Bound Trilogy: Bound: A Supernatural Story (WLW)

Chapter Eight

Xenia briskly walked into the sheriff's station and straight to her office. There he was. Kuba sat in the sheriff's office, hunched over while he was seemingly trying to stabilize his breath. If anyone had hurt him...

Rage soared through her as she barrelled through the door and up to him. "Papa! Are you okay?" She engulfed him in a bear hug as he stood. "Tell me! What happened? Were you hurt?"

"No, no. I'm fine. Physically." He replied as he stepped back and strained against whatever was tearing him apart from within. Xenia wanted nothing more than to take it away, but she also knew Kuba. Unless he voiced what was going on with him, she'd never get the information she needed, regardless as to what it may pertain. "My daughter is here."

Confused, Xenia leaned in and replied, "Yeah, I'm here. What's going on wi--"

"No." Kuba rubbed his face and took in a labored breath. "No, my daughter is here."

Xenia glanced him up and down, swallowing down the vomit that rose in her throat. What wasn't he saying? He reached out for her ever so slightly. However, she stepped further away, leaving him appearing almost physically hurt, but she didn't care.

His daughter, the only daughter of which she'd ever heard him speak, stood right in front of him. The only way he could possibly have a daughter from anywhere else was if he was mated once prior. Had he been hiding this all this time? He'd known Xenia for so long. How could he lie to her and their people over and over, time and time again?

Was this why he and her mother never had any kits of their own? Was their union not truly blessed? Did he have another family? How could he...?

So many questions ran through Xenia's mind and she cast her gaze away. "Explain yourself, fox."

"I...did something horrible." Xenia peeked at him out of the corner of her eye and saw tears swelling in his eyes. She'd only ever seen Kuba crying twice. Once when he was united with her mother and the other when he thought he was alone, crying in his clinic office. Her stomach churned and her knees felt weak. Like jelly, they were about to give out on her, but she had to remain as outwardly strong as possible. Matters like this were hers to maintain in the very near future and if she was to last, she knew she'd need a stronger threshold. Pulling her back into the room, Kuba finally added in a softer voice that brought Xenia's worst fears to life, "I was mated once before."

"Okay. But the only way you can become mated to another other than your original mate is if..." Realization struck her and she watched Kuba hunch over, holding his stomach.

"Yes. You're right. My mate died." Xenia waited for him to recognize what was unsaid, and then Kuba rose, his chin trembling as tears streamed down his cheeks. He couldn't have done-- "And I left my child behind."

Xenia shook with paramount anger and strode toward him, but stopped when a familiar scent drifted into the room. She glanced toward the door and Jules was walking toward her, hand outstretched. She latched onto Xenia's hand and rubbed the back of her neck with her other. Letting it calm her enough to form rational thought, Xenia peered back at Kuba, jaw clenched and neck muscles taut as a new sickness made its resting place deep in her belly.

"What have you done?" Xenia didn't hide her disgust and Kuba cringed away, sitting back down into the chair in front of the sheriff's desk.

"She was gone and I panicked! I packed my things as soon as I found out... I didn't know what else to do..."

Xenia couldn't contain her anger. No matter the soft touch from Jules, what he had done... "It's unforgivable! We don't, as foxes, abandon our own! Ever! What have you done, father?"

"I was nineteen, had no money and no family in the states." He dropped his head into his hands. "What I did... You're right. It's unforgivable and I knew this day would come. I just...didn't know what to do. They took her and--"

"Took her? Who?" Xenia's anger was momentarily forgotten and she approached him.

As she knelt down in front of him, pulling his gaze up to hers, she felt fear waft from him. "Poachers. They skinned my mate. Sold her pelt. Took my child. Then, they were gone and all I was left with was my mate's dead body stuck in her jaguar form." Xenia had heard of medications that could keep shifters in their animal forms from the foxes in Alaska, but to weaponize such a thing was deplorable beyond measure. "I was a stupid child and behaved as such. I should have looked harder for her, but when I heard the rumours of what those humans were doing...I ran in fear."

"What rumours?"

"They were the Livingston family."

Xenia sank back against her heels and felt Jules' hand on her shoulder. "What is it?" Jules was still so innocent, despite what she had been through in life. Xenia wasn't even sure if she could explain the treachery of that family, or if she would truly want to know in actuality. "Tell me, love. Who are they?"

Xenia swallowed and bit her bottom lip, then glanced over at Kuba who was visibly shaking. She could partially understand why he'd done it now. She wasn't even sure if she would be brave enough to go after a family so maliciously cold the mere mention of their name sent a frosty sweat down her back.

However, if her mate or her own child were involved... No, she could never have left them behind. No matter if she died in the process, she would have given it her all to attempt a rescue. Perhaps that was naive on her own part, but it was the truth and exactly how she felt. She never once betrayed her emotions and let them guide her in her everyday life more than anything else aside from the bonds she held. She may have hidden certain parts of herself or had a hard time bringing those emotions to words, but in the end they came out. In the end, she always let them show, even if she couldn't voice them entirely.

"What's her name?" Xenia asked as she stood, deciding to fill Jules in on who the Livingstons were once they were alone. She walked to the door and peered back over her shoulder at Kuba, unflinching in her loathing gaze. Kuba mumbled something, but she couldn't make it out at all and her patience was wearing incredibly thin. "Speak up, old man."

"I... I don't know."

She spun around, her hand on the door handle. "How can you not know? You were with her up until then, helped raise her to a certain point. So, what is her name?"

"We... My mate and I hadn't named her yet. We wanted to name her when she became older." Tears stained his cheeks, but Xenia could not and would not be assuaged. "When we knew more of who she was. That is tradition with feline shifters."

"What...?" Xenia closed her eyes. She knew if she looked at him any longer, she wouldn't be able to fight down her inner ailments. "How old was she, Kuba?" He remained silent. "How old was she when you abandoned her with the Livingstons, so that you could live a long and happy life? How old was she when you left her to die or be sold into underground slavery? When she was left behind and you got off scott-free!"

She was now standing in front of him, the scruff of his lab coat in her fists. Jules touched her back and she snarled, but let Kuba go and kept her eyes with his, feeling the intensity of the fire burning within her as if it was searing her from the inside out.

"How old?"

"...Fourteen months old."

"Pack your things. You will not go near my mother ever again and Mother Dabrowski will be hearing all about this."

With her last words, Xenia turned around and left just as she spotted Pen arriving from the station's entrance.