Page 97 of Broken Bonds

He gives me a kiss that helps wake me up and I find he has breakfast ready for me.

Unfortunately, I learn why he’s up so early. While the reason sucks, I also appreciate that he didn’t leave without talking to me first.

He cares about my feelings.

Fuck me, I know I absolutely shouldn’t fall for this guy—this sweet, hunky, sexy, strong, well-hung guy—but yeah. I’m already there.

Except he tells me about the vampires, and why they’re coming, and my heart hits the floor. No, I didn’t cause this problem, but yeah, guilt by association.

And now new fears about hiding myself because of my father’s actions, that fucking asshole.

I promise Todd I won’t leave the property—an easy promise to make—and after one last kiss I shoo him out the door to go help Jax and the others while I stay behind to do the dishes. He says I can have the run of his house if I want, and even use the pool that I hadn’t realized was there. It’s on the far end, accessible from inside, screened in and enclosed by an eight-foot-tall wooden privacy fence he keeps locked on the outside unless he’s having a gathering and people are using it.

Since I’m alone and not exactly worried about company dropping in, I strip and jump into the deep end. It’s a twenty-five-meter pool and I slowly swim a few laps before flipping onto my back to float with my eyes closed. The sun beats down on me, and in contrast to the comfortably cool water, it feels great in the thick, humid Florida heat that’s already cranking up this early in the morning.

It’ll be a scorcher.

In the distance, I hear faint sounds from the barn area of the daily routine underway and feel slightly guilty I’m not down there helping. I know Todd said I could take the day off but I feel like I should be working.

Unlike my brothers, who were pretty much handed everything by Dad, I worked—in school, at jobs.

Even to escape.

I never wanted things handed to me although I could have snapped my fingers and been granted them. Even as a kid, I realized those things weren’t gifts; they were nooses that tightened incrementally until they’d strangle any semblance of individuality from me if I allowed myself to give in and go along.

I have no doubt if I married Lana Chastain the way Dad ordered me to, and if she didn’t get pregnant within a year, he’d force me to go to a fertility clinic, masturbate, and get her pregnant via IVF.

I didn’t fit into his perfect family image being myself, so he’d pound my round peg into one of his square holes no matter what the cost to me. To him, my happiness is irrelevant.

The only happiness he cares about is his own. Funny thing is, I can never remember seeing him truly happy about anything.

You don’t believe me about him forcing me to breed? A few years ago there was another couple I strongly suspected only got married to be mutual beards, two omegas, and I overheard several conversations Dad had with a pack doctor to get her pregnant by her spouse even if he had to tie the guy down and shove an electric probe up his ass to force it out of him like they do cattle, and tie her down to put it in her.

She ended up having twins.

And then she committed suicide two weeks after they were born.

No, it wasn’t staged by my father, either. I remember during her pregnancy how misery washed off her in waves at pack events where her parents and in-laws happily raved at how they were about to be grandparents. The husband looked miserable, too, but seemed to be genuinely worried about her.

She dropped her husband and the babies at her parents’ house with the excuse that she was going to her own doctor appointment.

Instead, she returned home and hung herself after videotaping a message saying exactly why, blaming my father for it, and keeping the camera running while she did it so no one else could be blamed for it.

I also remember hearing Dad’s enraged screams at people in his home office later that night after she did it, and he ordered the husband to remarry another woman less than four weeks later.

A week before that wedding was to take place, the man left the babies at his parents’ house and claimed he was going shopping ahead of the wedding. They found him dead later that evening in the same park where I made my escape from. He consumed an entire bottle of Xanax, two bottles of vodka, and then slit his wrists.

He left a voice message on his phone apologizing to their kids and the grandparents, but blamed my father. They found a handwritten suicide note in his car, and he’d mailed copies of it to both sets of grandparents on his way to the park. They received them the next day.

I don’t know what happened to the babies after that. I hope their grandparents are raising them, but Dad didn’t attend either funeral.

Still, there were other times he ordered people to get wed and breed, but to the best of my knowledge, none of them ended so tragically.

All Dad cares about is expanding the pack and consolidating power at any expense. Well, and he cares about his image, obviously.

I probably couldn’t take him in a fair fight, although I certainly could outrun him. I don’t want to be a murderer, and I absolutely don’t want to kill myself.

But I’ll be damned if I’ll let him force me into a relationship I don’t want.