35

CHAPTER THIRTY

Kate woke in the hospital room and looked around. She saw Luna, Thorn, and Aaron in a corner talking to the pack doctor. It worried her that she still couldn't hear them. She opened her link with her Alphas only,

"If you're talking about me I'm awake, but carry on I can't hear anyway."

"Kate, the doctor was just saying you'll be good as new soon. He thinks the only reason you haven't healed quicker is the injuries you've suffered and added stress, well you need rest to heal inside and out."

"Injuries and stress? I'm not stressed at all Thorn."

"Don't bother lying Katie, Lucas is thinking a week in his dungeon will cure you, but I know things he doesn't."

Luna spoke trying to mask her concern by keeping her voice light and took her friend's hand, she would almost pull off calm if it weren't for the tension that filled her whole body.

"I don't want to talk to Him."

"You don't have to talk to anyone. He did need to see you were okay. Some silly sausage was ranting that I was going to have her exterminated and now he's got it in his head you aren't safe in my care."

Thorn muttered rolling his eyes.

Aaron walked closer to the bed. "You three linked? Why won't she open her link to me? Have you told her what happened? Does she still think I cheated?"

"Brother, this can't be all about you right now. She's been here a couple of hours and only just woken up. Give her a kiss and then leave us for a while. I swear she is safe. I will help her and so will Luna."

"Help her by allowing her to break our mating bond?"

"One more word Aaron and I'll break the bond right now. I promised you I would help both of you. I swear to you, if you give her a chance she will come back to you. It's in the book. Shit Aaron please trust your family, your mate, and your bloody alphas. We aren't going to get anywhere if you can't give us that. Give her that." Luna stood and let go of Kate's hand long enough to gesture for Aaron to take her place.

"Kate I swear if you kick up a fuss I will get the doctor to knock you back out. Aaron needs to see you're okay. His wolf needs to know you're fine and then he will leave you alone for a while, okay?"

"Did he screw Jillian?"

"No he didn't screw Jillian. The woman rang and spoke to Thorn and I for about an hour. They had both rescued people that day and were filthy. She showered and was waiting for some clean clothes to be delivered. She thought you were the person delivering the clothes. She is so sorry to have caused this upset. She was mated she knows how much you and Aaron are suffering now, and hates that she played a part in that."

"Fine. I'll be good. I'll let him in."

Aaron stepped closer and then blinked as he felt Kate open her link with him again. The wave of pain that hit him made him rock back slightly

, "Baby do you need the doctor?"

"No. I'm okay. I'm sorry for thinking you cheated. I'm not a good mate for you Aaron and I keep hurting you and myself. I don't know why. Something's wrong with me. I know I'm going crazy. I'm driving my friends away. Gem isn't even here because I've gone nuts and made her hate me already. I've let everyone down and... shit is Emily okay?"

"Okay I think you need to breathe. Gem doesn't hate you. She's driving here from the city where she and Lucas just collected Emily, who is fine but worried about you. Like we all are. When you were hurt in the explosion Gem and Lucas left for the city straight away. Luna and Thorn had to do a few things here but would have come if we hadn't found you already. We all love you baby. You scared us."

"I'm sorry when the first explosion happened I was fine, but I used it to cover me shutting the link to the pack. I was running and a second explosion happened and it was right where I had run to. I wasn't paying attention and I got hit with something, and then I realised I couldn't hear anything. I was disoriented and then I just kept running towards the woods."

"Gem and Lucas found your letter Kate. Lucas being Luc, well he didn't think they had a choice..."

"They told Thorn?"

"Excuse me I think this is where you two need to leave it for today. Aaron go ahead and confirm she is alright then leave."

Thorn interrupted.

"Guess I'm really in it deep. I am sorry Aaron."

Kate felt the tears start to roll.

"It will be okay baby. They promised me, and our alphas are legends in the future remember, so I'm sure they have this covered. Please let me touch you. My wolf is ready to take over if I don't let him close."

"Mine is sulking. Well actually no, I guess I'm sulking. I think she is in mourning. I told her it was over and she's not happy with my decision."

