“I had three younger sisters. Mary, Eloise, and the baby, Agatha.”
Summer moved so she could look at him more closely. “Did they all grow up, mate, and start aging?”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Ah, so you do know something about your wolf heritage. I thought you claimed ignorance on all levels?”
“I picked that up from my Mom before I forbade her to tell me anymore.” The memory slid into Summer’s consciousness. She had been twenty years old and terrified. Her mother had tried to explain to her about her wolf-shifter heritage and she refused to listen to it. Summer had stormed out of the house, dropped out of college, and moved out on her own. She’d never let her mother explain anything else about wolf-shifting or magical spells.
A tear slipped down her cheek. Before she could wipe it, Cullen’s calloused thumb brushed the moisture away.
Her voice shook. “So, yes, I know a wolf-shifter remains eternally thirty years old until they find and mate their soul mate at which point they start to age again. So they either wait eternally for their other half, or they commit ritual suicide to end their lives when they’ve had enough.”
Cullen nodded. “That’s right.”
“Did they?” She wanted to move on, hear his story, not focus on anything to do with her.
Cullen shook his head. “What?”
“Did Mary, Eloise, and Agatha grow up, mate, and give you a ton of great-great-great nieces and nephews running around or are they still waiting?”
“No to both scenarios.” Cullen’s voice lowered two octaves. “When I was ten my father came to me and told me I had to go away from home. That some men would be coming for me. He explained we were magical creatures, that we had been blessed with wolf-halves and it was time for me to join the pack and meet my wolf. It sounded like one of my grandfather’s crazy stories. I didn’t really believe it. But my mother started to get the house ready. It was a big deal that the royal family was coming to collect me personally. It was considered a sign of respect towards my father.”
“So we’re supposed to shift for the first time at ten?” Summer was intrigued. Why had she never let her mother explain any of this to her? All of the reasons seemed so remote now, so completely illegitimate.
“Thirteen, actually. But tradition held that the chosen youth would live with the royal for three years before their first shift. It established a sense of loyalty to the royal family so even if you lived hundreds of miles away you retained a sense of family with your Alpha and his family.”
“And that’s why everyone is still so loyal to Tristan to this day?”
“No. None of the current pack was alive back then. Michael and two of the Alpha guards are over two hundred years old, but things had changed by then. You see, my parents never got to see all their preparations come to fruition.”
Summer took a deep breath. She’d known his parents were killed, he’d said so, but she hadn’t expected his pain to mirror in her chest. His eyes glazed over into their wolf gaze. She reached out and touched the side of his face, desperately wanting his blue depths back. He didn’t blink.
His voice was a mix between man and wolf. “They came that night. Men with hoods over their faces on horseback. They knew what we were. A tall, burly man with red gloves woke me and dragged me outside. My parents were already out there, although I didn’t recognize them. They had shifted. My father was huge, his fur totally black. He fought back, attacked the horses. It was gallant, really. My mother defended the door to the house, or she tried to. By the time I got outside, she was mortally wounded. She was white, like you and your mother. It’s unusual, you know, to be totally white.”
“Why is it unusual?” She’d heard this but she didn’t understand why.
“It’s like having red hair. It’s just genetics. There aren’t that many pure white wolves. Most shifters are several shades of different colors. To be just one, it’s rare.”
She stroked the side of his face, ran her hands through his hair. She never should have made him talk about any of this. She felt his pain, deep inside her, as if it were her own. “Don’t tell me any more, Cullen. You don’t have to.”
“My mother looked up at me and whimpered. Then she died. They had torn her body to shreds with knives. She was missing one of her paws.” A shiver was the only outward sign he cared.
Even after almost three hundred years how did Cullen talk about this at all?
It’s his wolf. That’s why it’s in his eyes. We protect you. I tried to do that today when you saw your father, but you wouldn’t let me. Cullen doesn’t deny his. They just naturally co-exist. This would be too much for him, so his wolf takes some of the pain.
“Two more men came out holding the girls. Eloise and Agatha together. Mary, she was eight, she kicked and fought. But the two little ones just screamed. I tried to get to them, but the red-gloved man shoved a rusty knife into my stomach. Even then I didn’t want them to take my sisters. But I fell to my knees with the pain.”
“Okay, Cullen. You don’t have to relive this. I’m sorry. Please stop.” She wanted to comfort him but didn’t know how.
“My father turned around to see what had happened to me. One of the men on horseback cut off his head. They all kept chanting that we were abominations from god, spawns of the devil. I fell down on the ground. They figured me for dead, so they left me alone. One of the men held Agatha’s head in the bucket of water my mother used for the laundry. She was dead. Mary bit the man holding her. She would have been one feisty wolf. They dropped her and she ran. So with the same machete they had used to kill my father, a man on horseback chased her and took off her head. Eloise got away. She crawled over to me screaming. I could barely move, but I pulled the knife out of my gut.”
Summer could see it, could believe he did that. Ten years old, his blue eyes must have been huge on his face. She would bet he’d been scrawny with broad shoulders. She wasn’t sure why she could see him so clearly. But she was certain she was right.
“I took the knife they’d used on me. I crawled over to the man who’d carried me out. They were busy, laughing. One of them suggested they take Eloise back with them to dissect her after they killed her. I plunged the knife into his stomach. He screamed and went down. The others turned and saw me. Someone struck me with a knife in my side. The pain was so awful I fell down and blacked out. I never saw them kill Eloise.”
He blinked and looked at her for the first time since he’d started speaking. Shocking her, he reached out and cupped her cheek with his hand before he smiled.
How could he smile after what he’d just relived?
“How did you survive?”
“When I woke up, a woman stood over me. She sung a quiet tune and spoke words I didn’t know. I felt soothed and all of my pain was gone. She was our Alpha’s wife Lucinda, and she was a great healer. When they arrived I had been almost dead but she’d brought me back. She couldn’t save anyone else.”
Summer leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, thought she felt him shudder. “How long was it until you were okay?”
“I was never okay again. But I got through it—just as you will. I trained hard for three years with Kendrick and the others my age. We became very close, like brothers. When I finally shifted, Kendrick brought me out one night. There was a man there and even though I’d never seen his face before, I knew him. I could smell him. He was the man with the red gloves who had dragged me out of bed and stabbed me. They had him tied to a tree. Kendrick and his brothers released him. He ran, and I chased. Eventually, I caught him.”
She sat up and stared at him. “So you got vengeance, but you don’t want me to have any. How is that fair?”