That always happened whenever we went somewhere together; d’Artagnan was such an arsehole and troublemaker that simply his presence caused those around him to get narked. I don’t know why I bothered with defending him. Sometimes having a conscience was horribly overrated.
“Where’s Jay Dee?” I heard Reign call out.
Instantly my head snapped from the rude werewolf in front of me, to where I last saw Jay Dee. It was struggle to see over everyone’s heads, but eventually I caught a glimpse of her white hair. She was shaking her head in disappointment at the actions of everyone, including my own.
This is exactly what Toran and Reign did not want to happen.
I started pushing my way through the crowd.
“Jarvis!” Jay Dee yelled.
“Bloody hell, now what?” I groaned and the white hair seemingly disappeared. “What in...” my words trailed off as an eerie silence washed across the crowd and the air was suddenly saturated with an all too familiar smell: blood.
I could feel my eyes darkening to black pits of death, as were the eyes of each of the vampires there, but thirst was at the very back of my mind.
The woman I loved was standing toe to toe with a bronze-skinned werewolf, his eyes burned with hate and his lips were pulled up into a snarl.
Touch her. I beg of you to be daft enough to touch what belongs to me!
“You shouldn’t have done that, you abomination of all that is holy,” he growled in her face.
I will snap your bloody neck if you do not step away from me duckie.
“You’re probably right,” Jay Dee spat through clenched teeth before taking a stepping back. “You might want to run, because if they catch you, you won’t see it coming.”
Wait, what in bloody hell is that supposed to mean?
She dropped something to the ground and the smell of blood became that much more potent.
Oh my god.
“No!” I yelled and pushed my way through the crowd of phasing werewolves.
This cannot be happening. Please, God, let her be all right.
Jay Dee swayed on her feet before collapsing to the ground. I slid across the floor and caught her in my arms.
Jarvis stood there shaking, his hands balled into fists at his side.
I looked up at him. “Kill that sonuvabitch,” I snarled, and he smirked, his clothes ripped apart as his body contorted into a large black wolf. He pivoted, and went the opposite direction as the others.
“I should have stayed in bed,” Jay Dee groaned. “Didn’t I tell you something bad was going to happen?” she complained before laughing.
“This is not a laughing matter,” I choked.
“Are you going to try to eat me?” she asked and raised an eyebrow.
“Damn it, Duckie, that is not funny!” I snapped at her.
“Yeah it is, it’s kind of hilarious in a sick and extremely twisted way,” she informed me.
I will kill every single one of these disgusting beasts if she... Atonement I will forsaken everything to get.
Jay Dee started to get up but I held her down. “Let me up. I’ll be fine in a minute...that’s more than I can say for him. I’m sure Jarvis already has him cornered, or Dad does,” she said, appearing slightly contemplative. “Or Mom for that matter...the last one that bucked up to her daughter was running on three legs by the time Mom was done with him. She’s a bad ass werewolf.”
“You need to go to the bloody hospital!” I, once again, snapped at her in a completely psychotically parental manner. “You have been stabbed.” I tried to apply pressure to the wound but she slapped my hands away. “Damn it, stop fighting me on this.”
Jay Dee shook her head then ripped the hole in her dress open, exposing her entire midsection.
The cut was bleeding profusely but the inch wide wound was slowly healing, closing completely in front of me, and the bleeding stopped all together.
“I’m a fast healer,” she said.
What in the...
“How did you do that?” I choked as she pulled me to my feet.
“Werewolves heal fast,” she said then looked down at her bloody and torn dress and groaned. “Damn it, I actually liked this dress.”
“Wait, what?” I interrupted her. “You are not a werewolf,” I argued.
Jay Dee looked at me curiously. “What?” she asked and scratched her head. “Tanis, what in the hell do you think I am?”
“Human…” I looked at her blood-smudged stomach.
It was completely healed.
“Oh my god,” I choked, “you are a werewolf.”
“No shit, Sherlock. And they accuse me of being a blonde,” she scoffed and rolled her eyes.
“Stop joshing! This is not funny in the least,” I yelled. “You are a bloody a werewolf!”
“Yes. I was one at birth, and when you met me, and today, and will be tomorrow as well, and the day after that, and the day after that. I thought you knew,” she said, sounding completely confused, so she reached out for my hand but I pulled it away from her.
I reached up and touched the nap of my neck which was still sore, where she had bitten me while we made love, and the realization became clear: she marked me as hers.
“You marked me!” I yelled. “You lying bitch!”