"Stop talking Kate or my wolf and I are probably going to be showing you how much we agree with your wolf. You, baby, aren't up to that right now. So just be still and quiet, and I can keep some control. Please?"

Kate opened her mouth and then one look at him showed he was close to losing it, so she silently nodded then stayed still. She watched him lean over her and bury his nose in her neck. Sniffing along her ear, jaw and down to the mark he had permanently left at the join to her shoulder. He then lifted his face and met her eyes. His own wet with tears as hers slipped free again. He leaned in and kissed her forehead,

"I love you Kate. You just as you are, as you've always been."

He kissed her nose,

"I still have freckles to catalogue and numerous things I want to do for you. I want to be the man you need."

He held his lips on hers,

"I need you to get better and be mine. I'm only whole when I'm with you. I love you so much baby. You said you trusted me once. I will wait till you trust me and love me again. I ask you to try not to take my whole lifetime, but even if you do I'll still be waiting. See you soon baby. My Katie."

Kate didn't speak at all. She felt him try to pull away and his wolf growled low. It was then her own wolf finally sat up to respond.

"It is okay mate, we will be together soon. This stupid human thinks she is so smart but she has been ignoring something far too big to leave locked up inside. Luna and Thorn know now and she will face it. Then we will all move forward together. Go now. I'll look after her."

Aaron's wolf gave a small chuff of agreement and allowed Aaron to leave. Kate watched him turn at the door clearly hurting and then obviously knowing his choices were limited say,

"If you ever need me just call."

Luna barely waited till he left the room and then opened her handbag and removed two books.

"So Katie which book should we address first. Mine which tells of a great and positive future, or your mother's, which should have been burned as soon as you found it. Not read until it filled your soul and heart with so much pain you cannot function."

"What the hell are you doing with that? Actually it isn't even important, just give it to me and go."

"Oh ordering your alpha around? Smart Katie, real smart

." Thorn pulled a chair up beside the bed and sat. Luna sat on the bed itself.

"When did you find the diary Kate?"

"I found it years ago. I read it back then. Snoopy teenager. Guess sneaking into someone's diary is the same as eavesdropping you never hear or read anything good."

"You read it as a teenager?"

Luna put the weight of her newfound alpha strength behind the question.

"Well, the first time. I think it was around thirteen."

"Strange because in my book it talks of you sitting alone on your twelfth birthday and reading that ghastly journal, without stopping, until you had read every word. Then repeating that practice every bloody year since."

"I wanted to understand it. I knew how she felt about me, she had told me often enough, I thought if I kept looking I could work out what I'd done, why she blamed me, hated me."

Luna pulled Kate into her arms,

"Never. I mean never, think this had anything to do with you Katie. You never did anything wrong. She did. She did so many things wrong. She lied for all those years, to everyone. She lied so well even her alphas were fooled. He was put to death. I am not saying he was innocent but it wasn't the random attack she claimed. He was her mate. She admits that herself."

"It wasn't that she lied, when she was attacked she didn't know about mating, or about wolves, she didn't know any of that until later, when she worked it out she couldn't change anything. She was carrying me, the monster he had put in her belly, and he was dead."

Kate shrugged.

"Her description of me is very thorough isn't it? You obviously read the whole book?

When Luna looked to Thorn because she couldn't contain her tears enough to continue right then, he spoke for them both.

"Luna had read of something in her prophecy book that she couldn't understand. She was worried, but decided to try and set it aside and see if something would show her the way. We sent Gem and Luc to collect Emily and when they found the letter, they looked for anything that may explain more. When they found the book Luna instantly knew they could not read it and it needed to be brought to us. Lucas wrapped it and sealed it before one of the pack delivered it directly to me still sealed. Luna and I read it together, and Kate, you should have come to me years ago. I am so sorry I didn't see. Didn't know how much abuse you were suffering."

"I WAS NOT ABUSED."

Kate spoke loud in her anger.

