“Mmmhmm,” the kind man said. “She had a heck of a time when she was carrying your mother, but thankfully we learned early on that sweets seemed to calm her stomach.”
Grinding her teeth, she shook her head and backed away from the man’s touch, because what he was saying was impossible. She yanked her hands away from Drew, stumbled to her feet and backed away from him as well, still shaking her head, because she didn’t want this to be true.
Because that would mean-
“Oh, God,” she said, just as she turned around, slapped her hand against the wall and lost the battle once again.
*-*-*-*
“She wasn’t ready,” Drew said, gently rubbing Kara’s back as she laid on the double bed in the room that he’d demanded that she be placed in instead of that fucked up memorial John kept in memory of his daughter.
“She never would have been ready,” John pointed out and as much as Drew would have loved to argue with the man, he was right.
“You should have let me explain everything to her,” he said instead.
“Did you really want to be the one to explain why every fucked up Pack in the world was looking for her?” John demanded, looking pained and God help him if Drew couldn’t understand exactly what he was feeling, because he wasn’t sure that he would survive knowing what those sick fucks wanted to do with her.
She was a female Alpha descended from Sentinels, which meant that the rules didn’t apply to her. She’d been born of a Sentinel’s human child, who’d been turned and then had her, an Alpha that could hide her status. While the mating rules applied to him and all the other shifters, they wouldn’t apply to her.
Humans, demons and vampires would have never been able to get her pregnant, but any male shifter that she’d slept with could have and it was pretty much guaranteed that all of her offspring would have been Alphas as well. They would have been Alphas that could hide their status and reproduce without being mated, which would mean more Alphas.
She was a one in a billion chance birth since her mother was the human child of a Sentinel. Her mother would have been able to have human children outside of a mating, but the odds of her having an Alpha were very small. This made Kara incredibly rare. It also made her wanted by every fucking Pack that wanted to fill their ranks with Alphas that could change at will, hide their status and wipe out other Packs, vampires and demons.
Every child that Kara had was guaranteed to be an Alpha and there was a very slight chance that she could also give birth to a Sentinel, which made her even more special. There were so many Packs out there that would fucking kill to have a Sentinel under their control.
Christ, that explained why his father allowed her to stay, but not join the Pack, because he had fucking plans for her. She was worth a lot and could have brought him alliances, property and whatever else he wanted. He could have tied her to a bed and had her fucked, making her fill his Pack with Alphas that he could control.
Regular Packs were weak, because the regular Pack members could only change during three nights out of the month. They could potentially live forever, but they were basically useless twenty-seven days out of the month. A Pack filled with shifters that could change at will, would be unfucking-stoppable.
He had no idea how the Packs currently hunting her down had figured it out, but he knew that she was no longer safe in his world. She would be a prime target for the rest of her life. Whatever they’d done to her as a child would pale in comparison to what they would do to her now.
Just the thought of what they would do to her and their child had his heart pounding angrily in his chest. They wouldn’t be gentle, wouldn’t care that they were hurting her, humiliating her or turning her into a slave. The only thing they would care about was what she could give them.
An unstoppable army that could challenge even the Sentinels.
Chapter 45
“I can’t stay here,” she mumbled pathetically even as she forced herself not to say what she really meant.
He couldn’t stay here and if he wasn’t here, she didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be with him back at the club, but once again it appeared as though it didn’t matter what she wanted. She couldn’t leave, because that would be putting everyone in danger.
When she’d barely escaped with her life the first time, she’d counted herself lucky and swore that they would never find her. She refused to live like that again. She’d always told herself that if they ever managed to capture her that she’d kill herself before she allowed them to enslave her again.
Not that she really thought that they were going to let her live long enough to regret being caught, not after what she’d done. She figured that they’d drag her back, torturing her the entire way, letting her know exactly what they were going to do to her as they inflicted just enough pain to keep her terrified. Once they had her back on Pack land they would have stretched out her torture to set an example for the rest of the cattle. When they grew bored with her, they would have killed her in the most violent way that they could think of before they’d strung her body up to rot as a constant reminder to the rest of the cattle of what happened when you disobeyed the Pack.
Now she couldn’t help but wonder when they’d figured out exactly what she was and what she could do for them. They obviously hadn’t known when she’d first escaped, because they would have torn this world apart looking for her. So, that begged the question, when did they figure it out and who else knew?
Hell, she hadn’t even known that she was capable of having children outside of a mating. She’d always thought that she was nothing more than a lucky bitch that had been able to get away. She had no idea that one day she’d have to worry about more than just her grandmother coming after her.
God, what the hell was she going to do now? she thought miserably as Drew continued to sit there by her side, gently rubbing her back and saying nothing just as he had for the last two hours. She really didn’t expect him to answer her, because there was nothing that he could say.
He had to leave.
