Fate Succumbs (10 page)

The cold, simple truth of it was she
wouldn’t.

“
Have you guys really
thought about this?”

“
What’s to think about?”
Jase said. “It’s just a lifelong commitment. We decided to jump
into it all willy-nilly like. What’s the worst that could
happen?”

Talley rolled her eyes, which was proof
enough she was spending too much time with him. “Of course we’ve
thought about it.” She looked me straight in the eye. “This is what
we both want. Promise.”

“
Are you sure? I mean, you
might
think
this
is what you both want
now
…”

Talley’s gaze didn’t waver. “I love him,
Scout. And he loves me.” She held up their linked hands. “Trust me.
It’s not exactly like he can lie or hide his true feelings from
me.”

“
But it’s
Jase
.”

“
It’s Jase,” she smiled.
“My mate.”

Chapter 10

I couldn’t sleep that night. The day had
been a revelation-filled piñata. Jase hadn’t betrayed me. Mrs.
Matthews had. Charlie was hurt and under constant Alpha Pack
supervision, but he was alive and healing. Jase and Talley were
dating, or whatever it is you call a pre-mated relationship, and
they both seemed really happy about it. The small part of my brain
not obsessing over those new developments was busy coming up with
new and inventive ways to kick Liam in the head.

When I finally couldn’t lay there with all
those creepy dolls staring at me any longer, I got up and wandered
through the house. Jase and Talley were sleeping in the living
room. Jase was on the couch and Talley had an inflatable mattress.
As I snuck towards the front door I noticed Jase’s hand was
dangling off the couch and onto the air mattress, where it was
interlaced with Talley’s. It might have been sweet and cute if it
wasn’t so bizarre and creepy.

Liam said he wanted to sleep on the extra
couch on the screened-in back porch, but that wasn’t where I found
him. As I stepped through the back yard, keeping a wary eye out for
the assorted vermin running about, he had to have heard me, but he
just sat on the fence and stared off into the mountains.

I climbed up on the other side of the post.
Balancing on top of a fence is a bit more difficult and
uncomfortable than all those cowboy pictures would have you
believe. After a bit of awkward maneuvering I finally found a
position that didn’t make it feel as though the slat of wood was
going to leave bruises on my butt.

“
It looks like a John
Denver song out here,” I said, breaking the stillness of the night.
There was no moon, but the stars gave enough illumination for my
sensitive Shifter eyes. Eastern Kentucky might get a lot of flack
because of its economy, but it really is one of the most beautiful
places in the world. “You know, life really isn’t anything other
than a funny, funny riddle, and I do thank God I’m a country
girl.”

Liam didn’t so much as roll his eyes.

I shifted ever so slightly so I was somewhat
facing him. “This isn’t working.”

“
Try leaning forward,” he
said. “Put more pressure on your feet and less on your
backside.”

“
Not what I meant.”
Although, he was right, it did help. “This arrangement of ours, the
one where I trust that you know what in the Hades you’re doing and
don’t ask too many questions. I can’t do it any more.” Not after he
let me suffer when all it would have taken was one lousy sentence
to tell me Jase actually cared if I lived or died. “If you want me
to play whatever part it is you have planned for me, you’re going
to have to talk.”

“
And if I
don’t?”

I took a deep breath. “Then I walk.”

“
You really think you have
any chance of surviving without me?”

“
I don’t have a chance of
surviving period.” I knew the truth, had Seen it in one of the
visions of the future Talley claimed she didn’t have. “The question
is, does your mysterious plan have a chance of working without
me?”

He didn’t answer immediately. We both sat
there, staring out into the distance. My super-senses were at their
weakest, so I couldn’t pick up on much other than the area
immediately surrounding us. Most everything was sleeping, although
there were some mice in the barn having a grand old time. If I
concentrated hard enough, I could just make out the sound of
Talley’s snoring.

“
What do you want to know?”
he asked just when I had made up my mind to go back
inside.

“
Everything.”

“
That all?”

I thought about all the unanswered
questions, all the mysteries crowding my thinking space. “Start
with your real name.”

That seemed to actually catch him off-guard.
“What do you mean?”

“
After Alex’s funeral
Stefan approached me. He said Alex’s real name was Christopher, but
that you both changed your names after running away. So, what is
it?”

There was another long lull in conversation,
but eventually he answered. “Bryce.”

“
Why change it?”

“
When the Alpha Pack burned
down our house with my parents in it, they thought we were inside,
too. We assumed new identities and let them continue to think Bryce
and Christopher were dead.”

“
The Alpha Pack burned down
your house with your parents inside?” My stomach twisted. “How do
you know it was them?”

Another pause, and then a
deep breath. “My parents met in Romania when they were both in
training to be part of the Alpha Pack,” he began. “My mother’s
family is one of, if not
the
, most powerful line of Seers in
Europe. At least one girl from every generation was invited to
become a Potential once their powers manifested. Usually they
waited until they were eighteen to actually move them to the Den,
but Mom went when she was fifteen. Future Seers are very rare, and
they wanted her immediately.”

He didn’t look anywhere near me as he
talked. It was as if he was telling his story to the mountains, but
I was okay with that. As long as I got to hear it, I didn’t care
who he told.

“
My dad was nineteen when
he joined. His Pack wasn’t very large and held very little
Territory in Germany, but he was Dominant enough to catch the
Alphas’ eye. Gerard was the Alpha Male at the time, and he took Dad
under his wing, preparing him to become a Stratego.

“
They never said why they
left. Mom would occasionally allude to things, but never said
anything concrete. All I know is that after three years, Dad was
granted a special Lone status and moved to Canada, taking Mom with
him. Two years later, I was born.

