Forget about me

Chapter thirty-two

Alexandra

My what now? A warm hand covers mine as old lady Ravens wait patiently for my mind to reconnect with my body. Mouth hanging open I sit frozen staring unseeingly ahead as I try to wrap my mind around this new information.

"How- why did- how do- how do you know?" I stutter while slipping my hand out from beneath hers. Hurt flashes across her face before she pushes it away. Not wanting to be touched or comforted right now I get to my feet and start pacing.

"It's a long story," she sighs deeply shaking her head.

"I've got time." I snap back frustrated with everything. The answers are so close and if she deflects or straight up refuses to tell me, then screw her age I'll punch the old woman. My grandmother.

"Of course," she shifts in her seat getting more comfortable as she settles in to tell me everything. "Amerie didn't live here, as a child she did but when she got older, we sent her to my brother who lived closer to better schools. When she turned eighteen, she came back here. She'd decided to take a break from school. You see, she loved to learn but she hated school. The kids were mean and she spent years being lonely. Her father and I loved her very much but in sending her away for a better education, I believe it made her feel unwanted by us as well. If I could do it all over again, there are so many things I would do differently, but we can't turn back time."

Mrs. Ravens wipes away a stray tear with the back of her hand. "Amerie came back here, a young beautiful woman, deprived of love and with loneliness as her only companion. In spite of my warnings, or perhaps because of them, she got involved with the pack. She found herself wanted by two of their wolves and perhaps for the first time in her life made friends. We fought many times and often about those two boys. Both bad news and bad influences. I wanted more for her than to be a member of their gang. And their little love triangle was bound to end in disaster."

"Love triangle?" I pause my pacing. "My father was one third of it but who was the other?"

Memories from long ago swirl in her sky blue eyes. She gazes distantly ahead before snapping back to me. "Duncan Rux." The air rushes from my lungs leaving them empty and dry. Ryder's dad? He knew my mother and father. Not only knew, was in a freaking love triangle with them. Oh god, Mr. Rux liked my mom. This is some telenovela shit.

"Marcus and Duncan were best friends, as close as brothers. They did everything together. You didn't see one without the other. Apparently, they also shared the same type in women. Both of them fell in love with Amerie and spent months fighting for her attention. Neither of them willing to step aside for the other." She gazes intently at me, sorrow and guilt filling the creases and corners of her face. "I told her to put them out of their misery and choose one, but my daughter liked the attention. It tore those two poor boys' friendship apart. By the next summer, she and Marcus were together and Duncan was left with a broken heart and no best friend. Eventually he met someone else, rose in the packs ranks and had a son."

"Marcus was... not the one I'd hoped she'd choose. He was obsessed with our family's history and dug up old rumours better left buried. It attracted the wrong sort of attention. I don't know the details, but one day I woke up to a letter saying they'd left. She was gone. I heard nothing from her, had no idea where they were until two years later when I got a call saying-" her voice breaks as tears fall freely. "Saying my daughter and her husband were dead. Shot in their own home. I didn't even know they'd gotten married. There were signs of a child in the house but none was found and after the autopsy found Amerie pregnant, they assumed all those children's things were for the coming baby."

On shaky legs Mrs. Ravens stands and hobbles over to me. Her tear-filled eyes full of pain and regret. "If I had known... I should've-" she cuts herself off and takes a deep breath. "I don't know how you ended up at the orphanage here in Kings cove. I don't know where you were when they were killed. I'm sorry I don't have any more answers for you. I'm sorry I didn't look for you. I am so sorry." She lifts a shaky hand to my face and gently drags a thumb over my cheek wiping away tears I hadn't even noticed fall. Her soft gaze inspects my face closely. "You look so much like her. You have her eyes and mine. Same strength too. Same penchant for trouble I'd bet." That earns a broken laugh from us both.