Shielding the Beast (discontinued)

Twenty | Obsession

A/N:

Starts in Asher's point of view... again.

Happy reading :3

WARNING: may have a lot of errors in this chapter.

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My fingers tap the dining table in the same anxious, unrhythmic pattern that they had been for the past few minutes. It's been only minutes, yet it feels like hours.

I can't believe I fucking came here.

The lights are off, the electricity put out by the storm. My wolf vision doesn't yet activate, the room lowly lit with what little the sun has to offer as it continues to sink. The glass door is still shattered, slid half open and left where Amber had positioned it.

A quiet crunching jerks my attention to the doorway, the man I'd been waiting on stepping on glass shards as he enters.

He pulls out a chair. "I'm surprised you came."

"Just start talking before I change my mind."

He sits down diagonally from me, clearing his throat, "You know I loved your mother."

Without missing a beat, I snap in response, "Then why did you let her die?"

My father closes his eyes, running his hands over his face. When he opens them again, there's something different held within his brown irises, a sadness that I don't want to understand.

"It wasn't my choice," he pauses, "She'd been having dreams for days leading up to the Falling. She wouldn't tell me what they were, but she knew something nobody else did. When the time came, she went with us to fight for the Lycans. The whole pack was loyal to them at the time, but she was even more so."

His gaze remains on the table, and his body slumps tiredly, as if just remembering it exhausts him.

"She was only concerned about this one little girl, and to this day I still have no idea why. It's like she was obsessed with her. As soon as we got there she went looking, like she'd been friends with her her whole life. She used all of her energy protecting that girl, and I protected her as she did. Somehow, we got separated and the last thing she said to me was to make sure that that little girl lives."

He sighs heavily before continuing, "It's true what you heard. I watched your mother die, right in front of me. But it's not how the rest of them told you it was, it wasn't my choice. It was her or the girl. You can call me pathetic if you want, I don't care, but her last bloodcurdling order to me was to protect that girl. So I obeyed her."

Silence settles on us, his story sinking in with the awkward atmosphere. I let the quiet linger for only a moment before asking, "Why are you telling me now? And why did you let me believe a lie?"

Again he closes his eyes for a long time, and when he opens them, he answers.

"Because I'm tired of my own son thinking I killed his mother. I lied because it was easier for you. It would be easier to think I let her die because I'm a careless bastard rather than knowing she sacrificed herself for unknown reasons and for a stranger who was more than likely killed anyway."

My head buzzes, so many scenarios of a past I'd never know running through my mind. I feel my father's gaze burning into my face as I stare at my hands resting on the table.

Tentatively, I raise my head to meet his eyes. "What happened to the girl?"

He shakes his head, wearing a somber expression, "No idea. Some asshole cut her up pretty bad and after I took care of him, she was gone. Barely anyone left that bloodbath alive, and without us to protect her, she couldn't have stood a chance. I'll let you decide what happened from there."