Siren -Editing-

Chapter eight

I sat at the breakfast table, watching as the kind woman, Katie, made a large batch of pancakes for me and the family she had that she wanted to introduce me to.

"You know, my son is around your age. I'm sure you two will get along effortlessly." She piled a stack of steaming cakes onto my plate. "Who knows, maybe the two of you are mates," she gave me a giggle and a wink.

"Why would I get a mate?" My voice was raw as I tasted the iron penetrate my mouth. I looked at her, confused. Father had made it clear that the exchange for perfection was my matehood. I was not allowed to have one at any point. Mates are distractions, he said, a pain that will keep you in his room and never let you leave when you need to work.

Katie immediately took the seat next to me and leaned in sternly, "I don't know what exactly that man put you through, but I know that you will find your mate, and he will be everything you need and more." Her voice left no room for argument, no trace of a lie, or a single waver in her belief.

I watched as she searched my face, set, stone cold, and unwavering. I saw the moment her face fell as she found how serious I was about it. By the time I was old enough to find my mate, I would be too far gone. There would be more metal and upgrades in me than there would be wolf to mate.

Nothing a mate would want. Nothing a person deserved to have near them.

I saw the pain that flooded her eyes as she looked at my small frame. The pain of knowing I was already too far gone to get through to. As others entered the room, I dug into the pancakes, swimming in syrup.

___________

Daniel insisted it was too late to continue when I tried to pry more out of him, instead disappearing into a room I assumed was his. Why did he have a room here if he was a Chapel? Why did he scream rogue to me if he was pack? Are we related?

He was old enough that I wouldn't have remembered him if we were closely related, and young enough that Jes could recognize him if it were the case. But if he had been travelling, how did he pick up a scent inside the house? Was Father's party already here for dinner tonight?

I had managed to slip back into our room just as Blake was getting up from the bed. "Sorry, I got restless," I whispered to him, as if scared to break through the peaceful silence.

He watched me go back over to the bed and pulled me into his lap the moment I touched down on the blankets, pulling a surprised squeak from me as he buried his tired face in my neck on top of my marking spot. "Your dad?" He mumbled through the sleep he was almost slipping back into.

I nodded as I adjusted my position, loving the feeling of being back in his arms and letting every question I had for Daniel wash away. "Yeah, I keep going back to remembering he's going to be here today and freezing up. Everything he did to me just-" I groaned against his shoulder as the pain flooded my throat, made worse as I remembered that was the one that killed so many others just like me.

Blake waited for me, rubbing my back and holding me to him, giving the occasional kiss to my marking spot, causing me to shudder as he dragged out the seconds until I was OK to talk again.

"It just comes flooding back, every night I spent on that table. Every training day spent with a rogue. Every painful recovery. Every time I almost got out." I paused, not from the pain in my throat, but from realizing it was the first time I was talking about what happened to me, and I was doing an awful job. "Every time I wondered if I was going to survive my father's plans for me. He made me think I was something special, that no one else could be what he was building me into, and when Jes took me out of the pack, I was glad knowing no one else could go through what he was doing to me."