Page 7 of Rhaz’s Redemption (Shifters of Valo Prime #6)
Rhaz
CW: descriptions of cruelty and violence
Descriptions of domestic violence
I went to my private cave and started packing. Clothes, rations, flint… Shocked gasps, eyes, all eyes on me. I couldn’t push the images of how all the human females looked at me when I revealed the truth aside.
I wanted to shut them out, forget the whispers, forget the pain. I wanted to run away. Even Beatrice looked shocked when I revealed who my sire was. Dameron. The male who’d been ruining my life since day one.
We’d gotten along for a short time when I was young.
He’d smile when he saw me and I would jump into his arms every day when he came home.
But then he changed. He grew more agitated each day.
He complained that I was too loud, too clumsy, too much.
I had been an energetic child, climbing on everything, knocking everything over, doing my best to be quiet and sit still even when my body yearned to run and shout.
My mother didn’t understand me either, but at least she was patient with me.
She allowed me to run the perimeter of the entire valley, climb every tree, and swim in the river.
When my father yelled at me for not being like the other sietlings, my mother would remind him that I was doing my best and that I wasn’t hurting anyone.
He didn’t care. The only thing that mattered to Dameron was his image and his power.
He thought if it looked like he couldn’t control his son that it would look like he couldn’t control the dekes.
It was then that he became violent, beating my mother before my eyes and then blaming me for it.
My shifter brothers easily took the blame for causing the illness that killed our mothers, but I knew better.
My sire had been looking for an excuse to get rid of me and anyone who was different like I was, long before the illness struck our dekes.
It was all too convenient to blame us children for everyone’s troubles.
He hadn’t expected Axon and Sozu’s parents to join us though.
If it hadn’t been for them we wouldn’t have survived.
We were still young hunters at the time, and knew very little about the world outside of our safe valley.
Our hunting trails did not stray far from our home, but Neelu, Gogron, Drondia, and Karo knew this land well.
They protected us from the jagwas, and led us to our mountain home.
They even helped us cope with our new shifter abilities even though they had none.
I couldn’t imagine what things must have been like for them back then.
They’d left everything behind to stay with their children and to tend to the rest of us, and my sire sat idly by praying for my death.
The image of my father praying for my demise caused an unamused laugh to bubble up from my gut.
Death could not hold me even if I yearned for it, and there had been many times that I did yearn for the end, but it never came.
The afterlife kept its gates closed whenever I appeared before them. My entry was always denied.
“Rhaz,” a familiar voice floated up to my ears and I turned to find Beatrice in my doorway. Beautiful black curls framed her round face, and her warm brown skin looked as soft and tempting as ever.
“May I come in?”
“If you wish,” I winced at my harsh tone. I never meant to sound as angry as I did, especially with Beatrice, but my voice seemed to have a mind of its own.
Beatrice was not so easily deterred, however. She was as stubborn as she was quiet. I liked that. I liked to think in another life we would have been a perfect pairing. But not in this life. Not when I was so broken.
“Here,” she handed me a leaf shaped like a star, much like the one I’d given her during an earlier celebration. The star was meant to be thrown into the fire as the person made a wish, the ashes would rise to the goddess and she would fulfill the person’s desire.
“This is for you.”
The star leaf had a word written on it in Beatrice’s language.
“What does it say?” I asked.
“It reads protection . Think of it like an extra wish for your safety that I’ve made on your behalf. You can throw it into the fire on your journey and maybe be a little safer for it.”
Her gesture was thoughtful and kind, too kind. I could feel the icy walls around my heart begin to melt. I wanted to turn and embrace her. I wanted to tell her that she shouldn’t waste her wishes on a male like me, a male who might one day turn into a monster like my sire.
“This was kind of you,” I kept my tone even as I traced the letters she’d written on the leaf.
I put it carefully in my bag so it wouldn’t be crushed by anything else.
“I wanted to talk to you before you left,” she continued as she took another step into my cave.
“About what?” My gruff tone had returned and I did nothing to stop it. I needed to build my walls back up. These walls were for her protection not mine.
“About us, our luminescence, and what that means. We-”
“It means nothing.” I cut her off. This discussion could not go where she wanted it to.
“That’s fundamentally not true,” she wrinkled her nose in that adorable way she did whenever she was put off by someone’s comment or confused by their logic or lack thereof.
“We have a bond. You can’t deny that,” she pressed on.
“Why not?” I crossed my arms over my chest and looked to the ground so she could not see the pain in my eyes. I wanted our bond. I wanted her.
