Shadow Kissed (Magic Side: Wolf Bound 4) - Page 19

Laurel reached out and placed her hand on my arm. “All of you. You may not believe it, but your mother and I…we weren’t like sisters, but we had an understanding. A closeness, even. We both loved your father so much, and that gave us common ground.” Her hand dropped away. “I’ll try to remember that. After your parents died, and I thought I’d lost you, too, I let bitterness get the best of me.”

I wanted to leave it there, as if her feud with the pack had been about her brother, but I couldn’t. I knew better.

My gut tightened with the fear of what I’d learn. “Your issues with the wolves go deeper than that. You’ve got dossiers on dozens of North American packs. And you’ve been keeping them updated.”

She flinched, and shock and anger crossed her face. “What were you doing snooping in my office?”

I squared my shoulders, trying to hide the guilt and shame. I’d trespassed and violated Laurel’s privacy, but the information she’d collected on the werewolves was dangerous and motivated by bad intentions.

“I was desperate. I was trying to deal with becoming a werewolf. I asked you about my mother over and over, but you were hiding something. I was looking for anything I could find about her, anything to explain what was happening to me. I didn’t expect to find…werewolf profiling.”

Her signature crackled. “You shouldn’t have gone in there. You had no right.”

Unwilling to back down, I balled my fists in frustration. “You should have told me the truth about my mother when I asked. You had no right to keep my heritage from me. What I did was wrong, but that doesn’t make your lies or stacks of dossiers any more ethical.”

Laurel pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose and slumped back against the wall. “I know.”

A long, stiff silence dragged out between us before she finally sighed and looked out the window. “It doesn’t make me any less culpable, but your grandfather collected most of that information. Knowledge is power, and I’ll admit I’ve made use of it, even added to it. But only ever to protect our family and our interests. Your grandfather had different intentions, but I swear to you, I’m not him.”

My stomach twisted, and bile rose in my throat. He’d died fifteen years before, but I’d met his ghost lurking in her office. He’d called me a dirty little half-breed snoop, claimed that Laurel would skin me alive if she caught me in there. “He hated my kind.”

Laurel’s jaw stiffened. “Your grandfather…he is part of the reason we have the reputation we do. He was a loyal but hard man. And when it came to the werewolves, he was bitter, vengeful, and filled with hate. If he could have wiped the Laurents out, I think he would have.”

I was glad I’d never met the bastard while he was alive. I dug my nails into my palms. “Why? Why do we have this feud?”

She looked at me with broken eyes. “The death of his brother. Before that, the death of a Laurent, and before that, a LaSalle. It goes a long way back.”

A cycle of hate repeating over and over. Like the death of Jaxson’s sister, Stephanie, and the plans on Billy’s wall to kill our whole family.

Laurel stepped up and took my clenched hands. “But I’m not him, Savannah. Your mother changed that. Your birth changed that. I had to change.”

“He was why my mom and dad left,” I whispered.

She nodded, tears brimming in her eyes. “In part. If he knew that your father had fallen for a wolf, he’d have hunted them both down.”

“I know. I found the photo album on the shelf. And the letter from my dad.” I fought back my own tears and anger. If it weren’t for my bigoted grandfather, life might have been different for them. For me.

She worked her hands into mine. “It was the wolves, too. Your father was just as afraid of them as he was of your grandfather. Maybe it had something to do with this prophecy. All I know is that this feud took my brother and sister-in-law from me, and I thought it had taken you, too. I hated them all for that.”

“If this feud took so much from you, and if you’re not like your father, then why do you still have stacks of files on werewolves? Why can’t you just let it go?”

Laurel stood and fetched a copper teapot from the cupboard, and began filling it. She set it down hard on the gas stovetop and leaned against the oven. “Insurance. The pack hasn’t been kind to us, and the Laurents have been at our throats since our family settled on this island. Jaxson’s father, Alistair, is much like mine. Though you may know Jaxson, so do I. And I’m not certain that he’s that much different from his father.”

Frustration tore at me. I didn’t believe that. I’d never met Jaxson’s father, but I knew who Jaxson was. Every day we’d spent together, I’d seen more and more of his soul.

“I don’t care what you think you know. He’s brave, he’s loyal, and yes, he can be ruthless. But he’d do anything to protect his pack, even swallow the death of his own sister.”

Laurel’s shoulders wilted. “That was a horrible accident.”

Unable to face that story right now, I shoved it out of my mind and crossed my arms. “Ending this feud would protect our family and theirs. So end it.”

Laurel gave me a mournful look. “You’ve changed so much since you first showed up on our doorstep. If you can do that, if you can adapt to all this madness, then maybe there’s some hope for the rest of us.”

I opened my mouth, but at that moment, Casey trudged into the kitchen halfway through a giant yawn. He patted me on the head as if I were a favorite family pet. “Hey, Cuz.”

Casey made his way around me and pulled a box of Count Chocula out of the cabinet. He paused midway through setting it on the counter and looked between me and Laurel. “Wait, what are you doing here? Did you two make up?”

Laurel, her sad expression hidden at the first sight of him, gave him a kiss on the cheek as she fetched two mugs and a box of loose-leaf tea. “We did. Or we’re getting there, I hope?”

She glanced at me, and my chest loosened.

Laurel accepted what I was and had forgiven me for what I’d done. She loved me, and she was willing to change. We might not agree on everything, but we’d cleared the air, at least. “We’re all good, but I’d better get going.”

“By the way, did you ever figure out what that key I gave you was for?” Laurel asked as I turned to go.

The key. Damn, I’d forgotten about it. My mother had given it to Laurel, and Laurel to me. I rummaged through the coin pouch of my wallet and pulled the tiny gold-plated key out. It was a peculiar shape, with an ornate G on it. “I haven’t had a chance. You have no idea?”

Laurel shook her head. “It was just for safekeeping. She didn’t say.”

“That thing?” Casey asked through a spoonful of cereal. “That’s a key to a safety deposit box.”

Laurel and I looked to my cousin, who stood there with mussed hair and a dribble of milk on his chin.

“What?” he asked, suddenly confused.

I held the key up. “You’re telling me that this key is to a lockbox?”

He nodded and shoveled another spoonful of sugary cereal into his mouth. “Yeah. That’s what I said. That one belongs to Gold Trust Credit on Sixty-Third and Razorback.”

Holy crap. My cousin was either a genius or full of shit.

Laurel folded her arms over her chest and lifted a brow at her son. “And how do you know this?”

“Because I have boxes all over town. I use them for…uh, you know. Keeping stuff?”

I wrapped my arms around Casey and gave him a squeeze. “I love you.”

His spine straightened, and he looked down at me suspiciously. “Who the hell are you, and what have you done with my cousin?”

Tags: Veronica Douglas Magic Side: Wolf Bound Fantasy
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