Chapter 16

Inez was sitting on the porch early Saturday morning reading a newspaper while sipping his coffee. When he heard Isabella close the front door, he looked up. His glasses barely covered his eyes. She imagined him as a witch, with the same glasses, a potion in his hand, and gray hair turning white. She smiled to herself.
"Good morning, sweetie." He said, putting his newspaper on the table and taking off his glasses.
"Morning Daddy."
"I guess you're going on another date." He said and pointed his raised finger at her.
She smiled at him. "How in the world do you come to that unlikely conclusion?"
"Why would you dress up to go into the woods?"
"Dad, werewolves are more into wild animals, fields and forests, snowy mountains and big rivers than glittering city life and busy streets." Isabella offered.
"It's not that." He shook his head. "It's a boy. I can literally smell it."
"Dad, I've to go." She said when SHE saw the determined look on his face.
"I almost don't see you anymore." He said disapprovingly. "We're always busy."
"Bye Dad."
Isabella looked over her shoulder. He'd put his glasses back on and was holding a coffee. He looked so old, yet so energetic.
"Stephaney," SHE said loudly when she walked in and didn't see him in the kitchen.
"I know you missed me, pumpkin, but you'll have to wait, I'm with another woman." His bright voice echoed through the walls that separated us.
Isabella laughed and put my bag on the table. The room looked the same as the first time she saw it, stylish and elegant.
"Where are you?"
"Go away." He said with humor in his voice. "I'm busy."
She rolled her eyes and followed his voice into a room with a bleached door slightly ajar. She swung it all the way open in one swift motion.
She immediately spotted him lying on his back on the bed.
"I thought you'd someone with you." She said, taking in the surroundings. His room hardly looked inhabited. The walls were a deep red color, bathing the room in a dim light. There were no windows, and opposite the door was a large floor-length mirror.
"She just left." he informed me. "She couldn't stand being in the same room as you."
"I'm sure she couldn't."
"Good." he mused. "Now it's your turn."
He made room for me to sit down. She looked at the clothes he was wearing: blue old shorts and a black T-shirt that matched his muscular body. It was the first time she'd seen him so casual.
She rolled her eyes. "I need to ask you something about Peter?"
"He'd kill me. Did you ask him?" asked Stephaney as he sat up and stroked his hand over his visible pirate mustache.
"Well, uh, yeah. But he refuses to tell me," she said, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.
He rolled his eyes and said aloud, "With good reason."
Isabella heard a small voice she didn't recognize.
"Where's Keri?" she asked before she could stop herself.
"Keri . . Keri ..." Isabella could see him frowning in concentration. After a minute, he asked. "Who's Keri?"
She looked at him, studying his face. Dejectedly, I sighed. "The girl I met when I first came here."
His face softened in recognition. "Oh her?" he didn't wait for me to answer. "I don't know where she's."
Isabella was about to ask another question when he said. "I don't think Phyllis knows either."
"You're kidding?"
He shook his head and sighed in boredom. Unimpressed, she asked. "Is he dating his new girlfriend now?"
He snorted in frustration, and Isabella knew it was only a matter of time before he changed the subject.
"Phyllis doesn't have any girlfriends." He paused. "Wendigos aren't like werewolves. We're never tied to a mate, and besides, there are - how would a human say - lots of fish in the sea."
She nodded.
He laughed. The sound seemed strange when he made it. His face was never so relaxed, and hearing him laugh put a smile on my face.
"There was a report a few years ago about a Wendigo who claimed to be in love." He shook his head in obvious disbelief. "Is that madness or what?"
Isabella stood up and walked over to the framed photo that lay lonely on the floor next to the cabinet. "You don't believe in love, do you?"
He sounded horrified at the thought. She glanced over her shoulder at him. "No, I don't. I don't know how your kind can do it."
"Can you think of any reason why Wendigos don't have soul mates?"
"No," he said as he stood up with a new wave of confidence. "But I think it's a lot to do with the fact that the fellows would slow us down."
"You mean in a fight?"
When he was only a foot behind her, he said. "You can't be in this business if you've to worry about someone like that."
"You make it sound like you've joined the Mafia."
He smiled. "This is no different than the Mafia."
Isabella turned her gaze to the frame and picked it up. Dust covered the photo with a brown coating, and she'd to wipe the dust away with one of the T-shirts she picked up off the floor.
He cleared his throat, and she looked at him. "You need to put that back."
"Why?"
He didn't answer, instead he went to his bed where he lay face first on the pillow.
"Who's that?" asked Isabella, looking at the woman, who appeared to be in her late thirties. The woman had a radiant smile on her face and possessed a beauty known only from magazine covers. Isabella's heart was beating up to her throat. No one had a right to be that beautiful.
"I can't talk about it."
Isabella looked closely at the picture and realized where Phyllis' pallor came from. The woman had bright, warm, green eyes that stared into the distance with so much love that Isabella could almost feel them.
"That's your mother." She said. "Who was she looking at?"
"My father," he said, and there was an emotion in his voice that she didn't recognize.
Isabella walked over to the bed and sat down next to him. "There's so much love in her."
He lifted his head and looked at the picture for a moment. "Yes, that's the person I told you about."
"She loved him."
He turned on his side and looked at her. "Love only gets you killed."
"Not really."
"You know, my father fought a strong Alpha, what was his name?" he thought for a while. "Alpha John... Stephen, my father fought not with his head, but with his heart. He was grieving. John told him that they killed Pauline, my mother, and he lost all reason."
Isabella nodded thoughtfully. "They were soul mates."
He sighed. "Yes." He frowned for a while, and she mimicked his actions. "No," he looked at the picture for a while and then said, as if struck by lightning, "I don't know."
Her frown deepened. "But ... But how?" I was curious, and it was hard to hide that fact.
He settled into a sitting position. "They were the only living Wendigo comrades. All the others were murdered. Like I said, love kills you."
"How did they manage to kill your mother? Surely if they mated, your father could've tracked them down through their mating bond."
He sighed. "Do you've to be so clueless?" Just as Isabella was about to reply, he raised his hand to silence me. "No, don't answer that."
She smiled weakly. "Where was your father ...?"
He interrupted her before she could finish. "Father, Peter, and Phyllis all went hunting that day." Something changed in his eyes. "I was home with Mom. That's the only woman I ever really loved. I was outside playing with my toys; she was about to come to me when I heard something rustling in the trees in the near distance."
He held onto the pillow as if it was the only thing holding him together. His face was calm, but his eyes betrayed him. He hadn't a trace of a tear, but Isabella knew that if he could cry, he'd. A look of pain crossed his face that made my heart pound.
"I should have known something was wrong. I should have been man enough to fight her, but I was weak. Peter wouldn't have let them hurt her, but I . ." He shook his head, buried his face in his hands, and rocked back and forth. Her heart broke at the sight of him. How could a person live with so much pain, with all those feelings raging inside him?
"You can't understand the pain of losing a mother unless you've experienced it yourself. Do you know what it's like when your little brother tries to be his own man? What it's like when he doesn't understand why his mother left him? How do you answer when he asks when his mother will be back, even though you know it's your fault she died?"