Page 22 of Rhett

“Rhett,” Quinn started, “we’re not minimizing your hurt, but let’s be fair to Nova. She shouldn’t be held accountable for the sins of her bloodline.” His eyes locked on mine. “Now… will you help the pack protect her?”

“Of course,” I replied. “I’m not going to stand by and watch while they tear her to shreds. I don’t have to claim her, but it’s my job as the Protector of everyone in this town.”

“Good.” Quinn clapped my shoulder. “We’re all in agreement. The pack will protect Nova in order to ensure that nothing happens to her while she’s in the Ridge.”

“Good luck with that shit,” I murmured.

“I don’t need luck,” Quinn countered with a grin. “I have my pack.”

CHAPTER6

NOVA

I stared out the passenger’s window as Bonnie’s luxury SUV sliced through the darkness. My mind was racing a mile a minute, trying to process everything I had just discovered.

Mom’s family are cold-blooded killers called Hunters.

Marcy, my grandmother, killed my father.

I’m a hybrid jaguar-shifter.

And Black Forest is not a town filled with aliens but with supernatural beings called Others.

Damn, this is a shit-uation.

“I still don’t understand why Jackie didn’t give you Nathan’s letter when she was alive,” Bonnie murmured.

I blinked back tears just remembering his words in the letter.

Nova, my sweet baby girl. I’m writing this even before you are born. Know that I love you. And if anything should ever happen to me, I want you to go to Black Forest and find my mother, Bonnie King. She’ll explain everything. Here are the detailed directions…

My shoulders sagged. “I’ve been asking the same question over and over since I found his letter.” Glancing over at Bonnie, I admitted, “The truth of the matter is that Jackie and I were never close.”

Frankly, there were times I felt she didn’t even love me.

The harder I tried to be the perfect daughter that she wanted, the more she despised me.

“She blamed me for every shitty job she had to take to put food on the table. Every man who rejected her. All the sacrifices she’d made for me.” I swallowed hard, biting my bottom lip to hide the emotions—self-loathing, perfectionism, apathy, and sadness—I’d long buried. “Now I understand why our relationship was so fucked up,” I said. “She hated what I was—a shifter—the monster that she and her family hunted and killed.”

Bonnie clucked her tongue. “I’m sorry that you had it so hard, Nova.”

“I survived.”Barely.“Growing up, she taught me to believe that I had to earn her love, and when I didn’t get it, I believed that I wasn’t enough.”

“But you know you’re enough, right?” Bonnie asked. “Because you are.”

“It took me eighteen years to believe that,” I admitted. “I was eighteen when I realized that I had to get away from her in order to rebuild my confidence. My ticket away from her was when I received a full-ride scholarship from an Ivy League university. And instead of being proud of my achievement, she told me that I’d never make it on my own. That I’d come crawling back to her. But I didn’t.” I laughed bitterly. “After I graduated, I put myself through nursing school and became a midwife. All those years later, the daughter she thought wasn’t good enough made it on her own.”

With eyes still on the road, Bonnie grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “I’m proud of you. Your grit and determination made you the strong woman you are today.”

Proud of me?I’d never heard those words from anyone about me.

“Thank you for saying that.” I bit my bottom lip.

“There not just words, Nova. It’s what I truly feel.”

And somehow, I knew Bonnie was speaking the truth. I felt it.

Bonnie continued. “Jackie knew that I wanted to raise you, so if she didn’t want to be a mother, then she knew how to get in contact with me,” she confided. “My fucking email address hasn’t changed.”