“No...well, yes. You agreed when I asked if you wanted to be with me till the end of my life. I didn’t lie to you,” she whispered. “I thought you knew and understood what I was asking permission to do. I’ve never pretended to be something or someone I’m not. Why do you think the pack doesn’t like me or the tribe, or….oh my god. You don’t like me because I’m a werewolf!?”
She started hyperventilating.
“Oh my god, oh my god, seriously?” she choked as tears rimmed her eyes.
I wanted to hold her and to tell her it’s okay, and to wipe away her tears, but I couldn’t.
She is a bloody werewolf!
Every story I had ever heard about the filthy beasts, and the havoc they’ve caused on the world and in vampiric society, and those of the moment, were suddenly running rampant through my mind, and the words left my lips before I could stop them.
“You are a filthy dog, an inferior species that should have never been released from servitude.” I shook my head, disgust more than apparent on my face.
“Please don’t,” she whispered, reaching for me again.
“Do not ever touch me again,” I snarled. “You filthy lying bitch, do you have any idea what you have done?” I yelled, holding my throbbing neck.
Why was I yelling? I honestly didn’t know, but it felt like the right thing to do at the time.
“I loved you, and I saw a future with you! But you had to ruin it by being a deceitful bitch, no didn’t you?! I hope you are happy; you broke me heart.” I shook my head and ignored the tears streaming down her cheeks. “What is wrong with you?” I rhetorically asked in a scoff. “I expect this from that lying bitch I married, but not from you.”
She looked at me with pained eyes. “Wrong with me?” she whispered, as if repeating the question would translate it for her. “There isn’t a goddamn thing wrong with me, you self-righteous prick!” she yelled.
I guess she finally found her voice.
“I never pretended to be anything other than what and who I am,” she snarled and stalked towards me and I hastily retreated. “You’re the one who was trying to force me into something else, something that was never my own! All I wanted was to be loved, for someone to accept me for who and what I am, someone who could fill the void that has been in my heart and soul since before I took my first breath, and I thought I found that with you.”
Oh, this is bad.
Jay Dee shook her head. “You act as if I was intentionally looking and waiting for you! I didn’t set out to fall in love with a goddamn vampire, it just happened.” She stopped and choked, then bit her lip to the point that it started to bleed. She laughed once humorlessly. “I should be thanking you, Mr. Ashton. Five days of happiness and love was more than a mutt, a bitch of inferior birth, like me deserved.”
Sarcasm noted.
“I never want to see you again,” she snarled. “You do not have permission speak to me, touch me, or even breathe on me. You are dead to me,” she spat through clenched teeth.
Jay Dee turned, and in three quick strides, her body phased into a white wolf and she quickly disappeared into the night.
I stood there watching the only person I had ever truly loved walk away from me.
“What in the hell did I just do?” I stammered.
d’Artagnan laughed from the stage. “Oh my god. That was so much better than soap operas. My little brother screwed a dog! That is too funny. Sadly, it looks as if I owe Georgiana ten grand; she warned me that you were banging a mutt, but I didn’t believe her. The bitch wasn’t that hot anyways,” he mumbled before bringing his beer to his lips.
“You will watch your tongue,” I warned.
“Or you’ll what, sic your dog on me?” he mused.
In a blur, I was on the stage and my hands wrapped around his throat. “I swear to god I will kill you. Family or not, you will not speak of her in that way. Werewolf or not, she was way out of both of our leagues.” I slammed his head into the stage for good measure and sulked off into the night.
I am such an arsehole! I cannot believe I just did that. Never once did Jay Dee lie to me about what or who she was. She had been nothing but open and honest, loving and kind.
Oh God; I am such a pillock arsehole.
In over three hundred years, I had only met a few werewolves, and most were rather rude and short-tempered, but they never once did anything to me personally. How could I let my species, a species which I do not even like most of the time, push their prejudices on me?
There is something seriously wrong with me.
“Please tell me you didn’t just do what your brother said you did,” Romeo said, appearing next to me.
I groaned and looked at my feet.
“Oh my god, you’re retarded!” he said and punched me in the arm.
“I know!” I yelled.
There was no reason for me to be yelling, but I apparently couldn’t stop randomly yelling at the people I loved.
“Do you think she will permit to me apologize?” I whispered.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. You screwed up hardcore. It doesn’t matter if they are humans, werewolves, vampires, or witches. Love is love, and you loved that girl and she loved you. You pushed way the greatest gift any immortal...hell, any man, could hope to have.”
“Lovely, that does not fill me with a warm fuzzy feeling.”
