I had no idea what to say to him. It felt like I should yell at him, that I should make sure he knew the pain and anguish he'd caused my mother with every ill-timed visit. But then I thought of my mother and realised that I didn't really care about any of that now. My main concern was how he knew I was here and how he knew what I was telling the wolves.
He smiled at me as he walked out of the shadows and into the light of the river bank where we'd stopped. The idea that he thought this was a joyous moment made my muscles tense with anger. He had no right to look so happy when he had caused my mother so much grief. And again I realised that I didn't care about what he'd done to my Mum. But he had abandoned me and I couldn't forgive him for that.
The stranger sauntered up to him, her hips swinging in a way that made me feel quite queasy. She was using her body to flirt with him and he was lapping it up. I figured she was what he was smiling at but it still made me angry, with disgust. She rubbed her semi-naked body against his side and he grin widened as he watched her smooth curves.
This wasn't something that a daughter was supposed to see her father do. They were a couple of layers of clothes away from fucking in front of me and I could feel the bile rising in my throat. It was disturbing to see him ogling this Southern bred woman and it was beyond me why she was so keen to throw herself at him.
She could have anyone she wanted and she wanted him. With her curves and her flawless skin, there wasn't a man in the world that wouldn't give in to her sexual appeal. I wasn't gay but I had to admit that if I was to 'experiment' then she wouldn't be a bad test subject. Although, now that I've seen her put her tongue down my father's throat, she was quite unappealing to me.
"What do you want?" I demanded and effectively separated the two horny Shifters.
My father looked surprised at my outburst but he recovered from the shock quickly, "My name is Nakula Sieto, I'm your father." He had a strangely thick accent but I understood him perfectly.
I glared at him, "I know that, I'm not stupid. Why are you here?"
Nakula smiled at me and I so desperately wanted to punch him, "Your brother told me you were here. He told me the whole story and I figured I should help. You are my daughter after all." 'Pippa' was hanging off of him still, kissing any part of his bare skin that she could get her filthy mouth on.
"No. I'm not your daughter. You might be my father but I'm not your daughter. Why would you want to help me?"
Nakula watched me silently as the pretty woman continued to litter his slight body with affectionate kisses. He smiled before answering, "I don't have children so that they can be killed by a pack of mongrel dogs, and when I smelt those bloodsuckers, I knew that you needed my assistance."
I could have vomited at the insinuation that I needed this waste of space to help me with anything, "I need nothing from you. I have never needed you and I never will."
"Are you trying to tell me that you have the vampires under control?" Nakula was clearly unconvinced by my defiance but I wasn't fazed.
"I knew what I- I know what I'm doing."
Nakula watched me for a few moments and then shrugged, "Okay, I can leave if you want."
I turned to hobble back to La Push, leaving my so called father with his bitch girlfriend. I knew that I shouldn't have said anything but I couldn't help it. The words slipped out before I could even notice that I was saying them, "It's what you do best."
He heard me and he wasn't going to just let me get away with it. He may not have been around for me and Jesse but it seemed that he knew the basics of how to be a father. Like hearing things that your children don't want you to hear, "Hey, that's uncalled for. I came back to see your mother and to keep an eye on you and your brother."
"Because we needed you so much." I could not keep the condescension out of my voice, this man was stepping on my last nerve and I was glad for a release.
I could see the smirk that spread across his face as he decided what he was going to say, "It wasn't about you needing me. It was about being there when you left." He'd said it to upset me and I hated to admit it but he succeeded.
"What?"
He laughed, "Well, it's natural. When the mother gets rid of her daughters she becomes receptive again. Your brother will be out of there before the next ones are born and then it's back to the waiting game."
My stomach churned at the thought. I had lost my home because this man wanted to get laid. Worst than that was the thought that my mother had slept with this man, and that she'd done it more than once. I couldn't help but wonder if my mother acted the same way as this woman when she was around him.
I stuttered, "You... you were the one responsible for Mum kicking me out?"
"She was going to kick you out regardless of whether I was there or not. I just helped to show her that you are old enough to fend for yourself. No child of mine is going to mooch off their mother for longer than necessary." He sounded pleased, like he enjoyed the pain that this knowledge caused me.
I tried to put on a brave face and fight him, but I knew I was failing before I even opened my mouth, "You're full of shit. Why would she only have to get rid of me?"
Again he laughed and the urge to punch him grew, "Because you're about to come of age and that would make you a threat to her title. Plus she doesn't want you near your brother when you do."
I knew what he was suggesting and it made me feel sick, "I wouldn't do that."
The thought of something like that being of concern to my mother made me feel even worse. How could she ever believe that I would be inclined towards sleeping with my brother? I loved him, but not like that. I'd sooner mother a child with a vampire than even touch that part of my brother. There was no way that Mum could ever believe I would do something that disgusting and unnatural.
"Kathleen won't risk it. We are more at the mercy of our primal instincts then the humans around us. And the desire to reproduce is one of our strongest." The sound of my mother's name leaving his mouth made me angry.
I wasn't sure if it was the name or the voice saying the name that made me the angriest but overall the result was the same. I was now so mad that my hands were shaking and it wouldn't be long before I was verging on phasing right where I stood. The cast on my leg would shatter but I didn't care. I'd come up with some lie to explain away losing the cast, I'd somehow made up a lie to cover everything else that had happened to me.
