Page 38 of Bane of Hate and Silver (Primordial Inheritance #1)

Execution Order

J ules walked up the driveway to Gabriel and Eileen’s home.

As the sun rose on another gloomy day, she and Luca had decided to face their respective consequences.

Jules was worried, but at least she knew her consequences wouldn’t get her killed.

Her hand lifted to knock but she couldn’t bring herself to connect her fist with the door.

The temptation to turn back to her vehicle and drive away was a very strong one.

However, doing so would be unfair to Eileen. She tapped the door lightly.

Moments later, Eileen yanked the door open and smiled at her. “Jules is here,” she called back into the house and simultaneously stepped to the side of the threshold, so Jules could enter.

“Are you here to tell me what is going on with you?” Gabriel said in an almost accusatory tone as he appeared in the bedroom doorway. “If you’re going to feed me more lies, you can go.” He crossed his arms but made no move toward her.

“Gabriel don’t be an ass,” Eileen said, walking up next to him. She slid her hand down his arm and intertwined their fingers. “Won’t you sit down Jules?”

Silently, Jules nodded and sat in the armchair.

Eileen pulled Gabriel behind her and made him sit next to her on the couch.

“I obviously have something I need to tell you,” Jules admitted.

“Should I give you some privacy?” Eileen asked. Jules noticed that she seemed to be silently begging to be excused from this conversation, but Jules couldn’t let her go. Eileen triggered Gabriel’s compassion. He was going to need his wife’s emotional support.

“Please stay,” Jules said, her voice almost inaudible. She let her eyes shut. Her eyelids felt so heavy. Every part of her felt guilty for keeping this from him for so long. The lie felt worse than the secret’s subject. She was happy, she didn’t feel ashamed for being with Luca, werewolf or not.

Gabriel sighed, still sounding exasperated. “Jules, what exactly is going on? And why do you look like you murdered someone dear to me?”

“I don’t want to hide the truth from you anymore,” she said honestly. “I just don’t…”

“Just rip off the band-aid,” Eileen suggested.

Gabriel glared at his wife, who shrugged back at him and gave his hand a squeeze.

“I’m seeing someone.” That information would be shock enough.

“Seeing someone? Who?” He looked taken aback.

“His name is Luca. He’s a friend of Tai. He saved me and brought me home the night I was attacked at the school.”

“Jules you’ve buried the lead,” Eileen pointed out as Jules stopped to take an unneeded, but steadying, breath.

Jules looked from Gabriel to Eileen.

“Just say it,” Eileen suggested.

When Jules looked back at Gabriel, he was no longer looking up at her but staring determinately down at the floor.

“Please tell me he’s not a werewolf,” Gabriel said, not looking up at Jules until he’d finished his statement.

“He’s the Beta,” she admitted and then swallowed hard.

“That beast!” Gabriel shouted, standing now.

Eileen stood also, placing her hand on Gabriel’s arm. He threw her an accusing look. “How could you not tell me this?” he snapped at Eileen.

“Hey,” Jules called, standing too. “Don’t yell at her. It wasn’t her secret to tell.” Jules felt stronger now than she had in centuries. Stronger because she was defending something, someone, whom she cared deeply for.

“How long?” Gabriel asked. “How long have you kept this from me? How long have you put Eileen and myself in danger without my knowledge?”

“You’re not in any danger from him,” Jules said as calmly as she could manage.

“I think she’s right Gabriel,” Eileen said, speaking up at last. “When I met him…”

“You met him,” Gabriel said. It didn’t sound like a question.

“Briefly,” she admitted.

“You, of all people, know how dangerous werewolves can be. How could you keep this from me? I’m your husband!”

Eileen was looking at him incredulously.

Before she could defend herself, Gabriel turned on Jules. “And you! How could you put us in danger like this?”

“Luca is not a danger to anyone!” Jules’s tone was calm but stern.

“Gabriel calm down. You’re being unreasonable,” Eileen said.

“Unreasonable!” Gabriel yanked free from Eileen’s grasp and began pacing the floor between her and Jules. “The fact that you kept this from me tells me that you are the unreasonable one. I thought I could trust your judgment, but now I’m not so sure,” he snapped back at her.

Instead of saying anything, she walked to the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Jules could understand. Gabriel’s anger was obviously displaced and shouldn’t be directed at her.

