Perfect Mate (A Werewolf BBW Shifter Romance #2)(14)

"A long time ago, I was part of a pack that lived north of here. They were a fierce pack, and proud, and they did as much as they could to expand their territory. Wars were fought, and many wolves died. Julia—Julia's parents— fought in the battle of Karawka. My daughter died alongside her husband in that fight, and I was left to raise Julia with my Charles.

"She's a special child, in more ways than one. The genes she inherited from me through my daughter are recessive, and quite rare. My hair turned white a long time ago, but it used to be as red as hers. Red like fire, oh yes. And we are able to shift well into our old age, until death.”

"It is a pure shift, you understand? That is why you can't scent us. When Julia is human, she is human. Not a hybrid, not stalled, half-wolf and half-man, like the vast majority of shifters. Our pack leader was purebred, and so were two others in the pack. All male, all except my daughter. And Julia."

Dee's voice quavered at this last sentence.

"We were the very last of the pure shifters, and Julia herself was the last of these in her generation. Her parents never conceived another child, and when they died, only Julia and I were left with the female half of the gene. The pack leader came to me after her parents had died and told me that he was going to take her.

"'Take her where?' I asked.

"'Take her for myself,' the alpha said. 'Take her for the rest of the purebred.'

"I knew then that he meant to violate the Calling. Julia was still a pup at the time, and had no idea of her true mate. The pack leader told me that she would be a fine mother, that she could have litters with all of the other purebred males in the pack. To create a master pack. An invincible army of purebred shifters."

Dee shuddered, her voice breaking. Jordan and Damien waited in silence until she was ready to continue.

"Charles and I took her and ran. It meant leaving our pack, our home, all of our friends and family. We didn't have to go far. All we had to do was find a small town, and we knew the pack would never find us as long as we stayed low, out of sight. They couldn't scent us, after all. We simply had to stay in human form for good. And so we did. From one of the contacts we kept, we received news that they were looking for us, that they had rendezvous points set up across the territory. Whenever they would pass close by, we would make sure to stay hidden, and, eventually, they stopped looking. Charles passed away some years ago, and I thought Julia would marry a human man. It would have ended the recessive line, but that was a small price to pay for her safety."

Dee sighed. "So many old memories. I never thought I would have to revisit them. My daughter..." Her voice trailed off, and Damien could tell she was holding back her tears.

"If Julia is a shifter," Damien said carefully, "wouldn't she know? Wouldn't she shift?"

"Before we left, we visited a medical sage. I don't know what she did to Julia—some sort of hypnosis—but it left her permanently human."

"She can't shift back? Ever?" Jordan asked.

"Not as far as I know," Dee said. "We've never tested it, for obvious reasons. If Julia knew what she was, it would be more dangerous for her. She would be tempted to shift. I couldn't risk that."

"Then she can't defend herself," Damien growled. "She can't shift, she can't fight. She has no chance."

"What would you have had me do?" Dee cried in anger, her words piercingly sharp. "She needed to be protected! If there had been any other way, any way at all, do you think I would have done this?"

Damien clamped his mouth shut. It was not his place to judge, he knew that, but the thought of Julia being forced to remain human was abhorrent. To never know the feeling of running free, to never know the true smell of the world, was a cruelty he could not imagine.

"So what now?" Jordan said quietly.

"Now we go to the closest rendezvous point," Dee said. "We hope they haven't changed locations since the last time I made contact with the pack."

"And then?" Damien asked.

"And then," Dee said, the hint of a snarl touching her words, "we fight."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Julia slid back in her seat, her breath coming fast.

"Where's Damien?" she asked. Her hand moved slowly towards her seatbelt buckle. It was dark, nearly black, inside the car, but she couldn't afford to attract the attention of the blond shifter. Fortunately, he seemed to be easily distracted. "Where's Kyle?"

"Oh, you know Kyle?" the blond wolf said. "I knew him back when he was a pup. Sorry to see him leave the pack, but, well, survival of the fittest."

Julia listened with one ear as her fingers touched the seatbelt release. The car bumped along the road.

"You mean he's not fit."

"You've seen him, haven't you?" the blond man said.

"His limp? It didn't seem that bad," Julia said. "He could walk."

The blond man laughed, a harsh, grating noise.

"You need to do more than walk to keep up with Trax and the rest of the wolves." He grinned meanly. "Kyle couldn't cut it."

"That's a shame," Julia said, every muscle of hers tensed in anticipation. The SUV pulled forward up a steep hill through the woods. She waited. She would only get one chance to act.