“Because that wouldn’t make any sense. For whatever reason luminescence chose us for each other. We should explore that connection. At the very least we should build a friendship between us so when the big moon is full again we can help ease each other’s physical yearning.”
I quickly turned my back to her and gripped my satchel so tight my knuckles turned white.
We could never give into that yearning. No matter how much I wanted to, it could never happen.
I would not give her a child with my cursed blood.
I don’t know what caused my father to change from the loving sire he’d been to the monster he’d become, but his blood ran through my veins and an unquenchable fury filled my soul.
I was always ready for a fight, and I hated myself for it.
I didn’t want to fight. I wanted to be gentle like Brexl or kind like Jax, but I wasn’t like either of them.
I was like my sire, and I would not risk hurting Beatrice or any children we might have together.
I had hope that they might turn out like her instead of like me, but I kept no hope for myself.
It was too dangerous to believe I might not turn into a violent male like my sire.
“We will never be mates. I will not lie with you in the furs. I will not join you in luminescence.” I spoke through gritted teeth and felt my heart break with each word I uttered.
I turned to find Beatrice’s eyes glossy with unshed tears. I’d put those tears there and I hated myself for it. But it was better for her to hate me now, then to love me and discover the monster that lurked underneath.
“Why?” Her voice cracked and she looked away so I would not see the tear that streamed down her face.
“Do you really not know?” I questioned. “Can you really not see why we can’t be together?”
She took a step back as if I’d dealt her a physical blow. “Do you despise me so much that the idea of being with me is so far-fetched?”
No . This couldn't be real. She thought I hated her?
I found myself on my knees before her and gathered her hands between mine.
“I could no sooner hate you than I could hate a flower for being beautiful or a bird’s song for its light melody.”
“I don’t understand.” She wrinkled her nose again and the sight of her standing over me like this made me wish I could take back every word I’d ever spoken.
I would love her tenderly if I could. I would give her all that I was and beg for her to love me rough in return.
I wanted to feel her nails dig into my skin as her channel squeezed around me.
I wanted to feel her soft breaths on my neck as I held her tight.
I wanted to beg for mercy and release and see her smile before she finally gave into my pleas.
I stood to my feet again as I remembered I couldn’t have any of those things.
“We cannot be mated as long as my sire’s blood runs through my veins. I cannot rid myself of him anymore than I could separate my soul from my body.”
“You’re not like him,” Beatrice corrected and I wanted to believe her. I wanted her to be right, but it was too risky. There was too much rage inside me for that to be true.
“I can’t risk hurting you like he hurt my mother.”
I let the words linger in the air, hoping she’d get my meaning without me having to explain further.
But being stubborn and brave as she was, Betrice took a step closer and tried again. “You are not your father.”
“Do you even know what my father is capable of?” I bit out. “If you knew how much of a monster he truly is you wouldn’t risk tying yourself to me.”
“I-”
“Do you know why Jax is mute?” I cut her off with a growl.
“Did anyone tell you that he wasn’t born unable to speak?
I was there the day he shifted for the first time.
I was visiting my mother’s grave when I heard his screech turn from screams to gargles as my father held onto his tongue in his hand and cut it out.
He thought he could fix him, but all he did was take his voice. ”
Beatrice held a hand up over her mouth as she imagined the scene I’d described for her.
“That same darkness lives in me, Beatrice. That is the future I hold. That is the future I’d offer you, madness and violence.”
“I refuse to believe-”
“I CANNOT BE YOUR MATE!” I cut her off with a shouted proclamation that shattered me from the inside out.
She looked at me with shock and hurt in her eyes and gave herself a moment to breathe before responding.
Beatrice was a whole head shorter than me, but she filled the room as she straightened her shoulders and stared me down.
“Fine. I will not stand here and convince you to be my mate or to love me the way I deserve to be loved,” she glared at me. “If you wish to live in this sad reality that you’ve created for yourself then so be it. I will not stop you.”
She took a step closer and I had the strangest urge to cower before this short human. She held a command in her gaze that I’d not seen before and even the beast within me felt the need to yield to her power.
“But I will tell you this. There will come a day when you will regret the words you just spoke to me. You will grow old and gray without ever having raised your hand against another. You will live out your days without raising your voice in anger, not even once, and only then will you realize the life we could have lived. You will weep and long for days gone by, and despair when you realize you can’t get them back.
Not a day, not an hour, not even a second of time will be returned to you. ”
Her words hit me like knives and for the first time I questioned if it was possible for me to live differently than my sire had.
She turned and walked to the door, leaving me speechless in her wake. She stopped at the entrance and looked like she was going to speak one final time, but then thought better of it. She was done wasting her words on me.