Unexpected Marriage (13 page)

“You need to calm down and let me explain before I’m forced to give you a time out,” Carlos warned her as his eyes blazed with fury.

“I don’t need to let you do anything. You need to back the hell away from me,” she told him as she turned to storm away but he caught her and spun her right back in to his arms.

“That’s not going to happen, sweetheart.”

Blaize glared at him but it had no effect whatsoever. She couldn’t believe that he thought he had any right to touch her or boss her around after what he’d done. She’d agreed to marry him because she’d loved him and thought that he would always be there to fight in her corner. Instead he had betrayed her before they were even married and now she had nobody to count on except herself.

“Let me go,” she hissed out through gritted teeth. She couldn’t be this close to him right now. Not when her emotions were all over the place. Her body was already responding to his nearness and she didn’t understand how she could both love and despise him at the same time.

“Not until you hear me out,” he told her in a calm voice that was ruined by the tic in his jaw that belied his anger. Well if he was angry it was nothing to what she was feeling right now. This time when she lashed out she made the conscious decision to do it and it was clear he wasn’t expecting her fist to fly. He dodged out the way but loosened his grip enough for Blaize to tear herself free. She turned and ran. She had no destination in mind but it didn’t matter anyway because she hadn’t gotten very far before she found herself being lifted off her feet and flung over one broad shoulder for the second time. She let out a scream of frustration and tried to struggle free but it made no difference.

It all started with a murder that led to a bloody war where there could be no winners. Yet despite all the blood that was shed, and the hatred that spread like wildfire, a miracle was born. Without that war my life would have been very different and my little miracle would never have happened.

My name is Isabella Martinez and I am a Werewolf.

I know what you’re thinking too. You’re thinking that I’m obviously off my meds because there is no such thing as Werewolves and the supernatural doesn’t exist. I wish I had the luxury of making up such a thing. The truth of the matter is that I was raised in a pack of bloodthirsty werewolves in which my father was the most vicious of them all.

As a rule most werewolves are big and tough and follow their own rules. Even in the shifter community though there are laws that must be obeyed. They don’t necessarily include human laws but the shifters make sure that if their laws are broken then punishments are swiftly given.

My father was the Alpha of our pack and he didn’t believe in following anyone’s laws but his own. He didn’t give a shit that the laws he was breaking were punishable by death. All he cared about was that he got what he wanted. It was never going to end well when what my father wanted most was to be the Alpha of all the wolves. He was a psychotic bastard and he wanted me to follow in his footsteps.

I can remember the first time that I realized what we were really capable of and the reason why any human would be terrified of us. I was only six at the time and my father wanted me to kill a man simply because he had decided to leave the pack. He had only wanted to go and live an ordinary life with his pregnant and very human girlfriend. My father wouldn’t allow that though. He was too much of a control freak to ever allow anyone to leave his pack. Instead he decided that it would be excellent training for me. He wanted me to shift and kill the man but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t even realize at the time that the fact I could shift at all was a miracle, as most shifters couldn’t do that until they went through puberty. My father was disappointed that I couldn’t shift and kill a man for him so instead he gave me a gun and ordered me to shoot him instead.

I couldn’t do it.

How many of you could kill a man?

I was six years old and my father wanted me to shoot a man dead. I cried and begged him not to make me do it but my father wasn’t about to let me grow up innocent and happy. He gave the order for me to kill and he expected to be obeyed. When I refused and cried and begged he simply added incentive.

My mother had been begging him not to make me kill someone but all she got for her troubles was my father’s claws at her throat as he issued his ultimatum to me. Either I shot this man that my father saw as a traitor or I watched as he killed my mother. Even at six I knew that he was deadly serious.

I made my choice and even though I knew what I was doing was wrong I still screwed my eyes tightly shut and pulled the trigger. I heard the shot and it sounded like an explosion in my small ears. Tears streamed down my face and I shook with the horror of what I had done. Only when I opened my eyes did I realize that my aim hadn’t exactly been dead on and all I had done was wound the man. At first this relieved me because surely even someone as twisted, as my father would have realized that I had done my best. My father didn’t take kindly to failure.

