The Mother

LORELAI

Kai carried me down the path to my mother’s hut.

There were no words to explain how good it felt being in his arms again. He was warm and strong and everything I had missed.

Well, not everything, one-third of everything, but it was enough for now while we sorted through the shitshow that my father had created.

Vaughn stepped closer on the path, and Kai gave him a warning growl. I shook my head at Kai, whose big body was protecting me from most of the light rain.

“He helped me, Kai. He’s the only one who did. He gave me food and water. He’s good, leave him alone,” I urged, and Kai’s eyes shifted to Vaughn, giving him the once-over.

“Then he will be rewarded for his loyalty. The wolves owe you, human, one favor of your choice,” Kai muttered reluctantly.

Vaughn shrugged. “Thank you. My life is all the reward I need,” he said.

“For now.”

The silence fell then, and I rested my head on Kai’s shoulder, my eyes fluttering closed. I had barely slept, and the exhaustion was closing in fast now that I was safe, but I had to see my mother first.

I kissed Kai’s neck, and he let out a low growl.

“It’s been long enough for me to struggle with my control around you, Little Human. If you want to see your mother, I would advise against testing it,” he said quietly, nuzzling against me.

I smirked. Testing his control was one of my favorite things to do, but I did want to see Mom, so I refrained. Just.

He smirked at me and gave my head a peck with his lips before we got to her hut.

Kai put me down, staying close as I knocked on the door. My mother opened it, her jaw dropping as she took in my state, and then her glare met Kai.

“This wasn’t him, Mom,” I rushed out, and she frowned. “This was Father,” I said, and her frown deepened.

“What about him? He said you had to leave early the other night for werewolf things. Did something happen?”

“Can we come in?” I asked, and she nodded, opening the door wider.

I stepped inside with Kai and Vaughn. Mom closed the door behind us, then stood with her arms folded across her nightgown, not even going to the teapot like normal.

My eyes flicked to the company she held. My brother’s wife, Ryleigh, sat at the table, pale, one hand on her swollen stomach, one on her own teacup.

“Ryleigh is with child. She’s having trouble with sickness and sleeping,” Mom explained, and I nodded.

“Congratulations,” I smiled, but something tugged at me. I looked at her stomach and felt it. It was a strange feeling inside me, like my own was reading hers, sensing it.

But it wasn’t my brother’s scent. It carried to the space next to me, where Vaughn stood. I frowned and looked at him, then back at Ryleigh, who was blushing, her eyes darting to Vaughn’s.

So he was the guy from the widows’ village she had been seeing.

“Thank you, Lorelai,” she murmured, her eyes still on Vaughn.

I smiled and turned to Vaughn. “Thanks for helping me and escorting me, Vaughn. Like Kai said, we owe you. But if I could trouble you for one more favor?”

He nodded once. “Of course.”

“Could you escort Ryleigh home? She looks like she could use some rest and quiet,” I said, and my eyes met Ryleigh’s wide ones.

I offered her a small smile, and she blushed harder.

“She was going to stay the night—”

“It’s okay, Mom, we have to talk,” I interrupted, and she hesitated before nodding.

“Vaughn will stay at Ryleigh’s tonight and help her, and bring her back if she needs you. Would that be okay?” I asked, and Vaughn nodded, a knowing light in his eyes as I met them with my own.

My mother sighed and nodded.

“Th-thank you,” Ryleigh stammered, then grabbed her cloak, put it over her nightgown, and went with Vaughn.

He mouthed, ~Thank you,~ to me as he left, and I mouthed back, ~Congrats~. He grinned and walked out the door.

So that was the love of her life and who she had bargained with my brother for. I was happy for them, but my smile faltered when I realized something.

“You slept with Ryleigh. You took her virginity too?” I blurted out to Kai.

Luckily Ryleigh and Vaughn were already gone, but my mother sucked in a breath.

“Lorelai, manners,” she scolded, but I ignored her and waited for Kai’s answer.

He scowled and nodded. “Yeah. We had to.”

I frowned at that, not sure how it was sitting.

In the back of my mind, I knew they had slept with all the virgins in my village, but it hadn’t actually hit me until that moment, when I was fully in the situation.

Ryleigh had enjoyed their cocks too. It was irrational to hate that fact, but I did.

“She was shy, we were gentle, and she was in love with someone else,” Kai murmured, and I nodded, leaving that little conversation for later when my mother wasn’t listening.

“We have to talk, Mom,” I said, and she nodded.

“I’ll run you a bath. We can talk then,” she said, and I smiled at her. A bath sounded luxurious. She put the water pot on the fire to boil before heading to the bathroom.

“Her child is not my brother’s,” I whispered to Kai as soon as my mom left the room.

Kai nodded. “I know.”

“You can sense it too?”

“Yes. Their connection is as strong as it gets for humans. What you would call soulmates. Their child is a part of that connection. It reaches us,” he said, and I blew out a breath.

“I guess with my brother being a vampire now, she would be considered a widow. They would be allowed to live together and be happy,” I said, mulling it over in my brain.

