Claribelle's Mate

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Damien's POV

I rolled my eyes at Cole's childish behavior. He wasn't happy last night when I told him that I was going to accept Clari as my mate and that we were going to try to get the pack to coexist with her coven. He hated the idea and let me know in no uncertain terms.

I'd pointed out that if it was his mate, I'd just want him to be happy. He still grumbled, but agreed to play nicely. He wasn't exactly playing nicely, and that was why I warned him for glaring at Clari. She'd glared right back at him a couple times before I'd introduced them, but I got sick of him glaring at her and decided to put a stop to it.

I wanted to use Cole as my test run with vampires. If I could get him comfortable around them, then I could get anyone comfortable around them. I knew that it was hard for him. He wanted to hate all vampires because of what they'd done to his father, but we just had to show him that Clari's coven was nothing like the vampire that had murdered his father.

Now, with all that said, I wasn't planning on starting that today. I'd heard splashing and Clari's laughter and decided to investigate. I wanted to see her and it was too good of a chance to pass up. I couldn't help but grin when we got to the river to see them rolling around and wrestling in the water. I was glad that I got to see her so carefree and happy.

I'd also noticed that Max didn't seem to be angry with me at all anymore. That wasn't something I was expecting. I knew he was being polite at the club last night, but I expected there to be at least some left over anger at the way that I'd treated Claribelle. Maybe he'd talked with her about it and gotten his anger out that way. Or maybe he was just good at hiding it.

I turned my attention back to Cole who was still stubbornly refusing to look at any of us and sighed in exasperation. "Cole, stop being a dick. This is my mate, Claribelle, and her cousin and soon to be alpha, Max."

Cole nodded respectfully to Max and glanced in Clari's direction before looking away again. I sighed and looked down at her apologetically. "Sorry, he doesn't like vampires," I told her.

She shrugged. "Not many werewolves do," she replied easily. "I don't take it personally. Although, if he wants to hate us because he has experience with some of the more unsavory of my kind, then I'm going to hate him because of rogues."

Cole spun around and growled at Clari, making me pull her behind me and growl right back, at the same time Max did. Clari quieted Max with a glance and then stepped out from behind me.

She understood the gist of what Cole was protesting and answered easily and calmly. "You have rogues that do bad things and you don't judge your race as a whole because of the things they do. Vampires also have bad seeds, yet it's okay for you to judge us as a whole?" She crossed her arms glaring at him. "I have never drank blood from anything living in my entire life. I rely entirely on blood bags from blood banks, even when I was nearly unconscious from blood loss and your best friend offered me his blood. I still said no.

"I don't know what vampires ever did to you, but I wasn't a part of it and I don't like being judged for it." Her voice was heated and angry. "My mother was killed by a werewolf and do you see me hating you all? No! I don't hate you. I understand that that was the work of an individual pack following an individual alpha."

I stared at her in shock. A werewolf had killed her mother? But hadn't I just seen her mother yesterday? "A werewolf killed your mother?" I questioned her in disbelief. How was that possible?

She nodded. "My mother was human when she met my father. Another alpha had taken an interest in her and the pack was trying to protect her. During the battle, the alpha was about to kill my father and my mother threw herself in front of him. She died, but she had dormant vampire genes that were triggered with her death. She turned into a vampire and then had an uphill struggle trying to get the entire pack to accept her again."