"Poor Gem she was abused. Lexi and Glen, until Owen and Aaron saved them. Luna, was abused. Not me. I was never touched. She never hit me, or hurt me."

"You really think the only abuse is physical pain? You are smarter than that. Her words, her actions, reading that book every year and constantly reliving her hatred, that isn't abuse?"

"She doesn't know I have the diary. She thinks it is gone."

"Not knowing you've read it doesn't absolve her of everything else Kate."

"He was her mate. She found him attractive and thought he was far too handsome for her. She was a human woman in her mid-thirties, had never known of our world. He looked to be around twenty, tall, handsome, she couldn't understand why he spoke to her. Why she kept running into him. When he asked her out she thought it was a joke."

"Yet she went out with him. Not once or twice, but for a few months. Then he tried to tell her, and she ran. She ran and she was ovulating. Her running added to her being in heat, drove his wolf crazy. Kate is that why you avoided wolves, keep trying to break off with Aaron? Are you afraid of your mate?"

"Of course not. I'm a wolf. I know what I am, what he is, what we all are. I know what we are capable of. I know the insanity that can strike any of us. I know just how volatile an upset or hurt wolf can be. I know just how quickly one can attack or be attacked. Afraid? That was her, my poor weak human mother, who had no idea why a man twice her size suddenly attacked her. Then while she was bleeding and pinned to the ground on her stomach her head pounding from the blows she had received, turned into a monster and tore into her virgin flesh and planted an abomination in her womb."

"Kate..."

"She tried to kill me, she tried to kill herself. They kept saving her. Well clearly I am a survivor, or as she calls me Satan's spawn, and I am therefore apparently indestructible. Though she tried, she tried for years."

Kate paused

as if gathering her thoughts.

"The wolves that tried to help her through her change, then through her healing, and while she carried me, soothed her with words, she knew could never be true. That she would see her child and forget everything except her love for me. That I was a blessing. She told them repeatedly to kill her, to kill me, they kept her chained to a hospital bed until after I was born and when they handed me to her expecting her to instinctively see me as hers, to fall in love with her daughter. They were horrified when she threw me across the room. A new born human child would have died. A pup should have died. I did not. I was to be her own hell on earth forever. That is what she wrote. That is what she believes. Yet seeing her throw me across the room they left me with her until she left me behind and started her new life."

"You know things changed Kate. She grew to care for you. In her own way. She was almost obsessive when she came to visit."

"Yes, and we all know why."

"Yeah okay. How about we leave this till tomorrow and finish on something a bit more positive?"

"Finish? You're joking right? My mighty alphas tell me they know my deep dark secret and hurl the word abuse around and now I'm all better and we can wrap this up? Awesome that was easy." Kate growled but it wasn't her that was angry her wolf was rising. "She tried to kill us for the first half a dozen years with one attempt after another. Then giving up on that she fed us poison to keep us from being able to turn. She locked me inside and said I would hurt the other children because of the evil of my father. She would come into the room if I was in control and she would beat me. She never hit the human only the wolf so it was all okay right? Just punish the monster. She tried to keep me from my mate and my stupid human is now finishing the job by being as crazy as her mother."

"Sit down and listen wolf. Kate is Kate. Wolf or human and the fact you two haven't worked that out yet is absolutely astounding. All the years you were alone suffering in silence you should have had each other but you turned against each other. When you should have looked to your alpha, your pack. You locked everything in and allowed it to poison you. Fester deep inside. Denied yourself happiness, by always keeping a wall up with your pack, your family. Oh and I do not mean your Mother. She will no longer be part of your family. You will be ending that toxic relationship. We are going to help you. This is not wrapped up. Fuck this is barely started, but you are exhausted and the doctor gave instructions we are following. You will hear something positive then you will sleep. In the morning we will continue. Understand?"

Thorn's authority rolled over her and his words had her human and wolf halves both silent for a moment. However as one they replied with the only answer possible.

"Yes Alpha Thorn."

There came a knock at the door and Luna turned towards it quickly tucking the two books under the edge of Kate's blanket. "Yes?"