I had barely even felt that small trickle of relief before he had slashed my mother’s throat and left her to bleed out on the floor. I remember turning and finding her on the ground with her eyes unseeing and blood all around her. I had rushed to her side as I screamed and cried and begged for her not to leave me. It was to late though for my beautiful mother was gone and I was all alone with the monster that called himself my father. I didn’t even get to see the man I had shot go back to his family. Instead my father picked up the gun I had dropped and shot him himself. Then he had turned to me and told me that if I ever disobeyed an order again he would make sure I regretted it.

My innocence died that day. I learnt to be afraid of shifters and terrified of men. My father was training me to be a vicious warrior and I hated everything about what he was making me in to. I had no choice but to follow his orders though or he would have me beaten and tortured. I even tried to leave a few times but he always found me. I stopped running away when I was thirteen and he threated to let the horny teenage wolves beat and rape me if I ever ran again. I never did.

The war began just before my eighteenth birthday. My father had become frustrated that he wasn’t leading all the shifter packs and so he had decided that the way to success was to prove to all the other Alphas that he wasn’t messing around. He had kidnapped two children from one of the main packs and told them that he would kill them unless they gave him absolute power.

My father was a vicious bastard but he wasn’t very bright. He didn’t really think his plan through. The Red Rock shifters weren’t a group of humans who could be easily scared and they weren’t beaten down shifters who would bow down to his every whim. They were big, bad wolves who wouldn’t hesitate to rip us all to shreds if it meant getting their kids back. My father couldn’t understand that though because he had never felt that sort of protectiveness towards anyone. Hell, I barely understood it. I had never in my life seen anyone fight for someone’s life before. If I was kidnapped I knew that my father would rather they killed me because I obviously wasn’t strong enough to be a part of his pack if I couldn’t get myself out of that situation.

The situation quickly escalated and my father realized that he was about to lose everything to Red Rock if he didn’t act quickly. He might have the numbers and the evil intent but he didn’t understand the panic and protectiveness that drove them to kill several of his best men as they fought to save their kids. My father knew that he had to do something drastic and so he decided to go to ground and leave his pack to fight alone. But first he planned to kill the kids and he was quick to drag me along with him.

We were the only two in the basement with the cages that held the girls. It was the first time that I had seen them up close. They were far too young to be involved in something like that and they both looked petrified as they hugged one another close and shook with terror. My father opened the cage and yanked one of the girls out. She must have been about twelve and she cried out with terror as he dragged her across the floor to where I stood huddled near a wall before throwing her at my feet.

“Kill her!” he ordered me. It wasn’t the first time since my mother’s death that he had given me that order and every time I had done it. It wasn’t like I had a choice. If I didn’t do it then he would punish me and anyone else I was close to and then he would kill them anyway. Usually I retreated to a part of my mind that he couldn’t touch. It was like I was watching someone else control my body as I pulled the trigger of a gun or stabbed them with a knife or slashed them with my claws. They became an endless line of bodies that I couldn’t remember or I would go crazy.

That day though something finally got through to me and I knew that I couldn’t do it again. The others had been different. They were men who could at least put up a fight. I had been convinced that one of them would kill me and sometimes in the dead of night I even prayed that they would. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I couldn’t kill an innocent girl who couldn’t fight back and who didn’t deserve to even be here in this chamber of hell.

Sometimes I think back to that day and I wonder if I could have done something different. If I hadn’t refused could I have stalled for time or somehow pretended to obey him? But I didn’t do either of those things. Instead I stood up to my father and I refused to kill an innocent young girl. My father looked disappointed in me for a second but then he shrugged it off and he stabbed his claws in to the girl’s stomach. I screamed and lurched forward but I was too late. He ripped her to shreds and then he turned to me and grabbed me around the throat with his claws digging in deep.

“You think because you’re my flesh and blood that I will spare you?” he hissed at me and I had turned a blank stare on him. I had never thought that my father would spare me. I had known from the moment that my mother died that there was only one way this would end. My father would never let me go and he would happily kill me just to prove that he could.