He had a Pack that depended on him, needed him and he had his club, his baby and…
Oh, God…
She was going to have to leave their child with him, because she would never be able to protect their baby on the run. She couldn’t force another child to live the life that she’d lived. She never wanted her child to live in fear, always wondering when they were going to find him and she sure as hell didn’t want her child being used or hurt.
Drew would never let anything happen to their child. He would always keep their child safe, but that wouldn’t be possible if she stayed. They’d find her as well as their child and she just couldn’t-
“I’m sorry, Kara,” Drew said, moving his hand away from her back so that he could take her hand into his and give it a small, reassuring squeeze that was probably meant to make everything better.
She didn’t say anything, simply because it was too painful to say the words out loud. She’d gone and fallen in love with the asshole only to have her heart broken in more ways than she could ever possibly imagine. She was about to lose her mate and her child and all she could tell herself was that it was for the best. This was for the best, she told herself, believing that if she chanted it enough times in her head that she would believe it.
“Go to sleep, sweetheart,” Drew said just as she realized just how tired she was. “Everything will be fine when you wake up.”
“No,” she said around a little yawn, “it won’t.”
*-*-*-*
“We can protect her,” John promised as they stood there, staring out the large floor to ceiling window that overlooked Boston Common.
“I know,” Drew said, staring blindly out at the place that he’d called home for his entire life, the place that he’d sworn to protect, but now all he saw was the one thing that kept him from what he wanted the most.
Kara.
She couldn’t stay in Boston, not even in this Compound and expect to remain safe and h
e sure as hell couldn’t allow their child to remain in Boston. If the Packs knew that she was here, and he’d bet his fucking life that they did, then they would tear this city apart until they found her.
“What about your Pack?” John asked, which was funny because as Alpha his first concern should always be the safety of his Pack, but his priorities had changed.
“I’ve already sent word around to the other Alphas. They’ve sworn to take as many of them as they can,” he said, knowing that wouldn’t solve everything.
Now that he was leaving, the remaining Alphas were going to be at each other’s throats, trying to claim position as top Alpha of Boston. He didn’t want that, didn’t want his leaving to cause a war so he’d already made his decision. He was leaving the club to Ryan and placing Ryan under the care of the second most powerful Pack in Boston. That would guarantee that his club stayed open for those that needed its protection and that there was no war, because most of his Pack would stay with Ryan. They trusted him and more importantly, Drew trusted Ryan to take care of them.
God, he was going to miss Ryan. The little bastard had been his best friend for the last four decades and now he was turning his back on everything that he’d ever known and going up to some fucking compound in New York to live with Pytes.
Fucking Pytes, he thought with disgust even as he thanked God for the opportunity, because if there was one thing that he was sure of, it was that being surrounded by Pytes was the only fucking thing on this earth that was going to be able to keep his mate and child safe. Kara might be every Alpha’s wet dream, but getting their hands on a Pyte was every fucking being’s dream.
Kara’s bloodline could produce an army of shifters that could change at will and could go undetected. They would make the perfect fucking Pack for any Alpha who wanted to take over territories, seek revenge or take down the Sentinels, who were the only thing stopping them from fucking over the human race. Pytes on the other hand…
They could create an army of stronger, faster vampires, create more Pytes and cause pure hell for the rest of the world. They were definitely risks to living with them, but what choice did he have? He needed to protect his mate and children and the Pytes working with the Sentinels was his best hope.
John didn’t say anything for a moment as they both stared blindly out the window until finally John said, “I need to explain a few things to Kara before you leave.”
Drew reluctantly nodded. He’d figured as much. He just wasn’t sure that what John had to say was something that she needed to hear right now, but unfortunately, they needed answers and John was the only one that could provide them with information that could possibly save them.
There was a slight pause before he added, “And I’m going with you.”
“No,” Drew said without hesitation, because he didn’t want Kara to have to deal with the constant reminder of how fucked up her life had once been and could still turn out to be.
“I’m not going to let her go now that I’ve found her, Drew,” John said softly, but the meaning was clear, he would fucking kill anyone who got between him and his granddaughter again.
Drew wasn’t in the mood to fight with him, but he had to know. “How exactly did you find out about her?”
“It’s a bit of a long story.”
“I have plenty of time,” Drew pointed out since the cavalry wouldn’t be arriving until tomorrow.
“It would probably be for the best if we waited for Kara so that I only have to tell this story once,” John explained, and Drew didn’t miss the pain in the man’s voice.
It was probably going to be a story that Drew never wanted to hear in the first place, but for Kara and their child, he would listen.
“Tell me what?” his mate said as she stepped into the living room, trying to look like she didn’t give a shit, but he knew her too well. She was absolutely terrified and there wasn’t a damn thing that he could do to protect her from the truth.
Chapter 46
“We don’t have to do this right now,” Drew said as he slipped his arm around her and pulled her down onto his lap, a move that had John, er, her grandfather’s eyes narrowing on them.
She was about to remind him that they were mated, but when she