. They must've stumbled across the villa and learned, one way or another, that only two adult werewolves were present with their two young and weak cubs."
"Did they hurt you and your family?" Calisto asked, his voice soft with caution and hesitation.
"They did," I answered, matching his tone and volume. "Honestly, I didn't know why, how or what led it to happen. All I knew was how one moment, we were all sharing a delicious dinner feast prepared by my mom, all happy and content. Then in the next heartbeat, more than thirty men with silver weapons broke into the house."
A lump had taken residence in my throat, and my eyes burned with tears that I desperately tried to blink away. I looked up, staring resolutely at the ceiling while I tried to focus on my breathing.
"It's okay to cry, Daddy," Gillian comforted, reaching out her small hand and placing it tenderly against my cheek in the same way Willa usually did. "You can cry, you know. It's just us. It's okay."
Despite the harrowing pain in my chest, one that always flared up whenever I remembered that fucking night, a smile stretched on my lips as I looked at Gillian.
My lovely sweet daughter.
Then, without my permission, my tears slipped out, cascading into steady salty streams down my face.
A crisp expletive threatened to go past my lips, but I bit the word back and swallowed it down with a hard gulp.
I didn't want to be this vulnerable. But I knew vulnerability would inevitably follow my honesty. There was no way I wouldn't be emotional while I laid my story for them to know and understand.
But I found consolation in the sweetness of Gillian's gesture as she tried to wipe my tears away, even though she only managed to spread the wetness all over my cheeks.
"Thank you," I said in a murmur.
She responded with a gentle pat before withdrawing her hand and placing it around her small mug of milk, which she had downed into half-fullness.
"I remembered my Dad yelling at me to run. To flee and hide," I continued after taking a shuddering breath. "But I had remained frozen, unable to move or even look away. I was completely paralyzed with fear. My Dad valiantly fought them off. So did my Mom. But having to protect two children petrified with so much fright made it harder for them. The tides that night were not in our favor. My parents got completely cornered and dominated."
"Did..." Calisto paused, his hesitation clear in his teary eyes. "Did they kill your Mom, Daddy?"
"They did," I answered breathlessly, feeling the pain in my chest as raw and visceral as the ache I felt on the night I first intimately met violence and death. "And my sister. She wasn't that much older than me. And yet... They killed her with no shred of remorse and without a second of hesitation."
I let out a loud sigh, the big puff of breath doing nothing to ease the excruciating and relentless constricting in my chest.
"My Mom, in her last moment of life, begged my Dad to just leave them. To run away with me. And he did, and I had hated my Dad for quite some time for the decision he made. For leaving my Mom and my sister behind while we scurried away for safety like a pair of cowards."
"It must've been the hardest decision your Dad has ever made in his life," Willa said gently.
When I brought my eyes to look at her, the wind got slightly knocked out of my sails.
Willa was crying. As if my pain was also hers.
The very sight of it had another fresh batch of tears to escape me.
Then, with a tight throat, I managed to croak out, "It is. I know that now. Especially after I learned what had happened to their dead bodies."
I didn't have to say anything more for Willa to understand the deeper hidden meaning of my words.
A series of emotions flickered on her face in quick succession.
Horror. Rage. Pain. Sympathy. Understanding.
I knew then that she finally saw with utmost clarity how I was not born a monster. I was just given a thousand reasons to be one.