Here we go again, back up the Carpathian Mountains LOL. This has to be the longest mountain trek ever hehehe. They've only been stuck up there for the last 10 years O_O
Once again, my heartfelt thanks to Alli for helping me proof the chapter. And to all my lovely readers who've made me laugh so much on the Group with your wild speculations and inability to accept that some characters are just *bit* characters and not major ones...like Louis...and no, I don't have a mate for him. He's just supposed to be a *bit* character LOL
Enjoy!
Chapter Sixteen
Kothari wanted to turn his head and watch his mate walking towards the lake but he managed to restrain himself. He knew she was safe with Freya, that the vampire would defend her with her life if needed. That still didn't mean that he chafed at not being the one taking care of Natalia. She was his mate and it was his responsibility to protect her. He knew she wouldn't thank him for interfering though and he could understand that.
She was transitioning and had been through so much already in her short life. He had seen the determination in her eyes and heard it in her voice. She wanted to be seen as strong and worthy of being his mate. Not that he gave a flying fuck about that. She was his and that was all that mattered to him. But the part of him that was both panther and vampire approved of the strength they had seen in her eyes, and he understood that this was what his mate needed so he gave her the respect she craved even as his overprotectiveness kicked in.
And Freya had been right in her earlier statement. His mother had spent his entire life loving him unconditionally and receiving a lukewarm response from the son who had almost killed her at birth. His mother deserved so much better than that, just as his father had. He had come to Europe to find them and bring them home. He'd barely spent a moment with his mother and she deserved his attention.
She was watching him as he approached, and Kothari noted that his father whispered something to her before he turned and walked over to where Joshua stood close to Louis' vampire coven. He clapped the blond vampire on the shoulder in a friendly greeting and that had Kothari's attention piqued though he didn't divert from the object of his current scrutiny.
"Mother," he said as he reached her, seeing that she was now once more impeccably dressed and cleaned up. He hadn't known when she'd taken care of her needs but he figured there may have been a judicious amount of magic use involved given that he'd noted his father was also cleaned up and impeccably dressed too.
"My son," Rayne sighed softly, her eyes running over his features intently, halting on his eyes, a soft smile crossing her stunning face. "Your eyes are beautiful, Kothi, though I think there will always be a little part of me that misses the old ones. They were equally as beautiful in my eyes."
And in that one statement Kothari felt his defences crumble and he gathered his mother into a crushing embrace, burying his face in the side of her neck to hide the hot tears that threatened to spill down his cheeks. His mother had always loved him unconditionally, her statement made that abundantly clear when she sighed at the loss of the indicator of his fractured mind. He'd always been aware of that but had never been free to show her just how much her love and devotion mattered to him.
"I thought I would go mad when I lost you," he whispered, his voice so low no one around them would hear but everyone appeared to have moved away a bit further as if giving mother and son as much privacy as they could. "I think I did," he admitted.
Rayne's hands gently soothed her boy, her heart thumping wildly as he leaned on her for the very first time, truly needing her as a parent. "No you didn't, my beautiful boy. You just tapped into the part of you that was most able to cope with what had happened." Her hand stroked through his hair, her love and compassion wafting over him as if it was something tangible.
"Have you considered that perhaps this was what was meant to happen?" she asked softly, moving over to the place Natalia had rested and pulling him down beside her.
When he gave her a quizzical look, she graced him with one of her beautiful, loving smiles that had always lit up his world as he was growing up, even though he hadn't been able to show just what it had meant to him.
"It wasn't so long ago that Reasa travelled an equally difficult path, son, Pietro too. They both had to go through excruciatingly painful trials to find their inner balance and peace with their mates. Perhaps the only way to mend your soul was to let Agony free, to see that despite his ferocity that he could still maintain control, that he had the capacity of protecting those he loves."
Kothari looked away from his mother, staring off into the treeline, denial on his face. "I almost killed everyone up there when Natalia was hurt. How was that control? How was that protecting everyone?"
Rayne could hear the disbelief in his voice and she gently tilted his head back to her so his had no choice but to meet her gaze. "You heard me, Kothari," she said gently. "You heard Freya. I'm presuming that wasn't Agony's first lapse either. Who did you listen to the other times? Kallum? Dara? Yourself? Agony has always been able to listen and maintain control, my son. You've just been so focused on Agony's violence that you've never seen his need to be a part of our pack and that his love was just as strong as your panther's and yours. You made him into the villain because of your misplaced guilt about your birth and treated that part of yourself accordingly. He only ever wanted to protect you, to protect all you loved. Perhaps now you can finally see that and have your peace with Natalia."
Kothari could hear the wealth of love in his mother's voice and it stunned him. Because that love wasn't just directed at him and his panther, it encompassed Agony too, and he realised that she had always loved that part of him too, had never distinguished between any of his personas when it came to loving him, and neither had his father. It had been his own fears and guilt that had kept Agony on the outskirts. His parents had never viewed him as being a monster. That had been all down to him.
"I'm sorry, Mom," he whispered and didn't try to halt the silent tears that fell down his face this time. "I didn't mean to hurt you when I was born. I didn't mean to..."
"Oh, Kothari," Rayne choked out the words, gathering her son close once more and wrapping him tightly in her arms. "It wasn't your fault, son. It wasn't anyone's fault. You have to stop blaming yourself for something that none of us could have envisioned. Let it go, Kothari. If I had to do the whole thing over again even knowing what I know now, I would in a heartbeat. I would do anything to have my beautiful boy in my arms. I would die a thousand deaths if that was what it took."
