CHAPTER FIVE
“Beth?”
Everyone else had gone to the office, ready to sit down together and talk about what was going on, but Jenny had whispered to Connor that she was leaving him to take Beth to join them when she was ready. Connor could already smell the fresh coffee and was sure Thomas would find doughnuts from somewhere.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, sitting down next to her and hoping that she’d sit up and look at him.
Beth shook her head, her hands folded in her lap.
“I want to help you, Beth,” he said honestly. “We all do. You don’t need to be scared of anyone.”
Hoping she wasn't going to jerk away from him, Connor gently pulled back the curtain of hair from one side of her face and tucked it around behind her hair. She shivered but didn't stop him. A little bolder now, Connor kept his hand on her shoulder, his thumb grazing the side of her neck.
“Please, Beth,” he continued quietly. “Just talk to me.”
Slowly, she looked up at him, her eyes finally meeting his. Something kicked him hard in the stomach as he kept his eyes on her face, slowly feeling the tension drain away from her shoulders.
“Just relax,” he murmured, still running his thumb over her soft skin. “No one here is going to hurt you.”
“You told them what happened?”
He couldn't help his grin. "I did. Ross has got a black eye he won't forget anytime soon."
There wasn’t even a flicker of a smile. “So, they believe you now?”
“Of course, they do,” he replied firmly. “Jenny was horrified, and I’m sure the others will be too. No one should be treated the way you were, not for any reason.”
Her jaw clenched and Connor saw her eyes fill. She was fighting tears.
“Come here,” he murmured, moving his hand to around her shoulders and pulling her into his chest. “You can trust me, Beth. You can trust us.”
She went willingly, putting her head into the curve of his neck. Connor could feel her breath tickling his skin but tried not to react, still confused over what exactly he was feeling for Beth.
“Do you think you can come to the office and talk to everyone?” he asked quietly. “I’ll be right there beside you, Beth. I promise that once you start it’ll be easier to keep going.”
For a few minutes, she didn’t respond, as though she was drawing her strength together.
“I can do it,” she eventually said, lifting her head and looking straight at him. “I know I have to be strong.”
Connor smiled at her, glad that she had a little more color in her cheeks. Getting to his feet, he held out his hand and waited for her to take it. She took one deep breath and got up, grasping his hand with a strength that surprised him.
“Let’s go,” he murmured, walking toward the door before she could change her mind. “You can do this, Beth.”
***
Beth thought she might be sick or, worse, faint. Everyone in the house except Connor was hostile toward her. She could smell it from them—not that she blamed them at all, after what she'd done to help Davidson. From their perspective, she looked entirely guilty.
There was a slight trembling in her limbs as she walked with Connor toward the office. At least he was there for her, although she didn’t deserve his kindness. The shaking intensified as she followed him into the office, dropping her hand from his grasp at the very last moment.
Five pairs of eyes looked up at her at once, and Beth had to force herself to stay exactly where she was. Her heart hammered in her chest, forcing her to take shallow breaths. I can do this.
“Beth.”
The shifter she recognized as Jenny got to her feet and came over to stand in front of her. Beth didn’t know where to look. If anyone had the right to hate her, Jenny did.
“Are you OK?” Jenny asked quietly. “You don’t need to be scared, Beth. I don’t hold anything against you.”
“You don’t?” Beth’s head shot up as she looked into Jenny’s face in astonishment. “But Davidson—he, I—”
Jenny shook her head and smiled. “Don’t worry about the past, Beth. From what Connor said, there’s more to your story than we first thought. Am I right?”
Swallowing hard, Beth nodded, not able to meet Jenny’s eye. “I am truly sorry for my part in things, Jenny.”
To her surprise, Jenny touched her arm, making her jump. “I can tell that you’re being honest, Beth. I appreciate it. I’m safe now and so are you. N0 one will be able to get at you now, not when we’re all on alert.”
“I hope so,” Ross rumbled, handing Beth a cup of steaming coffee. “There’s cream and sugar on the table. Help yourself. When you’re ready, come and sit down.”
Stumbling forward on legs that didn’t quite feel as though they’d bear her weight, Beth tipped in a little milk before glancing around the group. Thankfully, Connor caught her eye at once and tipped his head to the left to show her the empty seat next to him. He’d been waiting for her, keeping his word that he’d be there, right beside her.
Walking over quickly, Beth sat down and held her cup of coffee between her hands trying to warm them. Connor shuffled in his seat, his thigh pressing against hers. Strength practically oozed from him, and she drew it into herself. He was there for her. He’d protected her when he could have easily just let Stephen do what he wanted. Now was the time to start having a bit of courage, not letting fear rule her life like she’d always done in the past.
Silence filled the room, and Beth could feel some of the shifters watching her. She kept her head bowed, staring down at her coffee and just waiting for someone else to break the silence.
“So,” Ross said, eventually. “It’s been a bit of an eventful night. Let’s talk through what happened and then, Beth, perhaps you can tell us a bit more about your brother.”
She nodded, hating that she was going to have to tell them the truth but knowing that it was possibly the only way to find the help she’d been needing for a long time.
“Jenny and I heard your howl, Connor,” Ross continued. “That’s why we came out.”
"I heard it as well," Sarah replied. "I think I'd woken up earlier because I'd heard something, but I couldn't work out what it was, so I went back to sleep. Obviously, I wasn't in a deep sleep, because I heard your howl and woke Thomas up straight away."
“And I woke Ash up,” Thomas grunted.
