Changed (Marked Duology Book 2) Read online

  “Well then, when is it going to be the right time, Jace? When I’m standing at the ceremony or whatever the heck it is with all of these random people I don’t know shooting death rays at me with their eyes?” I demanded. There was no way I was letting him get off that easy. I needed to know these things and I needed to know now. It was past time for me to get some answers.

  Jace shook his head and crammed his hands into his front pockets. “You really wanna know? You think you can handle it?”

  My chest tightened, but I nodded for him to continue, hoping he couldn’t sense how nervous I was.

  “You’re going to have to fight, Tessa. The only way you’ll gain their acceptance… is if you go up against Shelby in an actual fight during the Wolf Moon,” he said, without looking at me.

  My entire body began to tremble as the meaning behind his words sunk in. This was what Shelby had meant. This was how she would take her place the hard way. As if that wasn’t enough, a new thought broke through to the surface of my mind… we’d be in wolf form.

  “You expect me to fight her during a full moon?” I whispered hoarsely.

  “It’s called an Ordeal between the Betrothed and the Chosen.”

  “When were you planning on letting me know?” I asked, bringing my eyes to his.

  He took in a deep, pained breath and dropped his gaze to his shoes. “Soon. I just wanted you to make it through this next full moon first.”

  “Why, why does making it through every freaking full moon matter so much to you? Is it not pretty obvious to you that it doesn’t matter how slow you go in explaining all of this to me, it’s still going to be a lot to take in no matter what? I generally like surprises, but not this kind. So what happens during this Ordeal? It’s not a fight to the death is it?”

  “It could be, but it doesn’t always end that way,” Jace answered, and I thought my legs might give out.

  “What if I don’t make it?” Panic constricted my lungs, making it hard for me to breathe.

  Jace met my frightened stare with a serious expression of his own. “I have faith that you will.”

  “And if I don’t, then you’ve practically sentenced me to death,” I said, unable to meet his gaze any longer. Feeling void of any emotion, I dimly thought to myself: This must be what being in complete shock feels like.

  * * *

  I drove Jace home in complete silence. Shelby’s car was gone and the thought of her heading back home to prepare for our fight frightened me. Shelby was naturally intimidating and vicious, and I could only imagine what she would be like fighting in wolf form.

  “I love you, Tessa, and I wouldn’t have bitten you if I hadn’t thought that you were strong enough to handle it all,” he said reassuringly, a hopeful gleam in his eye.

  I stared at him, but I couldn’t bring myself to smile. In my mind I already felt powerless and defeated by Shelby. To know that Jace was so sure of me and what he thought I was capable of did nothing for me. When I didn’t reply to him, he gently closed my car door and strode toward the porch of his house without glancing back once.

  * * *

  I made it home five minutes past curfew and didn’t care whether or not my parents grounded me for being late. The TV’s blue glow lit the hallway when I stepped into the house. Mom sat on the couch with a blanket draped over her lap, holding the remote tightly.

  “You’re late,” she said when I flopped down on the couch beside her.

  I didn’t care if she yelled at me because right now that would be the only thing normal in my life, and at the moment I’d welcome anything normal. “I know.”

  I heard her take in a deep breath beside me and waited for her tight-lipped words to come.

  “I can’t let this go on any longer… you’re right, just because you wish for something not to be true, doesn’t mean that it goes away,” she whispered softly. “I know what Jace is and I know what’s happened to you.”

  My heart stopped and my lungs froze. I’d made a big stink about being able to handle stuff, and now it looked like the universe was getting ready to throw everything on me all at once.

  “I prayed every night Jace wouldn’t see that mark on your leg and realize what you were—a half-blood marked for change,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger. “I’d hoped your relationship would fizzle out before anything like this could happen, but it didn’t and now here we are having a conversation I never intended to have.”

  The words I’m sorry chimed through my mind, but I never said them because I didn’t feel they were mine to say. I simply stared at my mother, taking in her guilty expression. “Is that why you don’t like him, because you knew what he was all along? Why didn’t you warn me? Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Probably for the same reason you didn’t tell me anything—fear. Fear of what you’d think of me for keeping these secrets all your life, fear that if he hadn’t said anything to you you’d think I was crazy, and most of all the fear that you’d hate me.”

  Silence dragged out between the two of us as neither one of us could think of a sentence to fill the void.

  “We all make mistakes, we all have regrets, and at one point or another we let our fears control us,” mom finally said, her eyes filling with tears.

  My heart broke for her. I hadn’t given much thought as to how this entire situation would make her feel. I’d been selfish and only thought of myself. “I could never hate you,” I whispered, feeling my eyes begin to fill with tears from seeing hers.

  She gripped my hand and smiled. “Thank you.”

  “But how did you know what Jace was?” I wondered.

  Her smile fell. “I’ve never met an actual human who’s had that animalistic gleam in their eyes. It’s something I learned from gazing into your biological father’s eyes that I never forgot. Once you’ve recognized it for what it is, it’s easy to spot again.”

