Chapter 74 Feel quilty
"Why'd you raise my son, Braelyn?" I asked, somehow managing to hide the emotion those words caused. "What is he like?" I swallowed the urge to smile as her eyes sparkled in amusement.
"He won't talk to you, huh?" A shit-eating grin curved her full lips before she smoothed it out and shrugged. "Chaos is so smart, Saint. He's stubborn as hell and so prideful that he ends up in a ton of fights. He wins, of course, be- cause he is strong, even though he's smaller than the other boys his age. Chaos is wild and adventurous, and nothing scares him. If you asked me, I would say that he took after his father a lot more than his mother." I hung on to her every word, watching her smile beaming at my son and his stubbornness. "I raised Chaos because I couldn't find you. I looked, you know, but the first year you were just gone. It was like you and the boys had all vanished. I had assumed it would be easier to find a crew of wolves out causing mayhem, but you guys must have stayed hidden for a while. Then, I fell in love with him, and even though he doesn't carry my blood, I treated Chaos as if he were my own, and I've loved him just the same." Braelyn turned, giving me her back as I narrowed my stare on her spine.
"It would have been impossible to find us considering what you and your father did to us. You sort of hid us yourself, didn't you?" I snapped, watching her attention shift back to me with her dress held in her hand.
"Excuse me?" Her scent filled the air with fear and something else I couldn't discern. "What did you just say?"
"Is that fear I smell?" I crept closer to her and grabbed the garment from her hand. Holding it up, I looked at the slinky black dress and placed it back onto the hanger, withdrawing the crimson dress instead. "Or guilt?"
"Both," she admitted in a breathy tone, watching me drag my stare over her naked tits, which hardened beneath my gaze.
"Why would you feel guilty?" I helped her into the dress, and she remained still, staring at me as anger rippled from me, unchecked. "Because I lied in front of the pack," she whispered, dropping her gaze. "Because you are my mate, and we both knew it. The pack knew the truth, Saint.
I was trying to protect you from my father."
Her words caused anger and pain to slice through me. Admitting she lied and that she'd still done what she had didn't help soothe my resentment. Her rejection had been the worst day of my life and ended in a year of unimaginable pain. Every night I slept, I dreamed of her finding us and freeing us from the unending pain we endured.
Braelyn's scent soothed me when it shouldn't have. I would still catch it in- side my dreams and would awake, wondering if she'd been in my cell while I'd been sleeping. But she wasn't because she hadn't cared that her father sold us to the highest bidder. Braelyn had only cared about herself, and I needed to hold her at arm's length.
"You were protecting yourself, you selfish bitch. You were always good at protecting yourself from everyone, weren't you? You pretend to be so selfless, and the moment you fear repercussion, you go into self-preservation mode. It's what you've always done. You are your father's daughter, Braelyn. I just failed to see that truth when I let you past my shields and showed you who I was. The first moment you got a deeper look into the fucking mess that was me, you ran. When you saw inside my soul and glimpsed my pain, you abandoned me be- cause you are nothing more than a self-serving bitch." Braelyn's eyes widened, and I pressed on, needing to strike her down. I hated that I'd opened up my soul to her, and instead of wanting to look deeper, she'd rejected me.
"You were always running from anything that made you choose between
your father and us. You and me we were written on a dying star that was
burning out before we'd ever etched our names onto it. Now get fucking dressed and stay the fuck away from my son. I won't let you ruin him as you did me. Do not embarrass me tonight. Try to pretend you're a lady and not some spoiled bitch who knows nothing else but this fucking mountain you love so much. You're nothing more than a silly girl raised in a bubble," I sneered as I waved my hand around in the air, signifying her territory. "You wouldn't know
one thing about the world beyond these walls and past this mountain." I hated that I loved the fact that she didn't care what the outside world
thought about the packs. Braelyn was a breath of fresh air, yet she was also poi-
son ivy that looked innocent enough until you rolled around in it.
Braelyn's face dropped, and her scent turned to rejection and pain for a brief moment before it vanished altogether. Her mask slid into place, and she turned away from me, grabbing her heels while I took in her curves. I hated that I wanted to take the words back and remove the pain I'd glimpsed, but I also knew I wouldn't do it. I needed to push her away. I needed to remind myself of who she was and why we were all here.
Braelyn drove me insane. She pretended she wasn't aware of where my crew and I had been all this time. Fuck her. I could play stupid, too. It was prob- ably a good thing she'd reminded me of the fake bitch she really was because for a moment, my guard had lowered, and I couldn't afford to let that happen again. Especially since I was so close to figuring out where the children were being held for transport on this mountain. Several children had recently been taken from the surrounding packs and were traced to a server on this mountain that had uploaded their images to the web.
I'd find the children, and then I'd figure out how to deal with Braelyn. I'd had people scouring the mountain for days, searching for the missing children and for clues as to where they could have been hidden. Braelyn's people were slowly being told what was happening and what had transpired under Harold's orders. Eventually, her people would turn against her if it was discovered that Braelyn had anything to do with Harold's actions. Pack rules were simple, and if broken, they'd turn against even those in which they were most loyal.
Some of her pack had already begun to switch loyalties, and Braelyn hadn't noticed it yet. Lucas, one of her closest friends, was shocked by the news. He'd listened to our story, his anger building at the idea of what had happened right under his nose. In denial, he had defended Brae's innocence, but I'd caught the hesitation burning in his eyes when I'd told him where Eryx and I were taken after Braelyn's rejection.
Lucas's mind had spun, and he'd hesitated when answering my questions, his turmoil palpable. Like us, he wasn't able to prove Braelyn was innocent, and while it upset him, he'd still defended her. I'd listened as he'd told me how closed-off she'd become as if hiding part of herself from the pack. Harold had done the same thing, easily concealing his dark activities, appearing to be inno- cent of his crimes. It left us assuming Braelyn was as guilty as her father be- cause she was hiding her emotions. Lucas admitted there were weeks where Braelyn would vanish, only to return with no proof of where she'd been or why she'd been gone.
That information alone left me sick, turning the facts over inside my head. Was she in on it and helping Harold with his human trafficking when she van- ished? It explained her disappearance, which also coincided with shipments of those Harold had sold. Lucas confirmed she'd gone missing last May for three weeks, and I knew there'd been a large shipment of children at the same time. Lucas remembered this time well because he said Braelyn returned a little worse for wear and seemed troubled. But she was Brae, he'd said, and Braelyn always bounced back and went about business as usual, even if twisted shit was happening here.