Queen Bitch of the Callowwood Pack (Siren Publishing Classic) (35 page)

She’d settled on scrubbing the grease off of her stovetop when someone knocked on her door. Julianna removed her rubber gloves and strode into her living room, pausing as she looked at the door. Gut instinct warned her to be careful, and she inhaled deeply.

Emotional scents of fear, sorrow, and regret flowed around the edges of the door, and a flicker of unease shot through her body. Frowning, she stepped up to the door and opened it slowly. Sebrina stood waiting nervously outside with her hands knotted in her skirt until the knuckles showed white. Julianna had never seen the Paiute woman look so uncomfortable.

“Hello, Sebrina.” Julianna eyed her carefully. “Are you all right?”

“I must speak with you, daughter.” The other woman’s voice rasped in the silence.

“All right. Won’t you come in for some tea?”

Sebrina stared at Julianna for a long, solemn moment then nodded and stepped across the threshold. She glanced around the small living room, but she didn’t seem to see anything that interested her as she shuffled into the kitchenette to stand beside the table.

“Please, sit down.” Julianna pulled out a chair. “You look worried, Sebrina. Is everything all right?” She took her time preparing a teaball while the kettle boiled, hoping the horrible tension in the kitchen would fade a little.

“I must tell you a story, daughter, before tomorrow night, so you understand who you are,” Sebrina whispered. The stench of miserable fear filled the small space.

“Okay.” Julianna sat down across the table. “What story?”

Sebrina studied Julianna’s face, saying nothing, her expression stoic. Julianna felt like she’d jump out of her skin. Silence stretched between them, and the tension increased to a screaming pitch. When the teakettle began to whistle, Julianna jumped, scrambling to fill her teapot with the steaming water. She tried to keep her unease from shaking her entirely, but Sebrina’s continued silence ate at her calm.

“Tea?” Julianna presented Sebrina a mug.

The Paiute woman nodded and took the cup, wrapping her hands around it as if she felt cold.

“Many years ago, now,” Sebrina said as Julianna sat down, “I met a man who made my heart shiver. He was tall, strong, and handsome, with midnight black hair and blue, blue eyes. He looked at me like I was the most beautiful woman in the world, and though he was younger than me, he seemed oblivious to the markings of age on my body. He wasn’t so young by human standards, but his body was strong and unbroken, and I wasn’t as I am now.”

She rubbed the wrinkles on her hands meditatively.

“At that time, Indians were considered less than whites in this country, and this man wasn’t supposed to be interested in females like me.” Sebrina followed the grain of the wood in Julianna’s table with her fingers. “But he’d been teaching at a reservation school when I visited family who lived nearby. When I saw him, he captivated me with his beauty and strength, even if he seemed
old
in human terms.”

Julianna could relate. “How old was he?”

“I think he’d reached his sixties.”

“Wow.”

“Yes, it seems old to one as young as you, but there was nothing weak or feeble about this man. He caught my eye one day while I was walking through town. He offered to buy me a meal, and I couldn’t say no. He began to court me in a very old-fashioned way. He called at my family’s house and offered gifts to my relatives in honor of their hospitality.”

A small smile fluttered across Sebrina’s lips, but the sadness thickened.

“He did this for over a year, and I was flattered and enthralled with his tenacity and efforts. How could such a beautiful male want me, as old as I was? But after his courtship, he asked me to become his wife, and I could only agree because I knew him to be my True Mate, however strange it seemed for a Moon Singer to mate with a human.

“We married a month later, and we celebrated in the best way.” Sebrina’s smile broadened. “He was as hearty and strong as I always knew he’d be, and I rejoiced to be his wife.”

Despite this happy news, Sebrina’s face slid back into solemnity. Julianna’s congratulations died in her throat.

“Not everyone felt that way about our mating. Several humans in this town had no love for the Indians, and to them, I was not a person, not a Moon Singer, not even a woman. I was an
Indian
and no white man should pollute the race with a mongrel child from a squaw.”

Julianna’s anger kindled as Sebrina paused to sip her tea as if her throat had dried. Old prejudices infuriated her, but Sebrina’s memories couldn’t be changed.

“One night when I visited family, those humans took my husband and beat him nearly to death then left him in our small house and set it afire. He burned to death before I could get to him. I felt like I’d burned along with him, and only my family kept me out of the flames. I felt lost without him.”

Julianna blinked back tears as Sebrina’s grief crystallized before her.
Dear Goddess, how would it feel to lose Jeff?
She couldn’t even imagine.

“I’m so sorry, Sebrina.”

Sebrina seemed to come back to herself out of the mists of time and waved her hand dismissively. “It was long ago.” Again her face took on the stoic expression Julianna had learned meant she was uncomfortable with a topic. “But he left a piece of himself behind with me.”

Julianna frowned a little when Sebrina didn’t go on.

“What?”

“I realized I was pregnant.”

Julianna’s blood froze, and dread hit her gut.

“Without my husband, I felt so alone and lost. A Moon Singer surrounded by humans who cared not for our ways.” Sebrina gripped her mug like a lifeline. “I left that town and moved to the land around Callowwood to find a place to settle where no one knew me. The baby came when it should, but not as I expected.”

Sadness suffused her face, and she took a deep breath to continue. “The baby was human. Such a thing had never happened among our people in my experience, despite the Stories. I thought the baby would be a Moon Singer and born in its natural form. When it came out human, I panicked and left it on the front steps of a human temple of worship in Leland.” Now she looked down at her hands around her mug as if there was an interesting detail she’d missed.

“I left the baby there and didn’t look back. I thought it was best for the child.”

Julianna felt her stomach sink.

“What sex was the child?”