Jules had known that he wasn’t going to take it with a smile, but taking his anger out on Eileen wasn’t like him. In fact, this whole thing wasn’t like him. This was not the kind and caring man that she knew.

Silence stretched between them for a few more painful moments.

Gabriel seething with anger. Jules sat, waiting for her friend to regain control of his emotions.

Finally, once Gabriel appeared to have calmed down a little, Jules reiterated her previous statement.

“Luca is the one who saved me, Gabriel.” Jules’s voice was low, barely a whisper.

She sank back onto the chair as she waited for him to respond.

“You keep saying that. Why? And how did this even happen? Last I checked the werewolf species wanted us dead, you in particular.”

“He’s that friend of Tai. The blind date I went on for Monica. It was with him.”

“So, you couldn’t kill him. How does that make you continue to date him?” Gabriel was talking at a more normal volume now, but the tension had not left his voice.

“I don’t know how it happened. It just… did.”

“He’s a werewolf, a mindless beast. How can you want that?”

“He is not a mindless beast at all. He’s kind, and caring, and I feel safe with him.”

Gabriel said nothing, but gave her a look that suggested disbelief.

Whether it was in her or in what she was saying, Jules didn’t know.

She guessed it was probably a bit of both.

So, she continued. She needed him to understand.

“If you and Eileen had met later and she had been a werewolf, would you not have loved her anyway?”

The bedroom door cracked open. Eileen peeked her head out and paused there for a few seconds while Gabriel pondered the question.

When he didn’t answer, she walked out to sit beside him.

He took her hand, looking her up and down and then at their intertwined fingers.

Jules could understand now what had just passed between them.

It was love. Even when the person you love behaves in a way they shouldn’t, being in love with someone meant truly loving them, mistakes, faults and all.

Gabriel leaned back against the deep couch, sighed, and answered her, “well considering her death is what caused me to see werewolves’ true colors, I don’t know,” he hesitated but then continued, “but knowing what I do now, the answer is no. I would not have fallen in love with her. I wouldn’t have even given her a chance to get close to me. ”

“But after? After you had spent even a day with her? Could you have still hated her then?” Jules stared into his eyes as he thought.

He sighed. “It would have been a lot harder.”

No one spoke for a while. Eileen and Jules were giving Gabriel time to process everything he had just heard.

“Gabriel, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I don’t want to lose you over this, but I couldn’t keep lying to you either,” Jules finally said, almost under her breath.

Gabriel sighed. “You’re never going to lose me. But I don’t know how I’m just supposed to accept this.”

“If you would just get to know him…” Jules cut herself off. She knew she’d just said the wrong thing.

“No. No! I don’t want to get to know him,” he said, almost matter-of-factly. “I don’t want you knowing him. But I can’t stop you.” Gabriel’s tone had an unwavering finality to it.

“Gabriel, can’t you see it? You are judging the man I love because of his species.

What you’re doing is no different than judging someone because of their skin color.

He was born what he is, he had no control over that.

And isn’t it our choices that determine who we are?

Right now, yours are wrong. Hating all werewolves because of the actions of a few is wrong. ” Jules looked at him imploringly.

“You love him?” He spat at her.

Jules nodded. “I do.”

Gabriel met her gaze but said nothing. After a few moments of contemplation, he offered a look full of pain.

“I don’t know Jules. All I see is danger.

I hear what you are saying, but this pack is obviously dangerous and full of their own hate.

I can’t just live with that. I’m sorry. I just can’t see past it.

” With that, he stood and walked out the door.

Jules just sat there, staring after him. Eileen walked over to her and squeezed her shoulder. “He’ll come around. I think with time, he will accept this.”

Jules said nothing as a tear of blood ran down her cheek.

“I’m going to go after him,” Eileen said. She turned and trotted into the pouring rain as well.

Jules wiped another tear from her cheek, smudging her face with blood. Well, there is no going back now , she thought. For better or worse, Gabriel knew her secret. What he chose to do with that information was up to him.

Jules sat for several moments more until her phone buzzed in her pocket. The message was from Luca, it read, You okay Babe?

She typed out, not really , and hit send.

With this, she stood and walked to the sink to rinse the blood off of her face. She splashed herself with cold water once more than was probably necessary and leaned over the sink, focusing on her breathing.

She looked at Luca’s next message upon being alerted by her phone. I’ll be back as soon as I can.