  I understood what she meant. There had always been something wild and animalistic reflected in Jace’s eyes. In retrospect, maybe that had been what drew me to him besides his obvious good looks.

  “What happened between you and my father?” I asked nervously, glad that she had mentioned him.

  “That’s a story that I think you should hear from the beginning,” she said, her eyes dropping to the floor as though she were suddenly drowning in her own memories.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I waited patiently for her to shuffle through old memories and begin speaking.

  “I was eighteen and thought I knew everything about the real world and couldn’t wait to get out in it. My parents had wanted me to go straight to college right out of high school, but I had no intentions of doing so.” She paused and looked down at her hands while taking in a deep breath. “I told my parents I was taking a year off, but after that year passed I still had no desire to go. They constantly began nagging me about when I would finally decide to go back, and I avoided answering the question for as long as I could. Until one day I gave them the answer they had never dreamed of—that I wasn’t going to college.

  “Shortly after the blowout that came after my confession, I packed up my things and left town, vowing to never speak to my stubborn parents ever again. I moved to a rural town in Montana with nothing besides a few cardboard boxes filled with my things and the dreams in my head of making it all on my own. I found myself a little apartment, which wasn’t much, but it was mine and that was all that mattered to me. I got myself a part-time job at a tiny florist shop and immediately fell in love with being surrounded by flowers and their heavenly scent. Over time I realized working part-time wasn’t paying all of my bills and feeding me well, so I took on a second job as a waitress at a little diner nearby.” Mom paused, she seemed to be waiting for me to say something, but I kept silent, not wanting to detour her from her thoughts, glad to finally be hearing this story.

  “On my first day at the diner four guys from the auto repair shop across the street came in for lunch and sat
in my section. I walked over to their table with nervous jitters fluttering in my stomach from it being my first day and that was when I first saw him, your father. He was tall and muscular with short dark-brown hair and the deepest brown eyes I’d ever seen before. They had instantly reminded me of melted Hershey’s kisses.” Her voice took on a wistful tone and for a split second the prick of a smile tugged at her lips. When she continued speaking again, it disappeared.

  “His name was Kale. I remember how it had been sown in blue thread across the pocket of his T-shirt. The same way that I can distinctly remember taking his order—an Italian sub with extra salami. I remember him asking me in a husky, but still somehow smooth, voice if I was new.” She paused as her lips quirked into that almost smile again. “I don’t remember my exact answer, but I do remember the feelings I’d felt in that moment. Before he’d even finished eating his lunch I’d been head-over-heels for him.

  “I spent the next three weeks on pins and needles, hoping every time he came in for lunch would be the time that he’d ask me out. When he finally did, I thought I might faint. His buddies had all walked out the door, but he had come back to the table as I was clearing it to leave a tip,” mom said, smiling once more. “I can still remember the excitement that went surging through me like an electric shock. He’d asked what time I got off, and I remember trying hard not to stutter as I told him I had to work a double that day because one of the other girls had called in sick. He’d smiled and said that would be fine, that he’d meet me here later and then walked away.

  “When I got off work that night he was waiting for me outside the building. He’d cleaned himself up and was wearing dark jeans and a gray T-shirt. We’d went for a walk through the darkened streets to nowhere in particular. My feet had been killing me from being on them for so long and I was exhausted, but the excitement of being with him had given me a second burst of energy. We ended up at a little coffee shop, and I was thrilled to sit down for a moment and let my aching feet rest.

  “It had been a good first date, but in retrospect the way he’d constantly been looking over his shoulder, like he was searching for someone following us, should have tipped me off. Later on in our relationship I began to wonder if he did that all the time because he was ashamed or embarrassed to be seen with me. I hadn’t been far off.” She frowned and I moved to sit Indian style beside her on the couch, waiting for her to continue.

  “The next day when Kale and his buddies came in for lunch I’d been so excited to see him again, but my excitement melted away quickly when I realized he could barely even look at me. He’d treated me like any other waitress all throughout his lunch, and nothing at all like we’d gone out the night before. I felt crushed. I remember wondering how I’d managed to mess up any hope of a relationship with him in the matter of one night.

  “But when my shift ended a little after five that night, he’d been standing outside, waiting on me with a smile on his face like nothing had happened. I remember how furious I’d felt and how I’d wanted to ignore him and keep on walking, but seeing his smile and seeing him look at me like that, I couldn’t. So, I noted his odd behavior as strange and filed it away in the back of my mind.

  “After three weeks of relatively the same pattern I began to realize that this was just the way Kale was. When he was with his buddies I was another cute waitress to cat-call at, but apparently not cute enough to tell your buddies you were dating. I felt like some big secret,” she muttered, shaking her head. “As horrible as I know this sounds, eventually I got used to it. No matter what he was like when his buddies were around, Kale was always so sweet to me when we were alone, and nothing in the world would have made me change my mind about spending time with him then.

