Moon Child (The Year of the Wolf #2) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,124
he?” I asked, even though I didn’t need to know my biological father’s identity to recognize he was a low life I didn’t need polluting my air. Still, a girl had to ask, didn’t she?
I had a family that mattered now. Sabina, her mates, Knight. Then there was Todd and his grandparents who were finally starting to like me—not just accept me as his mate, but appreciate me as a person.
Life was good.
So, asking about my father was merely token. Something I should ask, not something I needed to know.
“I don’t know his name. Draga never warned me.” Her voice waned before she sputtered, “Did you know he bit me? Hard enough to scar. Why do you always think I wear that scarf?”
“Because I thought father asked you to,” was Sabina’s reply. Then, she surprised me by being a little cold as she said, “That’s what you always did. He told you to jump, so you jumped.”
Silence fell at that, then she hissed, “If you’re going to be mean, then I’ll put the phone down.”
She pursed her lips. “If being mean involves speaking the truth, then by all means, put the phone down.”
A second later, we heard the dialing tone.
“Guilt,” she declared coolly as she wiggled her foot, dangling it and her shoe as she crossed her legs.
“She was a shit mother,” I agreed.
“The shittiest.”
“I don’t know why you needed to talk to her.”
I held out my hand at Todd’s words, beckoning him to me. He’d been listening in, standing at the fireplace in the family living room of the Highbanks’ packhouse, watching on with disapproval.
He hadn’t agreed with us talking to our mother, simply because he thought it was raking up a past that couldn’t be changed.
But I’d never lost contact with her, just had never been all that close.
What was there to be close to? She’d made her decision a long time ago—my father over me. Over all of us.
She had to have known that our father had asked Cyrilo to end Sabina’s life, but what had she done? Acted as if Sabina had never existed after she’d run away, and she’d certainly never defended any of us when he’d hit us.
Father was always right. That was the law under our roof.
It was a wonder that Sabina and I didn’t loathe each other’s guts, to be honest. Neither of us felt any ounce of remorse over Jana’s passing, or Cyrilo’s for that matter, but while I’d had some reservations when I’d first arrived here where she was concerned, they’d gone.
Sabina was a dedicated mother, a loving mate, a wonderful and caring omega, and a sister I was still coming to learn, who never ceased to amaze me with her generosity of self.
No, she wasn’t perfect. She had a little temper, she was too overprotective of Knight, to the point where I knew we’d have a conversation about smothering him with attention, and she was a workaholic, but dedication wasn’t a weakness, was it?
She just needed a friend.
So did I.
Mates were one thing, sisters another. Friends? We could be that for each other. I wanted that, more than she could know.
When Todd’s hand slipped into mine, he perched on the edge of the sofa, which immediately creaked, before he muttered, “Talking to her did nothing other than make you both scowl.”
Sabina shook her head. “I wanted to understand.”
He sighed. “You wanted to hear something that wasn’t the full truth. You heard her side, and she didn’t understand what had happened to her. There’s no reassurance to be found there.” He squeezed my fingers. “Hyena males often do what they did to her—bite her, scar her, impregnate her, then leave them.”
“Don’t they have mates?” she asked.
“No. They just call them that, but they’re chosen life partners.”
“Why? Do they like to be confusing?”
Lips twitching, he murmured, “No. It’s just a cultural thing. But everything is different for tigers, eagles, bears, and wolves.”
Sabina tensed at that, and her shoulders hitched up as she gaped at him. “Tigers, eagles, bears, and wolves?”
Okay, so it made me teacher’s pet, I knew, but I chimed in, “They were the first animals the Mother created. They were her first born.”
Her eyes rounded. “No way.”
I wasn’t sure why she was surprised, neither was Todd, but he confirmed, “Those four species were her first children.”
She bit her lip. “I had a dream about a totem after the hyenas’ attack.”
Todd’s shoulders straightened at that. “What kind of dream?”
Warily, she whispered, “I don’t know. It was a totem with one