The Weeds

The Weeds


MAX

The next part of my day must be handled as delicately as possible if I am to trust that Blanca will be safe in my mother’s home. 

There are presently ten servants that not only reside in the manor, but work to keep the place in perfect condition. One of those ten is Jensen, my butler and my father’s former valet. My mother adored him. She was always trying to get him to talk or smile or join us for dinner whenever my father wasn’t going to make it home. She swore that there was at least once that she heard him laugh, but neither me nor Drake believed her. As far as I’m aware, she never truly succeeded in dragging him out of his shell, and to this day Jensen remains the most stoic, unreadable individual that I’ve ever known.

Drake said that Jensen was a rogue when he started working for my father. A wolf that had been banished by his brother, the pack Alpha, for the simple crime of being born with a deformed foot. Apparently his mother had managed to keep his abnormality hidden from her mate for years, hiring an old cobbler from a neighboring pack to make him special shoes whenever he began to grow. Jensen’s mother had been holding onto the hope that once he had his first shift, his wolf genes would be strong enough to heal him, to make him whole, but such was not the case and when he did have his first shift, his right hind leg was visibly deformed, just as his foot was and his most guarded secret became his constant shame. According to the story Drake told, when Jensen’s mother died, his father blamed him for her death, saying she worried herself to death over his weakness and that he was only keeping him around because of the promise he had made to her. Then, his older brother became Alpha and for his first official act he decreed that any future child born defective was to be executed on the night of their birth and then proceeded to banish his very own flesh and blood.

He was hiding out in the old shed behind the garden when my mother found him. Jensen. He had swallowed a lethal amount of wolfsbane that my father kept stored out there for the caretaker to use in his traps. He had wanted to die and my mother refused to allow it. Soon after that, he was everywhere that she was. Never smiling, never laughing, but constantly listening, and if any of that story is to be believed, he also must have opened up to her.

The next thing you know, she was gone and the house became a tomb that neither I, nor my brother ever wanted to sleep in again. Even so, my mother made it clear that Jensen and Yvette were to always have a home at her estate in which she loved so much, and my father left them to it. We were all pretty shocked when Jensen called my father to ask for permission to hire on a full staff, but Jensen knew how my mother liked things, and with the house so empty, I guess he feared the place might lose her touch.

And now, here I sit behind the wheel of my own car, parked in front of the house while I contemplate how best to fist out the weeds.

The front door opens and Jensen’s face appears, his expression as solemn as ever despite that he must have been posted in the foyer, waiting for me to arrive.

Exiting the car, I throw a glance over my shoulder, smiling as the black Suburban parks half a mile down the road, ready to move when I call.

Jensen meets me at the bottom of the steps, eyeing the blood on my chest with mild annoyance. “Are the theatrics truly necessary, Alpha Max?” 

I ignore that. “Where are they?”

Jensen sighs, “They await you in the drawing room.”

I nod, noting Jensen’s uncharacteristically restless posture as he continues to inspect all the substances I’ve left to dry and crack on my chest. “What is it, Jensen?” I press, hoping, for once, that he’s not simply worried about the threat to the furniture.

“Have you decided who will have to be dismissed?” His gaze lowers, a deep crease forming between his brows as he squints at some place on the ground behind me. 

“Aside from Yvette?” I shake my head. “No.”

His eyes track over my right pectoral, where one separate handprint folds over my skin and his gaze goes dark with undisguised fury. I’m so shocked for a second that I almost want to snap a picture, but he quickly packs it away, like the dependable little Jensen he is, and refocuses his attention somewhere less provoking.

“She bled,” he states softly, his voice grim.

“Yes,” I reply, my jaw going tight when I recall just how much.

He stiffens, turning away to head back in the house. “I should have called sooner.” He climbs two steps. Stops. “I should not have allowed them to leave.”

I shake my head. “He would have attacked you, Jensen. Maybe even killed you. And if he had, you never would have been able to make that phone call when you did, and Blanca would most certainly be-” I cut off sharply, unable to finish the thought. “She…” I shake my head, gazing up at the sky for a moment to gather strength “We almost didn’t make it,” I confess guiltily. 

Jensen freezes once again on the top step, frowning at me as I catch up to him. “And…none of the others called you,” Jensen points out ruefully.

That’s right. They didn’t.

Son-of-a-bitch.

“We should head inside,” I growl, “get this over with.”

Jensen nods, standing aside so that I may enter first. “By the way…your mother…”

“My mother…what about my mother?” I ask, pausing with my hand on the front door.

Jensen huffs, fiddling with the cuffs on the end of his shirt. “She…likes her. The girl.”

She likes who? Who likes who? What? Belongs in this what now?

I stare at him, mouth agape. “My mother?”

“Mmhmm.”

“My dead mother?”

“Is there a live one?”

“You’re saying that my mother likes Blanca. The same Blanca that murdered my brother and her oldest son, on his eighteenth birthday?”

Jensen sends me a flat look, “I hear…Drake was not the only one to die that day. He was just the only one for which they still sought justice."