Grayson (Completed)

Nineteen

I was shocked. There was really no way to respond to something like that, especially when it came from my mother. Grayson looked both stunned and horrified, and English was much the same. Kennedy was actually the least affected out of all of us, aside from our mother.

"What the hell is she talking about, Jonah?" She whispered to me. I couldn't do anything but lick my lips and shake my head at her, telling her not now as I waited for my mother to elaborate.

English was the first one to step forward. "How do you know about that?"

"Yeah, Mom." I was able to find my voice. "Something you want to share with the class?"

My mother ignored us for the most part, only taking the time to say "Never mind that right now," before zeroing her laser beam eyes in on Grayson. "Why did you turn my daughter into a Werewolf?"

That shook Grayson out of his haze. He shook his head, still looking a little glassy eyed. "I didn't," he forced out of a clogged throat. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I didn't – I wasn't the one who Changed her."

"Then who did?" The words were cold, especially when I paired them as being spoken by my mother.

"Mom," I broke in. She turned to look at me, her golden hair sliding over her shoulder as she blinked at me, almost as if she were realizing for the first time I was there, along with Kennedy. "How do you know about this?"

She sighed, and said, "It's kind of a long story."

"Make it short then."

She coughed for a second, a dainty sound that suited her. "Councilman Edwards," she said. I saw Grayson and English react to her words, and I remembered the man from St. Louis. He was the one who had tensed when she had been on the phone.

"What about him?" I asked. Mom's lips quirked in a smile and she let out a small sigh.

"You're more involved than I thought, if you know who he is," she muttered. Another sigh came from her, and she looked back and forth between me, Grayson and English. "Fine. We dated."

"You dated councilman Edwards?" Grayson and English both asked, seeming a little awestruck.

A sly smile twitched over her lips. "I knew him as Derek, but yes, I dated him."

"That is so wrong," I heard English whisper to Grayson. "I don't think of them as having actual names." A small snort was the only response.

"So, yes," she stated. "I know about the Shifter community."

"Am I the only one who doesn't know what the hell is going on?" Kennedy asked. She looked around at us and nodded. "Okay, just checking."

"We should go inside," Grayson finally said on a sigh. The rest of us agreed, and we went inside to settle into our seats at the table. I was next to Grayson, Kennedy next to English, and Mom was glaring at both English and Grayson.

"I guess I should explain more," Mom said.

"Uh, yeah," I blurted out. "That might be helpful. Just a bit."

Biting her bottom lip, she said, "Derek – Edwards, as you know him – and I started dating when I was in college. He was... elegant, I suppose, and I did fall in love with him. For a while." She swallowed. "Things were never perfect, and I didn't delude myself into thinking that we would be forever."

"What happened?" I asked.

"I knew he was keeping secret from me," she told us. "I just didn't know how big." With a look around at her curious-eyed listeners, she continued. "I ended up confronting him about it."