“It shouldn’t. You were a prick, a real piece of shit bastard. She should have kicked your ass a few times over for what you said.”
“I know,” I mumbled.
Romeo walked with me in silence back to Jay Dee’s house. Along the way, we passed Jarvis ripping the throat out of the werewolf who stabbed his sister while the pink and black haired wolf circled them, waiting for her chance at him.
“Do you think she is here?” I whispered, looking up at her darkened bedroom window, the curtains were hanging out of the open window.
Romeo sniffed. “Yeah, she’s here.” He turned to me and unknotted my tie before unbuttoning the top buttons of my dress shirt and jerked it back from my shoulder. “She marked you as hers,” he whispered.
I nodded. “I did not realize that her feelings for me ran as deeply as mine ran for her,” I admitted in a pained whisper. “She was the first and only person I ever contemplated turning, simply so I could have forever with her.”
Romeo nodded and buttoned my shirt back up before smoothing it out for me. He forced a smile that fell before it even began. “Turning was obviously not needed in order to spend eternity together,” he reminded me.
“Wish me luck,” I tried to josh but failed miserably.
After a couple of deep breaths, I knocked on the front door and held my bollocks and breath. After a minute, I knocked again, harder that time.
“I know you are here, Duckie. Please talk to me!”
“Go to Hell!” she yelled.
“No, I am already in Hell. I am so sorry. Please, allow me feebly attempt to explain my actions,” I pleaded.
The front door flew open and she glared at me.
“You’re sorry?” she scoffed. “Sorry? Screw you, you animated corpse!” she yelled and stalked towards me and I retreated backwards, away from the fuming woman. “Don’t call me. Take your damn car back...take everything back that you bought! I don’t want you in my life, or anything that reminds me of you!” she yelled.
“Please,” I stammered.
“Don’t,” she snarled. “Need I remind you that I am the one of inferior birth, thus you shouldn’t be lowered to groveling or pleading to the likes of a bitch mutt like me!” she said so venomously that I was terrified. Then she slammed her open palm into the center of my chest, sending me flying through the air, my progression only stopped by the windshield of my Range Rover.
The front door slammed shut behind her.
“Ow,” I groaned. “I do not think that went very well.”
“You think?” Romeo snorted. “She totally kicked your ass.”
“I deserved it, and then some,” I dryly agreed. He helped me out of the windshield. “I am going to walk home...I must clear my head. Can you take me car back?” I asked, handing him the keys.
“What about her car?” he asked.
“It is hers, not mine. Leave it.”
“Do you want me to tell Mom?” he whispered.
“She already knows,” Mum growled from behind us. “Tanis, we need to talk.”
Bloody hell. This was not a conversation that I wanted to have just yet.
“Yes ma’am,” I mumbled and took her offered hand and escorted her to the road.
Once we were out of earshot, I started before she could, “I f*cked up.”
“Yes, you did,” she dryly agreed. “Why would you say such things, Son? I expect that from your brother and sister, but not from you. You are different, you are more human than most and yet you treated that poor girl as if she was a damn slave. I have never been more embarrassed and ashamed in my life than I am of your actions tonight.”
Holy hell, that is saying a lot considering who me siblings are.
“Tanis, you love Jay Dee, correct?”
“Unequivocally,” I automatically answered.
“You cannot change the past,” she informed me. “What is done is done, and said is said. If you wish to repent for your blasphemy, you are going to have to grovel and beg, and not give up. Jay Dee is a strong woman with a very strong mind, spirit, and soul. However, you have crushed her heart in ways that it has never experienced before.”
I winced; I was not worthy of her forgiveness.
“All pains can be healed, my precious one. The question is, how long do you plan on forsaking yourself to grovel at her feet?”
“As long as it takes,” I said without delay.
“You are no longer hindered by her mortality, so that could prove to be a very long time. However, if you wish to win back the love, but most importantly, the trust, of the woman you love, time will no longer matter to you. Day and night will cease to exist, and her forgiveness will become your only purpose in life. It is a very long and painstaking process, ask your father.”
“What should I ask Toran?”
“You know that I stabbed him?” she asked with a mischievous smirk.
I nodded.
“Do you know why I stabbed him?”
“No, he refuses to tell me the story,” I admitted.
“I will happily tell you the tale. Toran was the High Commander of the Finnish Legion of Vampires, this you know. However, what you do not know is that he was a real piece of egotistical shit, to say the least. My lovely husband thought that he could take whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, and didn’t think twice about it or the consequences behind his actions...when he drank. While he was visiting Western Russia, one of the Pashas ordered a caravan of concubines and I was one of them, stolen from my bed while I slept, my husband’s throat slit so he couldn’t fight them.”
