That night as they lay beneath the stars looking up at the beautiful night sky, Caleb held his mate close and pointed out all of the constellations that he knew and what they were called, he showed her Orion and many other star formations. He wanted to tell her all about him, but even after their passionate encounter after Belle's fainting fit he felt that it was still too soon, that he could not trust her not to use his life against him, she could tell him that he was cursed as a werewolf and that they were not as powerful as the vampire and that they were worse than dirt. She could tell him all these things and he knew it would break him. For he already knew that he was cursed, because of all that had happened, all that he had lost.
Caleb was not fond of his past or his own life in general. He had lost too many people to think that his life was worth living. And he would have given up, would have taken his own life had he not known that he had a mate. For all of his faults, his biggest was probably that he was selfless, he cared too much. And as he found himself holding Usha he discovered that he cared for her more than he'd ever cared for anyone before her. Dangerous for he knew she would use that caring nature of his to her advantage. He had not lied when he told her that the vampires were evil. They were vindictive, facetious and above all they were murderers.
When Caleb was twelve years old his very own father had been murdered by one of the heathen vampires and he had been alone for his mother had died alongside his father. That was the day he learned of fated mates. That was the day he was left alone in the wilderness to fend for himself, and it was not long after that when he met Lord Tristram for the very first time. And the Lord had left him be. At that moment he had been too stunned and too shocked to try and figure out why the vampire had not killed him as his kind had killed Caleb's family.
But then he'd met Little Red, and at night when she stayed at her grandmother's house on a weekend or a holiday he would come up to the little cottage as she strayed outside and she would pet him as he came to her in his canine form. She was the closest that he had to a family from that moment on. Little did he know he would soon come to crave her and obsess over her in a very stalker big bad wolf way. He had never wanted her to see him in his human form had never known that she was his, his mate. He hadn't even known for sure that she was until she had become a vampire. And there he had wallowed wondering how Fate could have matched him with a vampire of all beings, the very kind that had killed his family.
'You're quiet Caleb have you fallen asleep?' Usha asked, her tone bordering on innocent but he knew she only waited on sleep to take over him and then she would attempt her escape, but where would she go her father would surely know of their passionate embrace and would surely disown his daughter for meddling with the werewolf. He would know about their encounter as well as he'd known that Caleb was fated to his daughter, thus the reason he had not drunk from him that day in the woods. Tristram might be a dark evil Lord, but he would not kill his only heir, even if she was a weak pitiful human in his eyes.
'No my love, I am merely thinking of my family,' Caleb informed her and as he did he wondered how his parents would feel about his alliance with the dark daughter of the monster that had killed them. How would they feel about the cruel twist Fate had sprung upon him? Would they pity him and howl in agony? Or would they have disowned him raged and howled in dismay?
'They must love you dearly,' Usha murmured innocently against his chest and he felt her move her head so that she could lay her ear by his heart and he heard her sigh as she listened to the individual beating of his heart. So innocent she seemed, so clueless she was to what had actually happened to his family, but then again why would her father have boasted about killing werewolves if he wanted his daughter to become a vampire and to prove that they were not evil?
'They did yes, they loved me very dearly. I was their only child, why wouldn't they have loved me?' Caleb asked and he felt her shift on his chest to stare up at him.
'Did they love you for who you were? Did they ever want to change who you were?' Caleb saw Usha speak, her eyebrows narrow and her eyes soften in sadness and curiosity, but it was Little Red he heard when he heard her speak those words. For it was Little Red that had always wanted to be accepted by her father for what she was, not just that he wanted to change who she was. As she'd asked he'd seen a tear fall from her eyes, and he sensed that she was thinking about the way her father had always berated her because of her humanity and her beating heart, the fact that she detested blood and loved her friends, her human friends.
'Yes they always loved me for who I was, I always wanted to be around humans when I was a young were-cub and they were, they were afraid of exposure but they were totally okay with it in the end. They knew I was curious and they knew that if I was in wolf form it was okay for me to be around them. They loved me and they loved what I wanted, they always supported me,' Caleb said and he was the one to cry tears onto her delicate head.
'I wish I had known them,' Usha said and Caleb sniffed at that. He wished they had met her, or at least the Little Red that she had once been, the innocent wolf loving woman he had come to obsess over. Sometimes he wished she were still that woman, but a part of him was growing closer to Usha even though he knew they weren't the same woman any more. Although that was the unfortunate truth, Caleb did not believe that Little Red was evil, he didn't believe she could ever be evil, and it was that belief that had him pulling her closer, kissing the top of her head and closing his eyes to drift to sleep. It was that belief that encouraged him to trust in her.