CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

**GABRIEL**
Everything had returned to normal. Thankfully. Heaven knew I was sick and tired of running from pillar to post, and from one trouble to another. Losing Oliver was a feeling I hoped to never experience again in my life, and even weeks later, I still remember the relief I felt to hold him in my arms again, safe at home…in our bed…where he belonged. The last attack had shown me that we hadn’t really spent time together, just us, without any distractions, and immediately, I knew I had to fix that.
I watched as Oliver lay in the sand, basking in the sun, his toned, bronze chest basking in the late evening sun, and smiled to myself. His eyes fluttered open and squinted as he looked up at me.
“Hey, when did you get here?” He asked as he sat up and brushed the dad off his hands and back.
“Just now,” I replied and settled into the sand next to him.
We both sat there, watching the setting sun and the Atlantic waves as they crashed into the sand, our minds lost in our thoughts. I stole a glance at Oliver, he seemed distracted, ever since we stepped foot in this village.
Are you enjoying your time here?”
Oliver turned to me and smiled, a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He nodded and turned back to the ocean. “Yes. It’s beautiful here.”
I nodded, not quite satisfied with his answer. “Are you okay?” I asked.
His head snapped to mine and his blue eyes regarded me in confusion. “What? Of course, I am, why do you ask?”
I shrugged and took his face in my hand, enjoying the feel of him on my skin. “You’ve been somewhat distracted since we got here,” I said. “Kind of distracted.”
Oliver laughed nervously and averted his gaze. “I’m okay, I promise.”
He was lying. I knew it, but I decided that he would tell me on his own time. When he was ready, and so I decided against pushing it. We were here to have a good time together, not fight.
We sat still and stared at the crashing waves, both of us lost in the beauty of nature and stewing in our thoughts. I closed my eyes and allowed the memories of my mother to overshadow me, being back in her house always reminded me of what was lost, of how my mother was snatched from me so young…so early.
“I lost my mother when I was quite young,” I started, and Oliver immediately turned to me, his ears rapt with attention. “She was a beautiful woman, that one.”
Decades later, it still felt off to refer to her in the past tense.
“What happened to her?”
“My father. That was what happened to her,” I said, the bitterness in my voice leaving an unsavory taste in my mouth. “Everything would have been fine if they had never met.”
“What did he do?” Oliver urged.
I took a deep breath. “My mother was my father’s fated mate. He had just one problem with her; she wasn’t a wolf. She was a human. He considered it an insult to be mated to a human. What was worse than being mated to a human? Mated to a human who was a witch and came from a long line of witches.”
“I bet he didn’t like that very much, did he?”
I chuckled. “No. No, he didn’t, and he didn’t fail to show her how unwanted she was at every chance he got.”
Oliver’s brows furrowed in confusion. “Then why didn’t he just reject her? I thought that was an option?”
“It’s not easy to reject a mate. The mate bond is very strong,” I replied. “It could have killed him. Most don’t survive.”
I took a deep breath and continued. “And because he couldn’t reject her, he had to mark her, mate her, make her his. And when I was delivered, it had become worse, everything went to shit. After all, he now had his heir.”
I closed my eyes against the pain as I remembered the sounds of a belt meeting skin, the sound of my mother screaming, crying, and begging for help. I remember hiding under my bed and crying remember her blood-curling screams as he violated her. I remembered the helplessness I felt…the weakness of not being able to help. To do nothing but hear her scream all night, and see her with different colored bruises and injuries all over her body.
Oliver’s warm hand on my shoulder shook me out of my reverie, and I turned to him. I hadn’t realized that I had begun crying until his hand reached up and wiped my cheeks, and I felt the moisture on my face.
“He beat her, Oliver,” I said. “He beat her a lot. And a part of me is angry…angry at everyone, at everything. I sometimes find myself asking if no one could have helped her, why did no one stand up to him? They just let him go on doing whatever it was he wanted.”
“Gabriel…”
“A part of me feels angry too. If I had been older, stronger…”
“No,” Oliver said firmly and took my face firmly in his hands. “What happened wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault. You were a child. A child who should have been protected. A child who deserved better.”
I smiled sadly at him and nodded absently. Even though I knew he was right, it was still hard to accept it. Maybe I could have helped.
“It got worse when she started seeing someone…a human,” I drew in a quivering breath, allowing myself to be once again lost in the memories of the blonde man my mother always took me to meet but the river. How he would always bring her flowers, and they would dance together by the bank.
“I think that was the beginning of his hate for humans. Now, he didn’t like them before, but the thought that a human could take his mate from him didn’t sit well with him,” I paused and took a deep breath. “The night he found out was the night she died. Every night, I would hear her scream and cry and beg but that night? That night was different. I could feel the walls shake with the tremor in her voice. Till today, I don’t know what he did to her, but she was in severe pain. He kept screaming at her, telling her she wanted to embarrass him…make him look stupid…”
“That night, her screams suddenly stopped, and the. Nothing was to be heard from her room again.”
I forced my brain to conjure up images or that might. The stillness of it all. Everything stood still. The house, the air, my father’s voice. Everything was still.
“I snuck out of my room, watched as my father dug a home, and unceremoniously threw my mother in it.”
Oliver took me in his arms, pulling me close, and held me tight as tremors of relief and exhaustion wracked my body. I buried my face in his bare chest, my tears soaking his skin, but I didn’t care. For the first time in what felt like forever, I was crying out of happiness, out of the pure, overwhelming joy of finally being free. The weight that had sat heavily on my chest for so long had lifted, leaving me feeling lighter, almost as if I could breathe again. After a few moments, I slowly pulled away from him, wiping the tears from my cheeks with trembling hands. A strange, unfamiliar warmth spread through me, and for the first time in a long while, I realized something profound. Life was worth living again