"Gem and Lucas say they are half an hour away will they be able to visit with Kate when they arrive?"

"Yes I am sure she will appreciate seeing them, and Emily."

"

Okay I'm going to read you a small portion of the book I got from Melody and Harmony. This isn't going to be easy Katie but this is proof you get through this. Are you ready?"

Kate nodded and tried to look more positive than she felt. They didn't understand. She knew they were trying to figure it out but they were wrong. She wasn't an abuse victim. She was strong. She knew what she needed. She needed to stick to what she'd been trying to do all along. If she could focus on being a good member of the pack. Being a positive member of society. Healing and saving both people, and wolves. If she could just make up for all she was. Maybe she wouldn't be a monster destined for the pits of hell. A mate would change everything. Fate was a cruel trick. To be mated she either lost all she was and gave in to the mating pull to become his world, or she dragged him down with her.

If she gave up all she had tried to do, she would be nothing, not worthy of anyone. Mate, family, or friend, she would be of no use at all. Hell she could hurt someone like both her mother and her father had. Genetically she was a monster. If she continued to become his mate and stopped reading people, trying to help people, if she gave up her goals to be a doctor, she would lose too much but he would lose more. But maybe she could make him happy? If she gave everything to just being his. How long before he left her or hurt her? Mates. They're meant to be fated, destiny, forever and yet her mother didn't mourn the loss of her father. She had since mated again. Her mother had a whole new family that she was kept away from, excluded from. Rose was destroyed when Shannon was killed, but now she had a new mate and a new life too. Maybe mates were no more real than the fairy tales little girls read about Prince Charming.

If being his mate drove Aaron to act in a way unforgivable to himself or his pack, or to both of them suffering heart ache and pain, she was the monster, the spawn of Satan she would survive but he would not. His kind heart and loving nature... no she would not drag him to hell with her.

If she dragged Aaron to hell how could she forgive herself? She would be no better than her father who with one act drove her mother insane, and ruined all three of their lives. Well his of course was short lived. Lucky him. Maybe that was the best way to free Aaron. Could she do what her mother had failed to do and end her life to spare his?

She realised her mind had drifted for a while and quickly tuned in to Luna as she began to read, luckily having taken a while to locate the marker she had placed in the book she held. She spoke of a distant time when Aaron and Kate would sit side by side and look over their children playing and turn to each other knowing in the next heat cycle they would try once more for the little girl Aaron still didn't have calling him daddy. She spoke of how their gifted oldest son stood up walked over to his mother and said quietly,

"It will be a girl this time Mama, Daddy wants her so much, and she is going to be beautiful just like you. I saw her in my dreams last night and she is waiting to meet everyone else."

Kate looked at Aaron with tears in her eyes and wrapped her arms around her son Ricky, and she smiled brightly. Her joy at her first born pressed against her, as she watched her two other boys play, and felt her husband's hand on her back, as he looked at her with as much love now as he had ten years before. She silently sent to Aaron, "I'll see if the boys can stay at the pack house for the week. We've got a little girl coming any day now."

Luna stopped reading and closed the book. Her hand returning to Kate's.

"I end up with four kids?"

"Four kids and a mate that is crazy about you for so long after that, it is your great grandchildren I'm telling you about tomorrow."

"I'm not good enough to deserve him Luna."

Kate even mentally, spoke so quietly Luna could have missed it if she wasn't paying attention.

"Oh honey you are so good and kind. You will see that soon. Thorn and I have brought in the big guns. Your therapy sessions are going to be exhausting but I'll be here before and after every day. I'll be with you until you are whole, and then for a long time after. I know Aaron says he isn't whole without you Katie but it isn't true. He is better for being with you and has a path now, but he would have found that alone too, he just needed motivation. You need to be whole and have your path too, and Kate you found that a long time ago. However, if the reasons were the wrong ones, maybe your path will change and that is okay too. You are perfect for Aaron and he is perfect for you. I know you're still unsure about the mate bond and possibly scared about what it can mean, but as someone who is so happily mated please give it a chance."