“Lexi.” Lucian reached out a hand, letting it dangle in the air as I stared at it, wanting too much to rejoin them on the bed. For that reason, I shook my head and took a step further back.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. I’d played this reunion over in my mind so many times and knew I had a responsibility to each of them to share the truth of who I was. “I need to tell you about where I come from and who my family are.” I chewed my lip, scared once more to be called a freak. They wouldn’t reject me, I reminded myself, knowing the bond we shared wouldn’t let that happen. Taking a deep breath, I laid my soul bare.
“This is going to be a lot,” I said cautiously, lifting my gaze. “So, let me just get through it before I chicken out. Okay?”
They murmured their agreement.
“Okay,” I said on an exhalation. I pulled out my desk chair and sat down, then immediately began circling from side to side with anxious energy. “First of all, and I know this one is going to come as a shock, but there is a race of wolves called the Guardians, or the Geliget, who live separately from us and act as watchers, basically, helping guide the flow of wolf evolution from the shadows.”
Their mouths literally dropped open, and I saw questions begin to form, so I rushed on, just wanting to get the entire story out in one telling.
“One of them, a wolf named Raphael, craved power in a way their elders knew was destructive, so they refused to give him what he wanted. That would’ve been the end of it if he wasn’t a mad genius who was told of a prophecy regarding the Guardian people.” I puffed out my cheeks and slowly blew out a breath, knowing I was sharing state secrets here, but not having much of a choice. These were my mates. Anything I knew, they would know.
“Katherine LaFlamme’s husband, Quinn Deschenes, is a Geliget and a dreamer, one of their kind that can connect through dreams with the Old Ones, who are very much real and actually the voices of our ancestors who help guide us.”
Their eyes widened in shock.
“When he was a boy,” I said the words quickly, cutting off Lucian’s desperate question. “Quinn received the prophecy that one day their people would be on the verge of extinction and that a woman, like them but not of them, would give birth to the next generation of Guardians. Raphael knew that the time was coming, because there hadn’t been a child born to the Geliget in a very long time and, even though they live much longer than we do, eventually, without children, their race would die off.”
Chase surged to his feet, shaking his head in wonder. “Lexi, you can’t ask us to stay silent when you’ve just destroyed our entire understanding of the natural world!” Frenetic energy pulsed off him. I understood. It was my life, and it still struck me as impossible at times.
“I know,” I agreed on a sigh. “But there’s a lot more.”
He stilled, took a deep breath, and backtracked to sit on the bed. “Okay,” he agreed. “Let’s get through it, then. Although, I’m not sure how you’re going to top that little revelation.”
My nervous chuckle didn’t help settle the mood. “Oh, you’d be surprised,” I said with a gesture of exhaustion. Unable to sit still any longer, I stood up and began pacing the room. This would be much easier if I didn’t see the looks of shock and horror on their faces as I laid it all out.
“Raphael decided to find the woman in the prophecy. The Geliget narrowed down her lineage to a particular Alpha family, the LaFlammes. Raphael concocted an insane and elaborate plot to create an offspring of Pierre LaFlamme, without his knowledge or influence. Of course, it didn’t work, because Katherine was the woman from the prophecy, the one Quinn foretold.”
“Basically, Raphael orchestrated a fire that wounded Pierre severely. While he was convalescing, he collected specimens of Pierre’s…” I turned with a grimace and pointed downwards. “Little soldiers, if you know what I mean.”
Their faces blanched.
“It gets worse,” I promised them, not sure how I lived in a world that was worse than what I was already describing. “Raphael kidnapped women, wolves, for years, and artificially inseminated them using Pierre’s sperm. The offspring of that process were raised in confinement and regularly tested to see if they had any of the extraordinary healing characteristics of the Guardians.” I closed my eyes and swallowed hard against the memories of silver blades slicing into my skin time and time again until Raphael was sure that I wasn’t the one he wanted. Mia, he’d called her. The mother.
Bile rose into my throat, threatening my state of equilibrium. I staggered forward and sank into the computer chair once more, as Lucian, Chase, and Dimitri jumped up off my bed and rushed towards me, worry written across their faces.
I didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to tell them the final truth of who I was, even though they’d figure it out with just the smallest leap of understanding. The words stuck in my throat, though, as if my very body denied their power.
But I had a new type of power in my life, now. With them by my side, touching me, I felt stronger, braver, complete. I took a deep breath and confessed. “I was created in a lab and raised in captivity with my sisters, until Katherine, Quinn, and their friends freed us.” I lowered my head, feeling the weight of the truth hang heavy on my shoulders. “I’m unnatural,” I whispered as tears fell.
For a moment, they were silent, and the only sound in the room was my jagged breaths.
“Fuck!” Dimitri surged to his feet and threw up his hands, barely containing his fury. It pulsed through the room like a living thing. I gaped, shocked at the rage he spewed in incomprehensible Russian on my behalf. When he flung his arm wide, I shied away.
Lucian shifted to put himself in front of me, shielding me from his best friend’s anger. “You’re frightening her, Dimitri.”
I shook my head automatically. “No, it’s alright.” I touched Lucian gently, squeezing his shoulder in appreciation. “Let him feel whatever he feels. We all deal in different ways.” I just wished I understood Russian, but I think we all got the gist.
Chase rose to his feet and faced Dimitri. “Seriously, though,” he drawled so casually, I’d have thought he wasn’t upset at all if I hadn’t noticed the tightness of his biceps as he strained for control. “Sit down and shut up so we can get the rest of the story. She hasn’t told us how that douche bag, Randall, was involved yet.”
I blinked in surprise, realizing there actually was more to the story than what I’d delivered already. I licked my parched lips, realizing how thirsty I was, and crossed to my mini fridge to grab a bottle of water. I grabbed four and handed them out, silently amused at the thought that I’d have to start buying in triplicate to keep my men fed and happy.
Knowing they needed that connection now as much as I did, I sat on the bed this time and let them each touch a part of me; my arm, my leg, something. Instantly, my system calmed, and I could breathe easier. I wondered if it did the same for them as it did for me.
When we were seated and I’d pulled a pillow across my lap for comfort, I finished the story. “So, Raphael was only interested in testing the female children, since the prophecy was clear it would be a woman. Which left all the boys out in the wind, except Raphael took it upon himself to raise them. He raised an army of soldiers, basically, all deluded and warped, just like him. Randall was one of those boys.”