Book Cover created in acrylic by the extremely talented @therealpaul
If you have not read the first book of the series, "Reborn", it is advisable you do so before reading "Renewal" or you will be lost. This link will provide you with a series summary as well as all sixty-eight chapters of Reborn
Chapter Thirty-One
Anna walked towards the house on shaky legs, willing her heart to slow. He’s not a monster, she soothed her quaking heart, once he sees it’ll be okay.
She stopped at the front porch, listening for Bonnie. She heard rustling in the direction of the guest room and pressed forward, pushing open the front door quietly.
Jared followed as silently as a cat and they managed to climb the stairs without alerting Bonnie to their presence.
She eased open the door to her dad’s room and she didn’t have to look at Jared to know what his expression would show. The scent of shock poured through the room.
“Anna?”
Her dad’s weak voice drifted from the bed and she crossed the room and sat on the edge.
“It’s okay dad, I just wanted to check on you,” she told him in a voice that was foreign to her. He moved his hand on top of hers and she bent over and kissed his forehead, tears spilling down her cheeks as she breathed the scent of his failing body. When his breathing deepened once more she stood and met the utterly bewildered eyes of her mate.
She slipped from the room and led him down the hall to her own room.
Once inside she sat down on her bed and watched as he took in his surroundings. A muscle in his jaw began to tick and he turned toward her, his face ashen. His eyes looked slightly wild and she knew she had to start explaining.
She swallowed thickly, reigning in her thoughts.
Truth time, she thought, and looked down at the floor as she forced the words out in a whisper.
"The first time I ever saw you I was lying on the floor at what I now know is called a gaming dungeon. You…,” she stopped for a moment and swallowed hard before continuing. “You strode into the place and killed the one who had brought me there, and right before you left you stood over me. Watching me die.” Tears slid down her face and she wiped them away to look up at his expression.
His eyes were wide with shocked recognition. His breathing seemed to labor and his mouth worked but no sound emerged. It was several seconds before he spoke in a voice filled with denial.
“No. That couldn’t have been you.” He shook his head fiercely and his eyes flashed as he raised his voice. “Humans don’t survive the change, not with their minds intact! This is some kind of act or game, what you’re saying isn’t possible!”
She stared at him and suddenly she was pissed off, fury filling her every sense. She jumped off the bed and thumped her fists on his chest as hard as she could. He grabbed her wrists and yanked her against him, his expression murderous, but she was far too furious to care.
She pulled in a breath and hissed up into his face. “IT’S IMPOSSIBLE! I SHOULD NOT EXIST! I should have died on that stone floor, or become some kind of deranged monster! I know this!” His grip on her wrists loosened and she pummeled his chest with her small fists, angry sobs pushing through her lips as she battered him.
Her anger dissolved into frenzied tears and she collapsed against him with a strangled cry, pushing her face into his chest as her knees went weak.
Jared gripped her forearms to keep her from falling as he trembled inside. He remembered the face of the dying girl. She had been pale and dirty, but the eyes- the eyes were the same. The eyes of the female he’d cared for long ago, the eyes of the girl he held right now. She had lied to him at every turn but the truth of this claim was evident. Not just in her eyes, but in the man dying in the next room. Her human father.
She had been born human. It was almost as astounding as the fact that he’d bonded with her.
He released her and walked to the window looking out at the night sky. Stars dotted the dark expanse with misty clouds weaving through the glittering lights.
You would do this, he thought with no small amount of resentment, the words directed at the Deity he’d stopped talking to long ago. Why? To force me to forgive? He glanced at Anna who had climbed on her bed and curled into a ball. Because of the bond he could feel her fear and sorrow as if it were his own.
She looked over at him through blurry eyes and spoke softly. “I understand if you don’t want me now. I should have told you. I lied because I knew how you felt about humans, I knew about your girl and your family. And all I’ve done since I’ve known you is prove you’re right about them. Lying and stealing and lying some more.” Her voice broke. “I’m so sorry. I love you…so much it hurts.”
He stared at her but couldn’t respond, not yet. It was too much to take in all at once. And then something occurred to him and his heart stilled. He turned toward her and spoke in a voice of broken glass. “What is he dying of?”
She looked up at him and her lips curved in a way that tore through him. She knew what he asked and its answer-
“Something that’s far beyond my skill to heal.”
He waited for more.
Her lip trembled and she whispered, “My mother died three and a half years ago, and he mostly died with her. He has a brain tumor, he didn’t tell me, I didn’t know until…” her voice hitched. “That’s why I left so fast, he’s the one I tried to call in the tavern that day but it went to voice mail. And the woman whose phone I used saw me in the department store and told me he had called, so I used her phone to call him and Bonnie answered and told me he was dying.” Her breath rushed out on the word.
“I was going to heal him.” The tears came again. “But he wants to die. He wants to. And I don’t want to let him.” She let out another anguished sound and buried her face in the blanket.
His heart squeezed painfully as he digested her words. Suddenly it dawned on him how young she was. She was turned in the summer-he did a quick calculation from what he knew of humans. She was likely no more than nineteen or twenty years. Oh God, she’s just a baby.
His eyes dropped to his hands and he stared at them, stricken. He flexed his fingers and his stomach lurched as he thought of what they had almost done. If it hadn’t been for that nurse...his chest constricted. He looked back at her and whispered hoarsely, “Does he know about you?”
She shook her head.
His gaze swept her room once more, this time landing on a photograph of what appeared to be her at the age of ten, standing in between her parents. They were all smiling broadly and his heart tightened painfully at the evidence of their happiness. Just a few short years ago.
He walked to the bed and sat down, the mattress groaning beneath his weight.
He reached out and smoothed his hand over her hair. His thoughts were in complete turbulence, his mind having a great deal of difficulty absorbing the situation. In seven hundred years he’d never heard of a human surviving the change as a sentient being. A human, he thought again, the irony so thick it threatened to choke him.
He tipped her face to meet her eyes. “I need you to tell me everything. I know that you’re hurting but until a few minutes ago I thought you might be working with the damned as some kind of spy, and now I need to reform all of my opinions. I can’t do that without your help. And Anna please, no more lies. From now on, you tell me the truth no matter how much you think I won’t like it. Because I can assure you I will like a lie far less.”
She nodded mutely as his words sunk in. A spy for the damned? No wonder he’d despised her.
He situated them so his back was against the wall and she was on his lap resting in the crook of his arm.
She studied his profile thinking that it seemed she would eternally be made to repeat this story, always with a little more to add. She began in a resigned way. “When I was sixteen years old I saw my first “shadow man”…
She finished a long while later and waited for him to say something. He had not commented during the entire monologue and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. She’d left nothing out. She hadn’t detailed her sexual experiences with Austin and Jack, but she’d eluded to them enough for him to understand and had felt him stiffen each time. But he’d asked for the whole story and she’d given it, there were no more secrets on her side now.
He moved her gently off his lap, his expression still unreadable. “I have to go out for a bit,” he stated in a strange voice.
She nodded weakly, fear that he wouldn't return turning her inside out as she watched him stride from the room.
Generously created for me by @son-of-satire