Wolf Girl (Wolf Girl #1) - Leia Stone Page 0,70

met my grandmother, but I spoke to her a few times on the phone before she passed away over a decade ago. Every picture we had of her she wore a dirty apron and was cooking or milking a cow. Now I understood why. I guess it was a lie to think every wolf inside the city borders was rich and taken care of.

“What happened, Mom? You can tell me.”

She swallowed hard and nodded. “I lied to you about not making the top twenty with Curt…”

I froze. Okay … was not expecting that. Oh Lord, please don’t tell me she had an affair with Curt and Sawyer was my half-brother or some shit.

She must have read my mind, because she laughed nervously. “I never even kissed him.”

All the air I’d been holding released from me in a rush, but she chewed her bottom lip. “I met your father the first day of class here. I liked him right away. Smart, funny, and cute. He kept his distance romantically because of the mating selection, but there was an undeniable chemistry there.”

I smiled thinking of my mom and dad falling in love.

“We started to meet in the library late at night to study. His hand would brush mine or I’d find an excuse to touch him. We quickly realized we were falling for each other, and I had somehow made it to the top five.”

Oh God, talk about awkward! “What did you do?”

Her lips puffed out as she blew air through them.

“Well, I’m not proud of this, but … on Christmas break I went home to visit my mom … and Run was waiting for me in the barn.”

I gasped. “Wait? What? He was back?”

She nodded, chewing her lip in anxiety. “He was back, he was alpha, and he was insanely good looking.”

I gulped, my heart torn at the story.

“Why was he gone so long?” I suddenly felt like I was watching a soap opera and needed to know every detail.

My mom shrugged. “We didn’t do much talking…” She let that sentence linger and my eyes went wide.

“I was dating Curt, falling in love with your father, and already in love with Run. I was a mess, so confused, and when he kissed me, all of that fell away and … we made love right there in the barn for the first time.” She winced.

Okay, embarrassing to hear my mom say that, but I needed to hear this story. “Wow,” was all I could think of to say.

She nodded. “I guess Curt was suspicious that I was secretly dating your father, so he had me followed, and a guard caught us in the barn.”

Oh shit. Plot twist. “Did they arrest you?”

She pulled her hand from mine and walked to the window. The curtains were closed but she stared at them and rubbed her temples.

“He was a Paladin, Demi. They killed him. Right there in front of me. Said he was trespassing and called it rape.”

Bile rose in my throat. To misuse that word made anger rise up in me so strongly I felt dizzy.

“Oh, Mom, I’m so sorry.” I stood and stepped closer to meet her at the window and she spun around.

“I’m not done, Demi.” She held out her hand as if she didn’t want me to come closer. Tears lined her eyes, but she blinked them back. I’d never seen my mom cry. Every sad movie we watched, my father cried with me but not my mom. She was the rock of the family, and seeing her eyes well up now shook me.

“I couldn’t let Run go like that, let them smear his name and call him a rapist.”

I nodded and she took a deep breath. “I told Curt what happened, that I’d known Run since he was eleven and that it was consensual, that it was my first time with him and that I loved him.” She pressed her palms to her eyelids and came away with smudged make-up and wet cheeks. “He was so mad, so furious that I chose a Paladin over him, that he banished me right there. He said he’d fallen in love with me during the selection, I had no idea.”

Holy shit … Curt must have really loved my mom … not that this was any way to treat someone you loved, but it explained the anger.

“I rushed to my dorm to pack my things,” my mom said. “Wondering what I would do for food and shelter, wondering how I could live in a