Sebrina closed her eyes. “It was a girl.”

“And this was, what? Thirty-six years ago?”

“Yes.”

Julianna let that news settle, her guts churning.

“Are you saying you’re my blood mother and you didn’t want me?”

Sebrina jerked as if she’d been slapped. “I was alone, and afraid, and you looked human. I didn’t know what to do with a human child.”

That didn’t make Julianna feel better.

“What would you have done if your husband had lived and I had been born a wolf?”

“I would have had time to tell him, to make him understand my true nature, and what to expect.” Sebrina shrugged with one shoulder. “But it didn’t happen that way.”

“No, it didn’t.” Julianna’s anger seethed.

“When I saw you in your true form, I realized you belonged to my family, to my line. Our family had been given a special marking to identify us as part of the First Canid’s family –”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Julianna held up her hand. “You’re part of the First Canid’s family?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t anyone say anything about it? Why didn’t
you
tell me?”

Sebrina shrugged again uncomfortably. “Most do not know. I have never mentioned it to anyone. Especially after my shame of abandoning my husband’s child. I only saw it on you when you changed. I’d given up my husband’s most precious gift and here you were, before me once again. I’m sorry.”

Through Sebrina’s recitation, Julianna’s throat tightened. Her disbelief gave way to vitriolic rage, and she rose to her feet, her mug clenched in her fist.

“How could you?” She closed her eyes, trying to find calm, but the fury won out. “How could you abandon me like that? I was so lost and alone at that orphanage. I got in trouble for wanting to play with my human littermates. It frightened me and I had to hide my lupine side to find a family. To find someone who’d love me, who wanted me. I had to deny my entire being so I wouldn’t be discarded!”

She stopped, and her eyes narrowed.

“Is that why you’ve been helping me? Because you feel guilty for leaving me on the church steps?”

“No, daughter, I’ve been helping you because you seemed so lost when you returned to Callowwood.” Sebrina regarded her solemnly.

“Why would
that
be? I’d been abandoned!” Julianna hurled the mug into the sink, and it shattered in a spray of pottery and amber liquid.

A thunderous silence filled her kitchen. Julianna burned with her anger, and she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, trying to find some serenity.

“Forgive me, daughter, for not understanding what a gift you were to the People, to me,” Sebrina begged softly. “I’ve seen you grow and learn and understand faster than I ever thought our People could. You make me proud, my daughter, and you make me grieve for what I gave up when I left you. I’m sorry.”

Julianna wanted to shout and scream at Sebrina, but it wouldn’t change the past or heal the hurt ripping at her heart. She tipped her head back and forced herself to breathe, just breathe.

When she’d gained a foothold on her fury, she opened her eyes and turned back to the silent Paiute woman. Sebrina seemed to have aged several years in those few moments. She looked small and vulnerable, and Julianna’s Sister wanted to go for the throat.

Incongruously, Julianna remembered Sebrina’s advice before she opened her mouth, and she made herself speak calmly, rationally, if not warmly.

“Did you live here in Callowwood the whole time I grew up with the Morrises?”

“No. I returned to my family for a time.”

“Why did you come back here?”

“I’d become friends with the previous Luna, and she offered me a place of honor within the pack.”

“You never thought about me? Wondered what had happened to me?”

Sebrina’s face crumpled, and she bit her bottom lip. “I couldn’t change the past and worrying about it only brought me pain.” She shrugged. “I assumed you’d been given to a human family and I’d made the right decision.”

Julianna felt ready to choke. “You never recognized me? Not even when I grew up?”

“No.”

Betrayal punched her in the gut, and tears pricked behind her eyes. She swallowed hard and nodded in defeat.

“I appreciate you coming by to tell me, but I’d like to be alone now. I need to get a lot done this evening.”

Sebrina rose to her feet and looked at Julianna for a moment before she nodded. Then she shuffled to the door, her shoulders hunched and her head down. In the doorway, she turned to look once more on Julianna with resignation. Julianna kept her face impassive, and Sebrina tightened her lips before retreating down the stairs. Julianna closed the door on her birth mother and stood for several long minutes, staring at nothing.

She felt like she’d been kicked in the teeth with all the emotions swirling through her.

“I’m gonna go take a shower,” she mumbled out loud, just to hear something in the oppressive silence.

Sebrina’s story had shaken everything she thought she understood about her childhood. She felt like someone had played 52 Pickup with her life and left her to reassemble the mess into order.
How appropriate. My life was nothing but a house of cards, gone with one deep breath.

Her emotions swirled in a kaleidoscope of color. Anger, hurt, and betrayal swarmed around surprise and disbelief. Frustration splashed its own brilliant slash across them all, and she gave up trying to analyze which emotion she felt. How
did
she feel about Sebrina being her mother?

About the same as I felt when I figured out I was a werewolf.
Julianna leaned her forehead against the tiled wall. She let the water cascade around her, soothing the hurts in heated waves. She hardly noticed the tears blending with the droplets on her face.

It makes sense now why I am a Moon Singer and my parents aren’t. But my birth father was human. Maybe that’s another reason I was able to suppress my Sister form as long as I did. Woo-hoo for me.

Why did you come out when you did, Sister? Why didn’t you just remain hidden?

Because it was time to be yourself. That stupid human had hurt you. You needed me. And you needed your Mate.

How did you know Jeff hadn’t mated by then?

Julianna felt her Sister’s mental shrug.
You needed your Mate.

Julianna slid down the wall and dropped her head onto her upraised knees, letting the water pound over her head. She desperately wished it would wash away the maelstrom of sentiment raging within her. She didn’t know how long she sat there, but she finally dragged her body out of the shower when the water turned cold.