Page 27 of Bred Mate (Stalked Mates #2)

“My mom came to you, and asked for me?”

“Yes.”

“She has some nerve,” I smile. I don’t know why. It’s not as if it is really all that funny, but there’s something about how completely unhinged she is that makes me feel a certain amount of admiration.

Still going to kill her, though.

It’s not really that long until we pull up outside the house where I was beaten into submission and nearly forced to marry.

I’m wondering now why I didn’t just take my wolf form and kill them all.

It didn’t feel right somehow then. I blame my mother’s influence.

There’s something about her that freezes my brain and makes me less than I could otherwise be.

Not anymore, though.

Karl pulls the car to a halt and turns to me.

“Now we’re going to…”

I don’t listen to Karl. I am already storming out of the vehicle, throwing the door open and not bothering to close it.

I am so furious at what has happened, at the fact I can’t get one moment to myself in the entirety of my life without someone making off with my little brother, and the fact that that my mother can’t just leave us alone once and for all.

What the hell is her problem? How many people do I have to fucking kill?

The image of Patrick being rag-dolled around in the bayou flashes into my head for a moment, then is gone again.

“Mom!” I slam through the front door of the big fancy house. I am dressed head to toe in black leather, which feels a lot more true to my nature than what I was wearing last time I was here.

My mom does not meet me. Rainer does. He looks older than he did last time I saw him.

He was more hale and robust then. Now he looks like he’s been miserable for weeks.

I guess he’s been suffering the loss of his only son.

Sucks to be him. I feel absolutely no pity for him. None of this had to happen.

He stares at me with an expression that shifts from surprise to hope.

“You’re alive,” he says. “Where’s my son?”

“Patrick’s dead,” I tell him, snatching that last shred of hope away from him as quickly as possible. He doesn’t deserve it. “He died of being eaten by an alligator on our bayou getaway.”

The old man stares at me with a horrified expression, as if he expected some other response.

“You know you tried to force me into the marriage,” I say. “You know he didn’t want it either. I don’t know what you thought would happen. You’re the one banging my mother. You should have known nothing would go like you planned it.”

“Excellent job being diplomatic, sweetheart,” Karl says in a long-suffering tone, draping an arm around my shoulders as he enters the house behind me.

“You! You were the one who was trying to buy the forest!” Rainer recognizes him.

Karl doesn’t acknowledge him. We’re not here to confront or comfort Rainer. We are here to get my little brother back.

“What is going on?”

My mother emerges from the interior of the house with Connor by her side. He looks healthy. He’s still wearing his little school suit. He smiles broadly when he sees us.

“Sis! Alpha!” he says.

“Excuse me,” Rainer murmurs, leaving the foyer while the rest of us have a little reunion.

“This is our mom,” Connor says, pointing to Margaret. “She’s nice.”

“Is she,” I say flatly. “Why did you take him, Mom?”

“Well, Patrick went missing, and it was apparent to me after my wedding to Rainer that we would need a replacement heir. Who better than my actual son?”

“You have two other sons.”

“They weren’t quite so easy to convince to leave everything behind for a candy bar,” she says bluntly.

Connor laughs, like it’s a joke.

“You’re crazy, and Connor’s no use to you. If anything happens to him, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill Rainer, I’ll destroy everything and everyone you ever loved—and I know there aren’t many of those things because you’re an unfeeling bitch.”

“You don’t give me enough credit,” she says, speaking to me with that affected patience designed to make me seem like the unstable one.

“I give you no credit, and that’s still too much. Come here, Connor. Now.”

Connor slinks over to me, looking chastised. I probably shouldn’t have said anything about this in front of him. I should have shielded him from the reality of our mother. But long term, it’s better that he understands how dangerous she is.

“Are you mad at me?” He asks the question with a level of innocence that breaks my heart. How much longer is he going to get to keep that in this world?

“No, buddy,” I tell him. “It’s not your fault. Not yet.”

“Yet?”

“The choices you make from here on out will make a difference,” I tell him. If he decides to ally himself with our mom because she seems fun, I won’t be able to help him.

“I’m sorry!” he says. “I’m going to make my own PB not wolf arms, but human arms. Her muzzle is long and filled with teeth, but her head retains something of a human shape.

And it’s not just teeth her husband has to worry about.

Her hands terminate in long, dangerous claws, and those claws turn Rainer into ribbons of flesh and viscera in a way that would be off-putting if we were not beasts ourselves.