Kai frowned at that. “Your human customs are strange.”

“As opposed to virgin rituals and communal orgies?” I laughed, and he smirked, leaning down to kiss me.

His kiss deepened, and I dragged my tongue along his as he gripped me tightly against him. My body exploded in heat as he picked me up so I wasn’t tiptoeing to reach him.

He held me there against him, my feet off the ground, tasting me, reminding me of all the good things I had after such a shit few days.

I trembled against him as his canines dropped and I felt them against the kiss.

“I need to bite you,” he whispered, and I nodded.

“I know. Soon.”

“You need it,” he urged, and I kissed him again, distracting him. My mother could handle a lot, but walking in on me being bitten was not a part of it.

“Put her down this instant!” my mother said as she caught me with Kai.

He placed me on my feet, looking at me longingly before I grabbed his hand, kissed the back of it, then turned to my mother.

“He takes care of me, Mom,” I reassured her as her eyes wavered.

“Based on most of your visits, I am worried that is not the case, Lorelai,” she said, and I walked over to her.

“A lot has happened. We should go talk,” I said, and she nodded.

Kai was already grabbing the boiling water and tipping it into the cold that my mother had put in the bath already. She nodded a silent thank you to Kai, dismissing him in the same gesture.

“I’ll be in the living area.”

“There is tea in the pot on the table,” my mother said, then shut the bathroom door.

I stripped out of my dirty clothes, then stepped into the bath. I sighed at the warmth and sank into it. Mom grabbed a cloth and moved behind me, washing my skin, my hair, the silence deafening.

“Father kidnapped me,” I started heavily, and she sucked in a breath, her hand stilling in my hair.

“Excuse me?”

“He kidnapped me, Mom. For being a traitor. He took me from the bed with you and kept me in a cell underground, where he has been building an army to fight the wolves,” I explained. Her hand didn’t move. When I looked back, her eyes were filled with tears.

“Tell me everything,” she whispered, and I did. Every single thing.

I told her how my father’s hatred had poisoned my brother, how he hated me. I even told her about the child I carried and all the risks that came with it.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she cried, “I am so sorry. I had no idea he would go this far.”

She sobbed as I finally climbed my pruney ass from the bath. She stood and wrapped me in a towel before holding me. I hugged her back, glad I had come despite feeling worse and worse.

The potion was good, but it wasn’t the toxin that I needed.

“I have to ask, Mom, did you know about any of this?”

She leaned back and shook her head. “No, but I had my suspicions he was up to something.

“Get dressed. I will get fresh tea and braid your hair in the living area, where Nikolai can hear what I have to say,” she said.

I smiled. Kai would already be listening, but there was no need to tell her that. I wanted to be closer to him anyway. He made me feel safe.

She left me to dress, and I pulled on one of her dresses. It was rougher than I was used to after being with the wolves for so long, but I enjoyed the comfort of home in that.

I walked out to my alpha being hugged by the tiny woman that was my mom. He hugged her back and smiled up at me.

I grinned and went in, sitting down in front of Mom’s rocking chair, where she always used to braid my hair as a child while I read. Our tea was already steaming in the cups on the side table.

My mom pulled back from Kai and wiped her eyes dry. She sank into the rocker and collected herself with a sip of tea.

“Your father has always been angry with the wolves. His ancestors, technically yours, have always spread their hatred, all the way back to the wars, where his family was wiped out by them after they betrayed the treaty that they didn’t want but the rest of our kind did.

“But as I understand it, the wolves were savages back then. Much more so than now. We’ve progressed, but he hasn’t,” she said, starting to brush out my wet hair.

“But the wolves haven’t done anything to him,” I argued, and she sighed.

“True, but he is a proud man. To know that the wolves took his woman first and then his daughter, especially after those marks came up on you? It must have pushed him over the edge.

“Admittedly, he was already spewing hatred years before we had conceived you and your brother.

“His father and mother were very antiwerewolf, his whole family. The alphas before were not as kind as the ones now,” she said, her hands pausing as Kai nodded.

He wasn’t offended or arguing, so it must’ve been the truth.

“We have done everything in our power to change what they did,” Kai admitted quietly, and she started brushing again.

“And a lot of us are happy with that. We don’t mind providing our crops and all that for our protection against the vampires, but unfortunately, this generation’s fear of the monsters beyond the border has dulled.

“We don’t see the vampires and the lethal threat they pose. We see them as a myth, or a tale that maybe we were just told to be scared of to keep us in line.

“So, your father has decided the wolves are worse. He decided this years ago, however. It seems he has been planning for as long as that.

“I wish I had said something, but I thought he was a fool with his ramblings. I see now, the fool’s role in this is mine to bear,” she said, her voice tightening with tears as I turned to her.

“You are not a fool, Mother! He is. And the way he is dealing with the wolves is dangerous. He will get the humans killed. I have seen the vampires for myself.

“The leader said it himself, if they have a human scent, their bloodlust can become uncontrollable,” I explained, and she smiled softly.