"Is that why you let that slut use you like a stripper pole?" This woman may have been helping me by claiming she was Pippa but I hated her. More than I had ever hated anyone else in my life. I was mad at my mother because I loved her and she abandoned me. I was mad at my brother because I trusted him and he had betrayed me. But this woman was nothing to me and I needed someone to shoulder all my rage at the hand I'd just been dealt, so she would be the one.
"You should watch your mouth; Maylin is the mother of six of your half-sisters and seven half-brothers. She's essentially your mother." Nakula snarled, I'd hit a sore spot there.
"She's no more my mother than you are my father. Thank-you for your help but I have no interest in it." There was nothing sincere in my words but I was so far beyond caring now that I kind of liked hearing the bitterness.
Nakula choked on a laugh, "You think you can handle all those wolves and vampires by yourself."
"I think that I'm comfortable and I don't need you or your whore's assistance."
I could hear a sweet feminine laugh hiding behind Nakula's loud barking laugh, "Well, you can't say that I didn't warn you."
It took all my strength to turn away from him and in my struggle to physically move away, I forgot to keep control of my mouth, again, "Oh, fuck off."
Something moved behind me, I heard it and saw the dancing shadows from the aggressive motion. As I turned around I came face to face with two leopards. One was the female that claimed to be Pippa, the other looked like me. Nakula was darker than Maylin and had rosettes like mine, large with a collection of small dots inside each one. Overall his fur was darker than mine but that was due to the excessive number of rosettes rather than the base colour of his fur. He was larger than me, a good four inches taller at the shoulders, and his head was broader and thicker than even my brother's. This only confirmed that I was right, he was the Shifter that came around yearly to see my mother. I cringed, he came around yearly to try to bed my mother.
Maylin and Nakula both hissed at me and I couldn't help but note that Maylin's teeth were shorter and fatter than Nakula's. It looked as though Nakula's canines were shorter than mine but it was hard to tell because one was severely chipped. The chip took the tip off his right canine and left a dangerous looking point on the inner edge of the tooth, it would stab through skin and muscle far easier than a normal tooth and I made a mental note to not let his mouth get too close to me.
We stared at one another for a while and I knew what they were doing. They were waiting for me to phase. Mum had always taught us that if we were to fight one another than we should both be in the same form. Of course, Mum had been talking about spats between me and Jesse but I figured that the expectation was the same. It certainly explained why they didn't just jump me anyway.
I shifted the crutches under my arms and turned away again. The last thing I needed was a fight with a pair of full grown Shifters, especially since chances were that Nakula was at least as old as my mother. I had never been good enough to best my mother and I didn't want to fall to this man-beast now.
The limp back to Sue's was long and exhausting. The muscles in my left leg were tingling with their solo effort, they wouldn't hurt because they were strong enough to endure it but they still wanted to protest. I wanted to walk normally, or as normally as I could with a hunk of plaster wrapped around my leg, but I knew it would look bad if any of the wolves or one of the vamps stumbled across me.
When I got back to Sue's the house was occupied. By Sue and Sam. They looked at me expectantly as I walked in but I didn't react to them. What was I supposed to do? Smile? I wasn't happy enough to even fake that. Cry? I wasn't quite that sad. Laugh? If I couldn't smile then there was little chance I would be able to laugh.
I hopped past the lounge and down to the room that I was currently claiming as my own. Thankfully, Sue and Sam seemed to understand that I didn't want to talk anymore, unlike Brady last week. But it didn't last long. Someone knocked on the door but like I did last time, I remained silent. And just like last time, the door opened and Brady waltzed in.
He closed the door behind himself before making his way to the bed. Sitting down beside me, he took my hand in his and smiled at me. I wanted to smile back but for the life of me I was too angry for such a pleasant expression.
My mind jumped back to the kiss that we'd shared and everything that was me turned to putty. I wanted him to kiss me again. It had been so nice to feel like someone felt the same for me, as I did for them. Even more than knowing that my feelings were reciprocated, it was nice to know that someone cared, that someone liked me.
It pissed me off that Sam had talked Brady out of doing it again. I knew he had because I'd heard Brady telling him what happened. They were going to 'reveal' the truth about Shifters to me in a week or two and I didn't like that either. How was I supposed to sound surprised about something that I already knew all about?
I was starting to think that lying really wasn't worth the time or the energy. Every lie I told made it harder to keep all the others in order and when people turned up claiming to be people that didn't actually exist... well, that really messed with my head.
There didn't seem to be any end in sight in terms of my lying. I didn't want to do it but I couldn't see the truth getting me very far. Over the last few nights I had dreamt of all the ways that they would react to the truth and none of them ended well for me. At the very least they would kick me out of their territory, at the worst they would feed me to the vampires. I didn't want either of those things happening.
Despite the fact that there was always a hint of wet dog to their scents, the wolves were nice. It was a strange feeling to have strangers care about me and it was like a drug to me. The more I got, the more I wanted and even after just a few short weeks I wasn't sure if I could handle losing it. I didn't ever want to be without these off smelling men.
Least of all, Brady.
In that moment I decided that I would not mention the Shifter thing. Chances were that they would bring it up sooner or later and I could worry about it then. I knew that I should have a better plan but I didn't want to over think everything. I was happy to let the wolves believe that I was the unfortunate human girlfriend of a violent feline Shifter.