I had thought that my father would rip my throat out right then and I had stared at him with hatred in my heart as I waited for death to take me. Instead he had removed his claws from my throat and caught hold of my chin as he forced me to turn my head.

“You look just like your mother,” he had told me with a wistful sigh in his voice. I had no idea what he meant. I looked nothing like my mother and I had often wished that I did just so that I would have some connection to her.

Before I could think too much on that statement though he had thrown me in to the cage alongside the other girl who was even younger than the last one. She only looked about nine and despite being terrified she raised her chin high and gave me a steady look. I will always remember the long chestnut hair that was dirty and matted, the unwavering icy blue gaze that stayed fixed on me and the way that despite her dirty appearance she looked just like a small china doll.

“Kill her or die yourself!” my father had shouted at me with fury in his eyes. I expected the girl to move away from me or to cry or scream. Instead she continued to stare at me as she waited, resigned to her fate.

I looked at my father. For the first time I didn’t the psychotic monster who had killed my mother and forced me to follow in his evil footsteps. I didn’t see a man who was capable of controlling the world and destroying everything. Instead I saw a weak and stupid man who had no idea what he had created. He was just as terrified as the girl in the cage. Only in his case he wasn’t willing to stare death bravely in the face. Instead he hid behind cruel acts of cowardice.

Suddenly all of the hatred and anger that I had buried over the years surged up within me and I realized that my father was just a blind fool who had no idea what I could do to him. He had trained me for years to be a killer that he could control against his enemies. After all, who really expected the sweet innocent and oh so helpless female to be a killer? I knew what I had to do and I did it without thinking. I don’t even feel remorse all these years later.

I convinced my father that I was sorry I hadn’t killed the other girl. I used every trick he had taught me as I convinced him that I loved him and only wanted to please him. The bastard didn’t even realize I was playing him until it was far too late. By then I had my claws in his throat as I tore it out.

I watched my father die and I felt nothing.

I knew in that moment that I really had become the monster that he had always wanted me to be. What kind of person could kill someone and feel nothing at all? Every death I had ever caused had haunted me but I didn’t even feel relief or anger towards the man who had raised me.

Instead I had turned my stone cold gaze on the girl and whatever she had seen on my face had caused her to flinch. She hadn’t reacted in the face of death but one look at me and she practically pissed herself in terror.

It was the sound of footsteps growing closer that finally jerked me out of my numb cocoon. I had to get out of there before I ended up caught in the middle of it all. Before I went though I had to see the other girl. I knelt beside her and I placed a gentle kiss to her temple. I apologized that I hadn’t saved her. And then I ran as far as I could as fast as I could.

What my father did caused a war amongst the shifter community that lasted for years. Nobody knew who they could trust. Red Rock hunted and killed every shifter that had ever dared to align themselves with my father. I was twenty-three before the war ended and it only ended because they believed that every shifter associated with my bastard of a father was dead. I had done everything I could to distance myself from everything he had stood for. It was this distance that made me curious.

Red Rock were killers too just like my father. But their kills were for justice. I wanted to know what made their kills more justified than my fathers. I wanted to know more about the shifters who lived at Red Rock. And so one summers morning I headed to Red Rock California.

That was the day that my life changed forever and if I hadn’t gone to Red Rock then things would have turned out very different and the miracle could potentially save the shifter community could have been lost forever.

The first time that I really noticed Jace was the moment when my fist connected with his nose. I had a split second to really appreciate how goddamn sexy he was, before there was the crack of bone breaking and that sexy face was hidden under a light layer of blood. I shook my fist to get rid of the slight pain and almost laughed at the curse words he spouted. Some of them were pretty creative and the ones that involved my parentage were probably true.

You’re probably wondering what exactly had bought upon my sudden violent streak towards the sexiest guy in the bar. The truth was that it was a pretty pathetic excuse. It also could have been a multitude of things. It could have been the fact that Jace was a man-slut who would flirt with any girl in the bar, except me. Or it could have been because he had ignored me the entire two months I had worked at the only bar in Red Rock. It could even have been because he had simply rubbed me up the wrong way ever since I’d been here. If I was being honest thought it wasn’t his jerky behavior that had caused me to punch him but rather his act of chivalry.