Fates | Book 2 ✔️

[3]

I stare at my grandfather's drowsy eyes. He yawns after awhile before shaking his head. 

"Our pack had been to the Northern Lands before. We had slaughtered, butchered villages, tribes even. We have killed hundreds of those werewolves, Seth. Your presence, along with your friends, will be met with some resistance," he says in a voice filled with sleep.

Alaina comes and pours water into both of our cups. It causes me to look to her to him with less and less conviction of finding him. When had things become so complicated? I thought it was him, in the beginning. When he had said no to me marking him. However, now I see it. I had been the complication all along. 

 "You'll be nothing more than murderers and blood thieves to them. Surely, they will kill you."

Small streaks of grey were littering his fading red hair, I notice. The scars going across his neck is ever more present than I remember them being. He was growing older by the passing years. It hurt his heart at the mere thought of him passing, but no were could live forever. 

"Not if Lance doesn't kill them first, especially the olive colored one," Alaina says with so much distaste it causes Damon to bare his fangs and her to bare her canines. 

"Alaina, he is a guest. Behave yourself or leave." 

"I'll leave. His presence is disgusting. Both of theirs," she spits as her shoulder bumps against Kass'. 

I give her an apologetic smile and she gives me a small one in return. This is dangerous for them. They need to go back before worse things than a shoulder bump happens to them. There is so much hatred of clansmen I'd thought I would never see. Yet here I am, the poster child of an age-old grudge. 

"I know my own past better than anyone," I mumble.  

"If Lance didn't come into your life you would have kept on killing and killing and killing... and killing." 

I close my eyes trying to make sure his words don't get the best of me. 

"Killing comes easy to you. It's in our blood. The Reds of the Woods." I put the cup to my mouth no longer wanting this, but something thicker, richer, and much, much redder. 

"Our pack wiped a massive pack out of existence five hundred years ago. They called it—"

"The Day of Blood," I say cutting him off causing him to nod.

 "However... your kind, with the mixed blood, are sought after to a great extent. They rarely ever live past infancy. You're one of few and that makes you special and desirable to any wolf-pack." 

I give him a small smile wanting to be rid of this conversation already.

"So he doesn't even know that does he...?"

"Old Man... "

"Or any of it, does he?"

"Of course not. He only even knows a little of my feeding habits..." I made sure he didn't realize just how different we are. I did not want him to know.

"There are no secrets that time does not reveal."

 I get up trying my best to keep my composure under his critical eye.

 "Ashton will meet you outside. Before you leave go see Michael." 

I give him a curt nod. All he does is turn his back and head towards his office.

"Your grandfather is kind of a dick," Kass murmurs once we are a safe distance away from his house. I ignore her and continue to head on until Ashton stops me with his hand to my chest.