I gasped; that was news to me.
“We were paraded in front of the men like slabs of meat at auction. I still have nightmares about it. However, when I remember that I stabbed one of them, it makes me smile and feel slightly better. Sorry, I am getting distracted. Your father was one of the men being entertained by the Pasha, and nearly all of them tried to claim me, naturally. Toran was unarguably the best fighter, and they were not going to risk a beheading over a woman. I was chained and taken to his quarters, and when he came in and tried to bed me, I stabbed him in the chest.”
“Oh,” I said in a choked whisper.
“I did not know what Toran was, and imagine my surprise when the bastard did not die. Instead, he snapped back, fangs and all, and bit me. Once I woke with the hunger, I was irate. It was rather interesting I suddenly disappeared in a cloud of smoke,” she said with a chuckle. “Toran turned me accidentally, it was never his objective of course, he was merely trying to nurse his wounded pride since he was bested by a concubine.
“Whether it was pity or guilt, I still do not know, but he professed his dedication to me and swore to be by my side and protect me from those who wished to do me harm. I did not understand his words or where his concern was coming from, and when I ran from him and was nearly consumed by the sun, I was even more livid. I did not say one word to him for many years. I hated him. Hated what he did to me. Hated what he made me. Hated the way he looked, tasted, smelled, his voice...simply his presence irritated me to levels of madness that were stab-worthy. Every day of every hour he apologized, for everything, even that for which he was not responsible, and that made me want to stab him even more.
“Eventually, my distain turned to respect. From watching him and being by his side, I learned much about the man whom I now call ‘husband’. He is fearless and endlessly compassionate, determined and selfless, was a man of his word, and never once in the years that I was by his side in silence did he touch me or try to get into my bed. Eventually, I told him to stop apologizing, and if he wanted to make amends, then do so. Toran tracked down the men whom took me and killed my husband, and he slaughtered them and freed their caravan of captives...I will admit, it was more than I thought he was going to do,” she mumbled the latter and I tried to keep from chuckling. “Eventually, I agreed to marry him after another century, and we have been together since.”
I nodded. “Mum, you are seriously twisted and stubborn.”
“Indeed I am,” she agreed with a smile.
“Do you think Miss Jay Dee will eventually forgive me?” I whispered.
“I do not know,” she admitted. “You two are truly destined to be together, however, what you said was very harsh and it broke the young girl’s heart. Miss Jay Dee is so much like you, my precious one. She does not enjoy the life of immortality in which she was born, yet she is doing the best she can through unimaginable odds. Miss Jay Dee smiles and tries to play peacekeeper, even to those who wish her harm and do not respect her. From what her mum was saying, she has always turned the other cheek, even when she should not. However, you hurt her on a level that she cannot simply turn away from, or overlook. You were her first, the one she gave herself to, the one she marked as hers and only hers for all eternity, and she asked for nothing from you in return. Openly, Jay Dee gave you her heart, love, trust, soul, and body. You gave the same, but then you snatched them away, leaving her questioning everything about herself. Even I would not forgive you so readily for that.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled and she pulled me to a stop.
“Tanis, be the man that I know you are. Miss Jay Dee saw the wonderful man beneath the surface, and he is the man she fell in love with, not the cynical a*shole whom is bitter at the world and hates everyone around him. Jay Dee fell in love with the Tanis Ashton that I see when I look upon you, the Tanis that you keep from the world in fear of your brother and sister ruining him. You deserve to be happy, as does she, and if you make each other happy, then come hell or high water, somehow you will make amends and she will accept you back.”
“Do you truly believe she will forgive me?”
She smiled warmly. “I pray she will. I must admit, I was scared that, with their commonalities in mechanics, cars, and heaters, that it may have been the other one, as much as I love him and want to see him happy as well, but I prayed for centuries that it was you. You, my precious one, deserve her love and to be happy more than anyone.”
My brow furrowed. “Huh?” I asked, scratching my head.
“I think we need to go shopping through the catalog!” she beamed with a face-consuming smile, changing the subject. “I know the perfect piece.”
“Thanks, Mum,” I whispered and hugged her tight. “Perhaps I should take up praying as well.”
“Possibly, it might help. Word to the wise, my precious one,” she whispered in my ear. “If the girl will not talk to you, talk to those whom the girl talks.”
I nodded my understanding: Jarvis, Yahto, and Cain were going to become my new best friends, and fast.