  “Then one week he disappeared for two days straight, and I had no idea of how to get in contact with him. I didn’t have a number to call him at, I didn’t know where he lived, and I didn’t know anything about his personal life besides he worked across the street from the diner. That was when I realized how odd our relationship was.” Bringing her eyes to mine, Mom sighed. I smiled at her, hoping it came off as being reassuring so she would continue.

  “When Kale finally did come back things continued on the way they had been before he’d left, except I began to question his personal life. Every answer he gave me was short and vague. If I had been smart, I would have left then, but I wasn’t smart when it came to Kale because I thought I loved him.

  “After a few days my desire for answers seemed to fade away into the back of my mind, and I allowed myself once again to get lost in our strange relationship. And over the next few months nothing about our relationship changed, except for my building insecurities about myself. Kale continued to disappear for two days each month and never answer my questions about where he would vanish to. I never once saw where he lived and I never once got a phone number where I could reach him.

  “I began to wonder all of the usual things a girl finding herself in a situation like mine would wonder. Was he married? Did he have another girlfriend? When none of these seemed to be the reason behind his strangeness, I thought again that he was ashamed to be with me or embarrassed by me in some unfathomable way that I couldn’t grasp.

  “At night, when Kale wasn’t around, I’d cry myself to sleep, sickened beyond words with myself because I couldn’t break the invisible chains spurring directly from my heart that bound me to him. I knew our relationship wasn’t healthy, but I couldn’t stand to tear myself away from him. So, I continued on as though those feelings inside of me didn’t exist.” Mom paused for a moment, obviously catching her breath. I noticed her eyes had begun to fill with tears again and I bit my bottom lip, fighting back my own sudden urge to cry for her.

  “One night while we were lying in bed beside each other he turned to me and asked me if I really wanted to know the truth, the whole truth about him and where he disappeared to every month. Of course I told him that I did, because at that point I was beyond caring about whatever it was that he had been hiding.

  “I’ll never forget the look on his face. He seemed to be fighting an unseen battle inside of himself, struggling against himself with the decision to tell me or not. I remember sitting beside him at the edge of my bed, comforting him and telling him that no matter what it was he had to say it would never change the way I felt about him. The look he’d given me when those words spilled from my lips was incredible. His eyes had grown so wide and loving that I’d felt I could drown in the endless depths of them.

  “He’d poured his heart out to me that night, explaining everything from where he disappeared to each month to what he was, from the title in his pack he held to the girl he was betrothed to and why there could never be a future for us because I was merely human and his life was about to change forever in just another year—the year of his twenty-first birthday.” She stopped talking then, and I knew from the look in her eyes she was waiting for me to say something again. Deep inside I knew this would be the perfect moment to tell her about Jace and how in just two short months he would be taking over his father’s position as Pack Leader, but I couldn’t. Learning how high up in the werewolf world my father had been was enough to make my heart lurch to my throat, cutting off my ability to speak. When I didn’t speak, she continued.

  “Hearing all of that still hadn’t been enough to push me away from Kale. We continued to see each other just like always, only now things went a little more smoothly because I knew his secret. I lived a double life. By day I was just another human girl, and by night I was the absolute love of a werewolf’s life.

  “I did ask him at one point why he couldn’t change me, because if I were just like him, then we wouldn’t have to hide anymore. He’d told me it wasn’t like in the movies, that it wasn’t that simple. You were either born a werewolf or you were a half-blood marked for change and then bitten. Since I was neither it was just more ammo for why we had no future.

  “Two weeks after our one-year anniversary I’d finally decided to ca
ll it quits. Kale had disappeared for another full moon, and I’d made up my mind that when he came back I’d free him from this shameful relationship he was so embarrassed about. Only I never got the chance to tell him any of that, because the day he came back was the day I found out that I was pregnant with you.” She took my hand into her cold one, and I could see tears pooling in her eyes again.

  “I didn’t cry when I found out, because in my own selfish way I thought having you might be the bond that tied us together forever. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  “The next night when he came over, I told him. As the words ‘I’m pregnant’ came from my mouth a look of pure rage burned within his eyes and splashed across his face. Becoming enraged by my news, he smashed his fist on my dining room table with such force splinters of wood went flying as it cracked. I stared at him, feeling the most shocked I’d ever felt in my entire life. I remember asking why he was so angry and his exact words had been: ‘I’ll never raise a half-blood; it’s a disgrace.’ I lost count of how many times he told me to get rid of you, that he wanted no part in this,” she said, her hand squeezed mine and then released.

  I swallowed hard and blinked away the tears that filled my eyes. I had been unborn and still completely unwanted by my father.

  “I tossed and turned so much that night. When I finally found enough strength later on the next afternoon to crawl out of bed, I found an envelope with my name scrolled across the front resting on top of my broken dining room table. Inside was a piece of paper folded around a stack of money. I can remember to this day exactly what that letter said:

  Here’s some money to take care of that problem. You should have enough left over for a fresh start somewhere else.

  It had been signed Kale Hunter.”

  We sat in silence for a little while—me processing and mom recuperating. I knew I really should say something, anything, but no words would come.