You're Mine

30. Ash

9.08.19

My breathing quickened. It was him!? I thought he had changed at least a little bit, but clearly he was still just as upset about Alex being mated to me. Why can't he just understand that Alex was my soulmate, and that you can't choose love?

Then I put more thought into the revealed information. He took my soulmate... Annihilate him? My... Father... Kill my soulmate.

I was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. I stormed around the small tent and burst into the main area. I shoved the man I called father onto the ground roughly and put all of my weight on his arms and legs.

"It was you," I snarled, but the voice hardly sounded like mine.

He laughed bitterly, his already black eyes somehow getting even darker. "I only want you safe. In order to do that, I can't let you get mixed up with him."

I glared at him directly into the eyes, and I saw a red flash in them. He was either angry or bloodthirsty, probably both. "I can't live without him."

"You haven't known him longer than a few weeks. I'm sure you can learn-"

"Imagine losing mom. If I was the one that killed her."

His look turned into a glare as well, probably the same as mine. "You wouldn't dare."

"You wouldn't dare, either, now would you?"

"Well, your mother isn't the enemy!"

"Neither is Alex!"

Suddenly he made a deep chuckling noise, which slowly escalated to a laugh. I was confused, until in the blink of an eye I was the one on the ground with my father hovering over me. I tried jerking my arms out from under his, but his were too strong.

"Anyone who is a wolf is the enemy."

"But he's different!"

"Their species will never change! The sooner you learn that, the better off you'll be. I believed that once, and... Well..." he broke off with a sniffle.

His grip on my arms weakened while his tears began to land on my collarbone. "Twice, actually. Both times I lost everything."

I looked up at him. I had never hear his past story. He took a breath and began to tell it.

"It was nighttime, and we were all out hunting. I looked up at my father. Strong, brave, everything a leader should be, and everything I aspired to be whenever I took over. I was only ten, just a young, naive boy when everything went wrong. It was quiet, much too quiet," he began, and I listened intensely. Surely he wouldn't lie about this to me... Right?

"My friends pulled me off to hunt with them, and we were having fun until we heard loud gunshots from across the woods. We scattered swiftly, all taking a partner and sprinting all over the blood spilt forest. I realized I had grabbed a young female I hardly knew. Heria, I think her name was. She smiled warmly at me and pulled me into a hug. I heard loud footsteps approaching, and I immediately knew who they belonged to. Those damn wolves were there. I was warned about them, yet I had still thought it a good idea to mix with them. I grabbed Heria by the arm and we ran. As far and as fast as we possibly could." They had always told me that they met in a peaceful coven gathering, not war standards... I'm now confused over which of the stories is actually accurate.

"We eventually found a coven to call home and worked up the ranks until we were the head. The first night we knew for certain we were meant to be, we conceived our little boy, you." His eyes were full of the memory, and I didn't have the heart to stop him to ask questions. As much as I hate it, he needs this opportunity to finally get everything out without being interrupted... I just have to wait for him to finally explain why in the living hell he was still torturing my soulmate after all this time.

"Everything was fine until the wolf pack that lived nearby began trouble. They would frame us for crimes we did not commit, steal our animal blood supply so that we went starving. However somewhere in my mind I still thought the species was decent. That is, until they attacked us with such brute force it would bring even the strongest leader to their knees. Just before our fake deaths for show, you got stubborn and refused to drink the only thing that could ensure your survival." Now, that's an event that I remember vividly. I was always a picky kid, and if it wasn't blood or kool-aid it was impossible to get it past my lips... If they were smart they would have made it look like one of the things that I would drink, but they didn't have that intelligence... Foolish, really, of them.

"The leader of the pack soon came through the trees, leading a pack of fully trained wolves behind him. I walked out to meet him with my wife, still clinging to the small hope of their purity. He even had a little boy of his own standing next to him, frantically observing every surrounding nervously. I do recall that he seemed frightened, but it could have just been pre-battle jitters; we all get them. Before I could even state a friendly word of greeting, the Alpha shouted attack and everyone leapt forward. Every single wolf shot forward and began a swift massacre to my coven. I watched him 'kill' my mate before turning to his little boy and saying, 'now that's how it's done, Alexander.' That poor boy didn't know what to do with the knowledge of his father's crimes, but he went along with it so he's still guilty."

"He turned to me with a greedy smile, and my last hope to the goodness of wolves went out when I saw the fire in his eyes. 'Why, Papa?' your soulmate whispered just before his father bounded forward and killed me with a single bite. The two moved away, and it was a few days before us vampires began to get up and search for the others scattered around. No matter how hard we tried, we couldn't find our boy. Of course, my wife also lost her baby, so we were all alone. We left in the thick of night to a new place, new home. A place where we would be left alone, childless... Forever."

At the end of the story, I felt horrible for him. Everything about his story with the wolves is horrible, but I still know that it isn't Alex's fault at all. He never asked for his father's sin...

"I see your perspective, but it isn't going to happen. I will never forgive you if you hurt him..."

"Well then you'd better hurry."

I ran out of the room, and I began to try and locate Alex... This is the most important task I've ever done and I won't allow for any error.