Chapter 14
Viviane’s POV
I dig in my heels, but it doesn’t do any good. Caspian pulls me along as if I weigh nothing, oblivious to my resistance. He’s almost feral, his wolf so close to the surface that his temperature rises noticeably. His body scorches mine, even through our clothes.
I can’t go to a doctor. They’ll take one look at me and know I’m not a shifter. I have to stop him.
“Caspian wait.” I beg once we’re outside. “You don’t have to do this. I’ll tell you.” I put as much mermaid song into my voice as is possible without actually breaking into a melody.
I might not be able to spellbind people, but all myths begin with a seed of truth. My voice was made to put men at ease, to soothe and enrapture, lure and beguile. The effects don’t linger after the sound dissipates, but the allure can be very powerful so long as the notes hang in the air.
Caspian pauses, his jaw working in frustration. “Alright.” His musclebound arm tightens around my waist, “Tell me.”
I adopt a placating tone, flattening my palms against his broad chest. “I can see, my eyes are just sensitive to light.” I explain, “Or they used to be. I don’t know when it got better, I think I just got so into the habit of wearing the glasses, it never occurred to me to take them off.”
“Mmm,” something between a purr and a growl rolls through his chest. “You mean you got so used to hiding behind them.”
I shrug, “maybe.”
“Not anymore.” Caspian commands. “No more hiding – not from me.”
I bristle slightly, feeling unusually petulant. “It’s not like it worked anyway.”
An indulgent grin transforms his face, “It was a good effort.” His praise inspires a rare burst of self-satisfaction in my heart, and I swell with pride. Unfortunately it fades almost as quickly as it came on, “And your animal?”
I’d almost forgotten the doctor’s visit was not solely about my vision. Caspian is observing me closely, waiting for the explanation he’s been seeking from the moment we met. “What difference does it make?”
His eyes glint with warning, “You agreed to tell me, kitten.”
I shift restlessly, and my soft curves brush against Caspian’s hard angles. “I know.”
“I don’t care what you are.” He proclaims. “But there cannot be secrets between us, Viviane.”
Anxiety latches onto my insides, twisting them into vicious knots. This is impossible. Caspian will know if I lie, and I certainly can’t tell him the truth.
But maybe there’s another way – a way to ease his curiosity without answering his questions.
I peer up at him from beneath my long, dark lashes. “I think it’s time you see where I live.”
Caspian’s POV
By the time we reach Viviane’s apartment building I’m starting to rethink my edict about ‘no more hiding’. It was disturbing enough when everyone at the Games was staring at my mate as if she was a piece of meat, but the idea of my little cat-shifter walking through this neighborhood without her glasses makes my hackles raise.
She lives on one of the most crime-riddled streets in the city, and the idea of leaving her here for even one more night makes me feel ill. My father has worked for years to develop this corner of Asterion, but the inequality holding the area captive goes back decades.
It’s even worse inside. The run-down flat is the size of a shoebox: one bedroom with a hybrid kitchen and living area, and a single bathroom. Half the lights don’t work, the floors creak and the walls are damp with mold.
Viviane’s mother, Marina, greets me as warmly and elegantly as any society hostess, despite the fact that they have nothing to offer. She seems terribly weak, and appears so shocked by my presence I fear she might faint, but Viviane helps her sit and brings her a glass of rust-colored tap water.
Marina lacks the ethereal fragrance of my fated mate, the unique blend of mountain heather and ivy, fresh air and rainfall. But they share the same base scent: distinctly feline but unlike any cat-shifter I’ve ever met.
I’m beginning to think they must be a rare breed from distant lands– snow leopards perhaps. However I cannot bring myself to ask, not when Marina’s aroma is polluted with the unmistakable tang of illness.
“It’s an honor to have you in our home.” She is saying, “I do hope everything is alright.”
I glance back and forth between mother and daughter, the former boasting a tremulous smile, the latter wound tight as a spring. “More than alright.” I profess, “I’m very happy Viviane has finally introduced us.”
In reality I’m ashamed to admit how little I’ve thought of Viviane’s family. I’ve been so focused on winning her that I haven’t taken the time to learn much about her, or consider the implications of the information I already possess.
Before today all I knew was that Nerissa was once her step-sister. I never bothered to ask what happened between their parents, or why their own relationship is so hostile. Now that I see the poverty in which Viviane and Marina live, compared to the wealth I know Mordred to possess, I have to wonder just how bad the marriage was.
“I did not realize you were acquainted with my daughter.” Marina admits.
I catch Viviane in my crosshairs, unsurprised but also not letting her off the hook. She shoots me a pleading look, shaking her head ever so slightly back and forth. Unfortunately for her, I have no intention of showing mercy. “Tsk, tsk.” I scold, “Sweetheart, you didn’t tell your mother you found your mate?”
The lush amenities of the pack house seem downright vulgar after the tattered and worn furnishings of Viviane’s apartment. Even the simple fixtures in my father’s study look extravagant in comparison, and I feel a peculiar urge to tear the room to shreds.
The pack enforcers are on their way, investigators who I can trust to get to the bottom of my mate’s circumstances. No one should live in such conditions, but I cannot recall meeting anyone who deserves hardship less than Viviane and Marina.
It’s clear my kitten came by her tender heart honestly. Marina was visibly taken aback to learn about our relationship, but she was more friendly and welcoming to me than my own mother ever was.
My parents were fated mates, but theirs was one of the rare bonds that formed without mutual affection. My mother was already in love with another shifter when she met my father, and over time the bond destroyed them both.
My father was so head over heels in love he let my mother get away with murder, turning a blind eye to her affairs and abuse, weathering her hatred with unflagging devotion. She never forgave the Alpha for ruining her life, stealing her from her chosen love and saddling her with a child she did not want.
She despised me almost as much as she despised my father. In her eyes we were one and the same, “Leave me alone,” She would hiss, locking me in the cupboard so she wouldn’t have to see the constant reminder of her misfortunes – for that’s all I was to her. “You don’t get to be rewarded just for existing. If you want something from me you have to earn it.”
“You’re going to turn out just like Jasper, I can already tell.” I’ll never forget the way she used to spit my father’s name as if it was a curse. “You’ll impose your will no matter what anyone else wants, you’ll take and take until the people around you have nothing left to give, and you’ll still ask for more.”
Her words have stayed with me every day of my life, but the most painful memories are the ones in which she proved herself capable of profound affection, just not for me.
It might have hurt less if she was universally heartless, but with those she truly loved my mother was kind, nurturing and attentive. She used to dote on her brother as if he, and not I, was her son. James is only a few years older than me, he could have been the brother I always dreamed of having if things had been different. Instead he was raised as a cherished treasure, and I was raised as unwanted trash.
Until I met Viviane I never understood my father’s unconditional love for his mate. I thought his obsession with her was insanity. I believed the mate bond was a cruel trick of nature, engineered by the Gods to punish shifters for the wrongs of our ancestors.
I know better now. My father wasn’t crazy, he was simply a wolf who hadn’t known he was incomplete until he found his other half. Now that I’ve found my own missing piece, I appreciate his devotion, his powerlessness to resist her.
That is the only part of his story I intend to repeat. My mate might not love me yet, but I refuse to make her hate me. I have to do whatever I can to make her happy, and that begins by getting her out of that hovel.
“I want to know everything.” I decree when the enforcers are finally in front of me. “Not a single stone is to go unturned.”
The investigators diligently take down my directives, drafting notes in identical black binders. The chief enforcer looks to me for clarification, “About the divorce?”
“About their entire lives.” I correct coldly. “Every detail – from the day Viviane was born, until the hour you turn in your report. Leave nothing out.”