“Well, maybe it is what we deserve for everything your father has done to his own kin.”

I shook off her hand. “Stop that. Don’t lie down and take this. Fight for yourself, and for all the humans that are going to suffer for what he is pulling,” I snapped, needing to see that fighting spirit back in her eyes, not the bullshit glaze of giving up.

“I am a woman, Lorelai. We don’t all have winter born power in our blood to make people listen.”

“That has nothing to do with it. You’re still a human, same as them. You should get just as much say, Mom.

“I’ve been with the wolves, and there is no divide there. The females are strong, they know how to fight, they know the history.

“We can be like that,” I begged, and my mother chewed her lips before nodding, just as the sky cracked and thunder rolled.

It was getting worse. Whatever was happening with my father and the other alphas was making the witches even angrier.

I looked back at Kai, who was frowning, probably checking the link.

“We must go, Lorelai,” he said, his tone one that I usually listened to.

Mom grabbed my hand. “I won’t give up, sweetheart. I’ll do what I can.”

“It’s going to get bad, Mom. I don’t know how bad, but something is coming or happening, I can feel it. I don’t want you to stay here without protection.”

“We have to go.” Derik and Brax were there then, interrupting us.

I stood up as my mom did. One look in my alphas’ eyes and I knew something was wrong.

“My father?” I asked, wondering if he was dead, but they shook their heads.

“He fucked us all over. We’re taking you home,” Derik said as I looked over at Brax. His shadows were a storm on their own, his anger red hot in his eyes.

“I’m sorry for what he has done,” my mother said, and I turned her to me, my heart racing as I felt the urgency in my alphas.

“No. You don’t apologize for him anymore. Just come with me, come back to the city.

“You’ll be safe. The werewolves won’t hurt you,” I begged, but she shook her head, holding my face and tucking a stray piece of hair behind my ear. She hadn’t even had time to braid it.

“I can’t. My friends are here, Ryleigh too. But don’t worry, I know what I must do. If your father can break the rules of our kind for years in secret then I’m sure I can figure it out too.

“I’ll gather as much information as I can and rally the villagers that I know want to stay loyal to the wolves. We’ll learn how to protect ourselves.

“If your father has really gone this far then there’s no telling what is in store for those of us here who don’t agree,” she said, the fight back in her eyes.

I needed to see that before I left. As much as it broke me to leave her behind, she was right. She cared about the villagers, she cared what became of her home, and she wouldn’t abandon it. I didn’t want to be the one to make her.

“If anything happens, it gets too much or he goes too far, then you come to the city. Deal?” I demanded, and she nodded.

“Of course, sweetheart. Now go. Your alphas are making the place shake with all their anger and anxiety.”

She wasn’t wrong. It was all tugging at our link as they tried not to tell me to hurry the fuck up, but I heard it in their emotions anyway.

“I love you,” I said, and she hugged me, kissing my cheek.

“I’ll see you soon, sweetheart. I love you too, be safe.” She looked over at the wolves, all waiting impatiently by the door.

“And you three? Look after my girl and my grandchild. I won’t play nice unless they are safe,” she said scornfully, and they all nodded, looking a little intimidated, but the promise was in their eyes.

“Lorelai?” Derik said, holding his hand out. I took it and let him lead me away from Mom, my heart twisting as tears pricked in my eyes.

I knew Mom would be okay, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something detrimental had just happened and even the wolves were terrified by it.

They led me to the edge of the village, where we climbed in a carriage. I sighed at the warmth, curling up in Derik’s lap, my eyes closing as I leaned on his chest.

He patted my hair down, kissing it, nuzzling into me as his fingers traced down my thigh and back. It tingled in my core, awakening my insatiable lust for them.

A small moan escaped as his fingers brushed between my thighs. I clutched his shoulder, looking up to his eyes. He met mine, then leaned down and kissed me. I took it, needing the taste of him.

His fingers delved farther between my thighs, my nightgown riding up as he teased my folds. I sucked in a breath as pleasure coiled around me.

Until he withdrew his hand. I pouted and kissed his jaw, his lips, his neck.

“Keep going,” I breathed.

He smiled tightly, fidgeting beneath me where his hard cock dug in. “I can’t, beautiful. Not until I know you and the baby are okay.”

“We’re fine. I’m fine, and I want you,” I pleaded, wanting the good sensations his touch promised, but he shook his head, kissing me again.

“Kai has promised to murder me if I touch you before you’ve seen Cain and had the bite.

“Normally I ignore his psycho ass, but in this instance, beautiful, he is right. I shouldn’t have put my needs above yours,” he said apologetically.

I turned to scowl at Kai, who gave me a challenging stare back. I huffed and leaned back into Derik, my eyes going to Brax, who was still silently seething.

“Brax?”

“Patience, Spitfire,” he said through a tight smile, and I gave up.

Maybe they were right. I was tired anyway. Horny but tired. I relaxed into Derik, and he kissed my forehead.

“Good girl.”

“Mm-hmm,” I murmured before passing out.