The entire interaction is over in a matter of seconds. Rainer’s weapon lies twisted in the corner of the room, less a weapon, more scrap metal. His body is…

Margaret grabs the curtains next to her, tossing one over her fallen husband, and using the other as impromptu clothing. Her shift back is as swift as the initial transformation.

“I didn’t want to do that,” she says, covering herself in a drape. “I didn’t want to do any of this, but…”

“That. Was. So. Fucking. Cool,” Connor breathes.

He’s right. That was amazing. I’ve never liked my mother, but I feel a certain level of awe right now that might somewhat stand in its place.

“Language,” Margaret says, her voice demonstrating exhaustion.

“Not a fucking gain,” Karl breathes. “How many damn werewolves do we have?”

“There’re others?” I murmur the question to him.

“You’ve heard the rumors about Gray’s mate. They’re true.”

“Wow.”

We’re staring at my mother, and for the first time in my life, I feel like I sort of understand her. No wonder she always denied being a wolf shifter. She wasn’t one. She’s not a wolf. She’s something much more powerful and infinitely more rare.

“You’re amazing,” I say, kind of hating that I am saying it because I still have all the issues with her that I had before. “Why didn’t you ever tell us about this? Why did you leave us in the woods? What the fuck, Mom?”

She finally gives me an answer that makes some sense, doesn’t deflect, doesn’t lie, doesn’t try to make me feel stupid for asking the question.

“I couldn’t be a parent,” she says. “I am a werewolf, and we crave human flesh. There were times when I was tempted… when I thought I could not prevent myself from consuming my own offspring. Do you know how tender a baby is?”

“Uhm.”

“So yes, I left you in the woods, and you thrived there until Rainer bought them from the alpha of Louisiana. Then I tried to get him to keep your territory clear, but of course he wanted to put in a very big parking lot…” She sighs.

“I have not handled things in the way a traditional mother would, but I have tried to provide for you.”

“Through the medium of abandonment and multiple kidnappings.”

“Yes.”

“Fair,” I say. “Respect.”

I’m surprised to learn that I actually mean it on some level. It doesn’t make up for her failings as a mother, but it does explain them. She was never normal. She couldn’t even really fit in with the packs who lived around us.

“How come we aren’t werewolves like you?”

“Your fathers were normal men,” she says. “Werewolves and typical human men make common shifters.”

I’d object to the term ‘common,’ but compared to her, it is an accurate description.

She pauses for a moment. “I’m going to have a shower and get changed. If you wouldn’t mind tidying things up, alpha, that would be much appreciated.”

“Mom’s kind of cool,” Connor says when she is gone. I expect him to talk about her transition to werewolf, but that’s not what’s on his mind. “She made me pancakes.”

“Did she?” I ask him the question pretty much automatically, in the way you do when you’re just having a conversation on autopilot.

I cannot believe what I just saw. It was the most impressive display of raw power I have ever laid eyes on.

A wolf kill is always something to behold, but that was on another level.

She destroyed Rainer in seconds. She could have killed us all at any time, I realize.

The patience she was showing before the moment she didn’t have it anymore is very impressive.

“Yeah. And she made them look like they had mouse ears? They were cute. I liked them. Can she come with us? She’s a werewolf.”

Karl finally speaks up. “Go sit in the car, okay, buddy? Baldwin is out there.”

“Baldwin!” Connor runs out to see his friend.

Connor seems remarkably unscathed by what he has seen. I suppose that’s due to the hunting we did in his younger days. He’s seen a lot of death in his life. It’s not usually human death, but Rainer always had the vibe of a man who was going to end up in a bad way.

Karl starts wrapping the body in the curtain. He does a good job of it, especially given how messy it is. He wraps it up into a snug little package, and carries it out to the car, where he pulls out a plastic sheet and wraps it around the curtain and then puts the whole lot in the trunk.

While this is happening, my mother comes down looking very well put together, from her garnet clip-on earrings to her red pumps.

“Karl says he’ll have someone clean the floors,” I tell her. I am not sure how to look at her now that I know what she is, and that I have seen her turn a man into an interior decoration.

“Oh, you’ve taken the body,” she says. “Good. Perhaps we can bury him with his son.”

“Patrick wasn’t buried. He was eaten.”

My mother flashes a bright smile at me. “Exactly.”