“
Our childhood was fairly
normal, or at least I thought it was. We learned about being
Shifters the same way human kids might learn to be Catholics. It
was just part of who we were. They talked about the Alpha Pack in
the same terms your parents would have spoken about the President
or something. They were part of the social structure, a governing
body that made and enforced our rules.

“
Things changed when I was
nine. That’s when my sister was born.”

A sister….? “Nicole.”

Liam nodded. “You know how your siblings are
supposed to annoy the shit out of you just because that’s how life
works?”

“
As you may remember, I
tried to kill my brother earlier today.”

“
We never felt that way
with Nicole. She had Alex and I tied around her tiny little finger
the moment we walked into the hospital room and first saw her angry
red face.” He laughed silently at the memory. “Mom said she was
furious at having been born. She apparently liked the womb a little
too much. Mom finally agreed to induce labor when it was two and a
half weeks after her due date and she still hadn’t made an
appearance.

“
At first, everything was
fine, but when she was six months old we got a visit from some
Alpha Pack Seers. Dad had sent me and Alex to our bedrooms, but we
snuck out into the hall to eavesdrop. I didn’t understand much of
what they were talking about, I was just a kid and they were
talking about grown-up stuff, but I got the general idea of it.
They wanted to take Nicole back to the Den with them. I didn’t know
at the time that was the standard procedure when a girl is born to
Shifter parents.”

“
It is?” I hadn’t heard
that before. All Alex ever told me about female Shifters is they
never make it to adulthood because the Change is too much for their
body to handle. “All of them?”

“
Initially, yes. Actually,
parents are supposed to take their female daughters before the
Alpha Pack immediately following birth. The ones who don’t show any
signs of carrying the Shifter gene are sent home, but the others…”
Liam rubbed a hand over his hair. “They say they’re trying to find
a way to save them. Most parents let them go without much of a
fight because they want to save their kid, and if they can’t, then
it’s better to not have grown too attached, right?”

“
They seriously just leave
their babies with those psychos?” Even if I hadn’t known Sarvarna
was completely unhinged, I don’t think I would be able to just walk
off and leave my baby with someone else. And I couldn’t imagine it
would take anyone more than a few seconds with the Alpha Female to
realize she shouldn’t be trusted with a goldfish, let alone a
baby.

“
It’s the way things have
been for as long as anyone remembers. When a Shifter gets married
there is this blessing everyone puts in their wedding cards and
stuff. It says, ‘May your days together be many and blessed, and
may your children be born male. And should you have a daughter, may
she See with the eyes of God.’”

“
You are one seriously
messed up group of people.”

Liam actually turned his head and looked at
me. “You don’t even know the half of it.”

“
So tell me the rest. Did
your parents let them take Nicole back to Romania?”

“
No. They thanked the Seers
for their time and concern, but Mom told them she Saw Nicole’s
future, and it was as a Seer, not a Shifter.”

“
She lied.” Because I had
seen Nicole in her wolf form and knew better.

“
She lied, and the Seers
didn’t know any different, so they left. My parents thought that
would be the end of it until Nicole actually Changed, but they
underestimated the Alphas.”

“
They came
back?”

Liam shook his head, his normal scowl
replaced by something a lot more heartbreaking. “Christine, the
Alpha Female, called a few times and expressed her concern, but Mom
always brushed her off. Then, just before Nicole’s fourth birthday,
Mom had a vision.

“
Future Seeing isn’t always
clear-cut. The Seers get a bit of this or that, but never any
context or timeline. Mom wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but
she knew the Alpha Pack would be coming back for Nicole. She got
really over-protective, always wanting to know where we all were
and what we were doing. I was thirteen, which isn’t the most
intelligent time in a guy’s life, and thought she was being crazy.
So, when she told me to stay at home with the doors locked and
watch my siblings, I didn’t listen.”

I did not like where this was going.

“
I had a girlfriend at the
time. Her name was Elyse, and I thought she was the love of my
life. When she called and asked me to meet her at the gas station
down the road from our house, I went and took Alex and Nicole with
me. I didn’t want to seem uncool, so I made them stay on the
sidewalk out front while Elyse and I made out around the
corner.

“
I had only been Changing
for about a year and a half, but my senses have always been sharper
than a normal human. I heard the car turn onto the street and
something inside me just knew what was going to happen. I ran as
fast as I could, but I was too late to save them both.” Liam’s
voice shook. I continued to look at the night sky, allowing him to
have his moment. “They called it a hit and run, but it was a
murder. I saw the driver. I smelled him. A Shifter ran over my baby
sister on purpose, and then drove off, leaving her bloody body on
the side of the street.

“
After we buried her, we
moved. We weren’t allowed to tell anyone where we were going or say
good-bye. To the citizens of Provost, we were there one day and
disappeared the next. In reality, we just relocated off the grid.
Shifters tend to like places with small populations, but our new
place was miles from civilization. We weren’t allowed to have
Internet or go to school. Mom taught us from books she borrowed
from the library while Dad kept taking off on ‘business trips’.
Sometimes his ‘business partners’ would come to the house for
meetings. They were all Shifters.”

“
Were they part of the
Alpha Pack?” I asked.

Liam snorted at the thought. “Exact
opposite, actually.”

“
What’s the opposite of the
Alphas?”

“
Shifters who want to bring
the Alpha Pack to their knees.” He seemed to consider what he said
for a moment before adding, “And then cut off their
heads.”

Well, that was pretty opposite. “So, you’re
talking about a rebellion.”

“
Exactly. My parents went
from being Potentials to becoming the leaders of the group secretly
plotting to overthrow the Alphas.”