The Big Bad Wolf Mate

As I ran through the woods I grew up in I got the feeling that things were changing with our without my father's knowledge. There were areas that I didn't recognize anymore and most of them involved the tree lines deep in the forest. There was a fence made of old logs that were placed in a line and stacked ten feet tall and the ground was dug up around it.

Everything about this gave me an uneasy feeling but I kept running trying to erase his face from my memory. If he thought I was going to give in and let him take over he had another thing coming. But I wasn't going to be his mate either, now to just figure out how to convince the council that I was the better choice.

A few hours later I returned to the house and there was one more thing I needed to do while I was here and now was the perfect time. I marched into the house and up the stairs to their room. Hesitation flooded my mind at what I might find out but I needed to ask even if she wouldn't talk.

I stood in front of her door trying to suppress the anger rising within me. I was here to get answers from her and if she didn’t give them to me I knew we could never come back from this. She is my mother, she is supposed to protect me, not send everyone I loved away and make me suffer without them.

Lifting my hand, I knocked on her door and waited for her reply.

“Come in.”

I turned the knob and pushed it open to see her sitting in her favorite chair facing the fireplace. I closed the door behind me and walked towards her. The anger that I had been harvesting for weeks had slowly dissipated when she looked at me and smiled.

“Ember, when did you get back?”

“Just a little while ago. I needed to meet with dad to discuss the issue between Alpha Anderson and I.”

I sat next on the loveseat next to her chair as she nodded her head and looked back at the fire. Her face was somber and her eyes were filled with pain and I knew she could tell I was here for a specific reason. We were never really close but she tried to be supportive of my decisions, if they didn't cause her any issues.

“Mom, I ran into an old friend while I was in Tennessee.”

“Really? How nice.”

She never looked into my eyes or in my direction at all and I knew this was going to be hard for both of us but I needed the truth. I needed her to tell me why she kept me from going to Chase’s and why she sent Grannie Lily away.

“It was Grannie Lily.”

Her whole body tensed and I could see her eyes darting around from one side of the brick fireplace to the other. She folded her hands in her lap then moved them back to the arms of the chair a few times before she turned to me and said “I guess there are a few things I should explain.”

“You owe me that. I’ve been feeling guilty for the past 18 years because I thought I was the reason she left. I felt guilty for not being able to go back to Chase’s pack after I turned 10 because I thought I did something wrong. I’ve been lied to and left out of every decision concerning my life and I’m tired of it. So what happened.”

My voice was trembling as I spoke and it wasn’t because I was nervous. It was because I was furious.

“Ember, I’ve always been jealous of you. Ever since you were a little girl you’ve been a strong, motivated child and you never let anyone help you. You were much more of a leader than I ever could have been. I was even jealous of how close you and her were and how close you and your Aunt had become.”

I looked at her in confusion as she paused for a few seconds.

“I was an only child, the rightful heir to my father’s pack, next in line for Alpha. But, thanks to the decisions of our great, great, great, great, great great, grandfathers, from the day I was born I was reduced to nothing but a trophy wife or a warm body who was to sit next to her mate with her mouth shut. I was never trained but instead primped and paraded around the pack like a geisha doll in search of the perfect suitor. My father was sure my mate would show up and take over for him but when my 18th birthday came and went, then my 19th and then my 20th and so on, he never showed up.”

“Everyone was getting worried that I didn’t have one and then the rumors started that he wouldn’t have anyone to keep his family pack going and I was locked away as punishment as he began calling around to find an unmated Alpha male to give me away to. I was never asked what I wanted, it was just how I was raised and I accepted it.”

I could feel the pain of her past bubbling up to the surface but she kept her head high and never shed a tear. I leaned in and placed my hand over hers as she took a deep breath and proceeded to tell me the rest of her story.

“As you know, your Uncle Dennis was handed his father’s pack when he turned 25 and your father was going to be his Beta but he too still hadn’t found his mate by the age of 21 and was approached by my father to arrange our marriage in exchange of becoming the Alpha of our pack. Your father was given extra training and invited to live with us until he took over the next year. We “dated” for three years before he became the leader then made me his marked mate and Luna.”

I gasped as her confession. I knew my parents weren’t an overly affectionate couple but I had no idea that was because they were forced mates. They weren’t given the chance to find their one true love or goddess given mate, instead they were paired together because of greed.

“Mom, I had no idea. I’m so sorry but why would you send Grannie away? Why would you keep me from being around people who would have helped me break the generational curse that we’ve been under?”

“The pack was growing weary of her intentions but I knew she would never hurt any of us, especially you but they wanted her gone. So to get everyone's respect, I did the one thing a Luna can do, banish someone from the pack. I immediately regretted my decision and I've had to live with it since then.”

A single tear rolled down her cheek and for the first time in my life, my heart broke for the women who brought me into this world. The pain she had been hiding was written all over her face and the longer I sat there, the more I wanted to hold her and tell her it would be ok. But the truth was, it wasn't if Anderson kept coming around.

"Ember, I never had a problem with you visiting Mark and Penelope's pack, I was just afraid you would see how different they ran theirs and you would come back here and try to change things and you would get banished too but I also never wanted you to end up like me either. I've made a lot of mistakes and I would really like to try and make them up to you."

I smiled and said "All is forgiven mother but from now on you and father need to be completely honest with me."

She nodded and I squeezed her hand before going back to my room. I needed some sleep before I left to go back to Tennessee and make my mate show me how to run a pack.

Why do I feel Anderson isn't just there to HELP their pack????

So Ember finally confronted her mother...and wow she had a horrible life. Her poor mom never got a chance to meet her actual mate, neither did her father.

I sure hope they can continue to grow from this!