Guilt Abounds
Timothy
I sat on the ground, leaning back against a tree with my arms wrapped tightly around Tasha. We had been hunting–no, looking for– Gerald, but every time we got close, he would up and disappear again. I knew that everyone else was getting more frustrated, but I was happy that we couldn’t find him. It meant that I had more time to prove that he wasn’t guilty of what they were accusing him of. He couldn’t be the feral boar killing off sleuths. He just couldn’t be. I laid my cheek on the top of her head.
“Timmy?” She murmured.
“Yeah, Tasha?”
“Do you really think that Gerry could be doing all of this because he’s in love with Annie?” She whispered tearfully.
“I don’t want to,” I sighed. “But he might be. Osprey had a lot of things to say that thinking back on it might be true.”
She linked our fingers together. “But what if he’s wrong? He is young. Maybe there’s a chance.” She tilted her head back to look up at me. “I wish everyday that he is wrong. I pray to the Goddess that he is wrong. I need him to be wrong, because how could we miss such a drastic change in our boy. How did he go from the loving little cherub-faced little boy that would have given his life to protect Annie to the grown man who breaks all of the Goddess’ laws to try to inflict as much damage on her as possible?” She asked softly.
“I don’t know, baby, but it wasn’t anything you did. You were a fantastic mother. You loved him so much and tried so hard to teach him right from wrong. If anybody is to blame, it’s me.” I brought her hand to my mouth to press a kiss to the back of it before laying it on her stomach. “Maybe he takes after me too much. When we first met, I went so crazy that I shot my best friend and he almost died. At one point I was so jealous that I would have even tied you up to keep you away from him. What if he got that volatile gene, and it just mutated until he went crazy. What if–”
She put her finger against my lips, silencing me. “This isn’t your fault, Timmy. We all failed to notice the changes. If we hadn’t, we might have been able to help him.” She nuzzled into my throat. “Maybe this is just a dream, and we’ll wake up tomorrow to all of our babies back home, waiting to go outside to play.”
I ran my hands down her back. “That sounds wonderful, baby,” I murmured into her hair. “As much as we want to hope that we will wake up, we both know that we won’t. The best we can hope for is that when we find Annie, it’s not Gerry that’s with her.”
“I already do.”
“I know, baby. So do I.”
Suddenly, the rest of our hunting party all knelt on the ground with their heads bowed. Before I could even look to see what was going on, Tasha scrambled off my lap to kneel in front of me. I looked past Falcon before quickly shifting so that I was mirroring Tasha’s position beside her. My heart started beating harder, causing Tasha to take my hand that was hanging between us. Vine Keeper Annaria slowly walked through the hunting party, reaching out to touch our families’ shoulders as she passed before stopping in front of me. After touching Tasha’s shoulder, she knelt in front of me to tilt my face up.
“A word Alpha Timothy,” she said before glancing down at my and Tasha’s joined hands. “Alone.”
I got shakily to my feet, letting my hand slip out of Natasha’s, still keeping my head lowered. “As you wish, Vine Keeper Annaria.”
She walked into the trees with me directly behind her. After a few minutes of walking she slowed down to walk next to me. I stuck my hands in my pockets as I waited for her to speak. I was going to go crazy if she decided to lecture me too. Everyone that I had met during this hunt thought I was a shitty father. They might not have said it directly to my face, but I heard the whispers. I heard all the other alphas talking about what they would have done if they were me. Trust me, I already knew I messed up. I knew that it was all my fault. They didn’t have to say it. I knew I was at fault. When she finally stopped, a vine came up out of the ground to create a seat for her to sit on, which she did without hesitation. Another vine came up for me to sit on, and after some anxious shifting, I managed to find a comfortable position. She smiled at me.
“I know what you’re thinking, but I am not here to lecture you,” she said, making me groan.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“It’s okay, Alpha Timothy. If I had been through what you had been through in the last week, I would have thought the same thing.” She ran her fingers over the thin vine that wiggled its way onto her lap, almost like it was a little, doting puppy. “I am going give you a chance that I don’t give to many other people. You can ask me some questions and I will answer them. Let’s say, I’ll let you ask three questions, and I will answer them truthfully.”
“Why are you doing this for me?” I asked.
“Because, Alpha Timothy, I have seen you grow over the years with your mates by your side. I have seen you with Annie, and let me be frank, she is the only one that matters to me in this situation. And with what’s coming, you should be sure about what you want to know,” she answered.
“What do I want to know?” I inquired.
“A lot, but you only have three questions to ask, and that I can’t decide for you. So, whenever you are ready, you may ask your first question,” she told me.
I studied her face for a moment before sighing. “And I can ask anything that I want to ask?”
“Yes.”
“If Gerry is really the one behind these attacks on the sleuths and kidnapping Annie, then why is he doing it?” I asked, needing to know that more than anything else.
She nodded. “He is obsessed with Annie. The Goddess’ tried to bring him his mate in the hopes that she would coax him out of his craziness, but he ignored the chance she offered him. She tried to do the same for Annie, but she also resisted at first. Her resistance was more because of the fact that she was scared of giving someone else the possibility of hurting her or abandoning her. She clung to who she thought was her person, as misguided as her beliefs were.”
I sighed as I ran my fingers through my hair. If Vine Keeper Annaria was telling me that he was indeed guilty, then there wasn’t anything I could tell myself to convince myself that he wasn’t. I raised my eyes to hers as I pondered my next question while she waited patiently for me to continue.
“Could my mates and I have done something, anything to have stopped this?”
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