Connor smiled ruefully. "It's just as well you all heard me because there was no way I could have attacked that dark wolf by myself. He's an alpha. I'm sure of it." He glanced over at Beth, seeing her nod. "And we know now that this is Beth's stepbrother,” he continued, emphasizing the word. “He had taken Beth out of the upstairs window and out into the woods, despite her protests.”
A slight frown crossed Ross’s face. “He was desperate to get you back, Beth, although Connor tells me that you weren’t interested in going with him. You struggled.”
Beth swallowed the lump of fear in her throat as she remembered what Stephen had done. “I woke up to find a gag in my mouth. I was so tired, I must have slept through the breaking glass, and then the next thing I knew, he was carrying me down a ladder to the ground.”
Jenny glanced at Ross, before looking at Beth. “And you didn’t want to go with him?”
Beth shook her head, firmly. “I’ve never liked my stepbrother.”
“But he wanted you with him,” Ross replied, his eyes darkening. “We won’t go into detail, but Connor told us that he was trying to get you to go with him by force.”
A rush of shame filled her entire being, heating her face. Beth dropped her head, hair swinging forward to cover her face from the rest of the shifters. “Yes,” she whispered, struggling with her emotions. “He’s always been like that.”
Connor gave Ross a barely perceptible head shake, putting one arm around Beth's shaking shoulders. They didn't need to talk about that anymore. It was enough for the others to know that Beth had been forced into leaving and that she had evidently wanted to stay.
“The reason I fought you, back at the East River pack, was because I had no choice,” Beth continued, her voice faint. “If you didn’t what Stephen said, then the punishment was pretty bad. I tried to defy him once . . .” She shuddered, violently. “I learned not to.”
Her ears pricked up as she heard a low growl coming from a few of the shifters. Her heart lifted just a little, as she realized they were angry over how she had been treated. Perhaps these shifters were different from the others in her pack.
“If you can,” Sarah asked gently, “can you tell us what you were doing with Davidson?”
Lifting her head, Beth set her shoulders. “Yes, I can.” Drawing in one deep breath, she tried to speak clearly and calmly, even though the memories came flooding in one after the other.
“My sister married Greg Davidson. She was my true sister, while Stephen was our stepbrother. We didn’t even know about him until I was in my late teens, and from the first moment we met him, neither of us liked him that much.” She gave a sad smile. “We were our own little pack, me, my sister, and my mother. We enjoyed our life, keeping to ourselves. When our stepbrother arrived, all that changed.” She knew she didn’t have to explain how they’d known Stephen was telling the truth. Shifters knew immediately when there were blood ties around them. They’d never questioned it, although it had come as something of a shock to their mother.
“What about your father?” Ash asked her, studying her intensely. “Wasn’t he around to confirm or deny it?”
Beth shook her head. “My father died when I was four years old.” Her smile became sad. “I barely remember him to be honest. He was really sick, but he wouldn’t go to the hospital.”
“I’m sorry,” Ash murmured, looking away.
Lifting her shoulders, Beth gave him a smile. “It’s OK. It was a long time ago. But that meant that we couldn’t ask him about Stephen or where he’d come from or when. We knew so little about him.”
“But you welcomed him in?”
Beth shook her head. “It wasn’t my idea, but my mother basically insisted that we do so. She said blood ties were always welcome, and, since we lived so far out in the country, we didn’t really have anywhere else for him to stay.”
Connor muttered something under his breath, as Beth took in a deep breath.
“My mother was sick too, but like my father, she didn’t want to leave her home. Stephen came across as such a caring, kind man, helping us with her, especially when she became bedbound. Both myself and Lucy, my sister, thought that he was wonderful, there to help us when we needed him the most.”
“So, you trusted him?” Jenny asked.
Beth nodded. They had. Both of them had trusted Stephen. She could still remember the tender way he had looked after their mother, even though she wasn’t his blood relative.
"Unfortunately, my mother passed away only a few months after my stepbrother arrived," she continued, her voice growing softer with the memories. "She'd been sick for a long time, and in a way, it was a bit of relief when she passed, but obviously it was still incredibly difficult for both myself and my sister."
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Jenny said quietly. “That must have been a devastating experience.”
"At that point, Greg Davidson was in my sister's life." A smile tugged at Beth's lips. "They were so much in love, even though she was a shifter and he wasn't. It was only after my mother passed away that Stephen began to show his true colors. He made it very obvious that he hated the thought of Lucy being a human." Beth was forced to close her eyes as she remembered how Stephen had roared at her sister but how strong she had been in refusing to do what he wanted. "He began to change from the person we both loved and trusted into a . . . a monster."
“Did Stephen hurt her?” Connor asked, frowning.
Beth felt her shoulders begin to shake as she dredged up the memories. “No, not at first. He was furious that she went ahead and married him anyway, saying things about her tainting the bloodline and things, but she just wouldn’t listen. Why would she? It was her life, and she had Greg to depend on. Stephen even threatened to hurt Greg at one point, but Lucy just laughed in his face. She was so strong, challenging Stephen’s threats.”
“Why didn’t you just throw him out?” Ash growled. “He didn’t have any right to stay there.”
Beth let out a shaky laugh. “He was an alpha. There was no way we could get rid of him. He was too strong for the both of us and made it very clear that if we tried to get physical he’d beat us.” She shuddered. “I remember coming back from the store, which was a good few miles away, to discover he’d changed the locks. I couldn’t even get into my own house—into my mother’s house!” She shook her head, mixed between anger and frustration. “Slowly, he took over our lives. It was alright for Lucy. She was leaving to live with Greg.”
Beth saw Jenny frown heavily. “What about you? She was your sister. why didn’t she ask you to go live with her if Stephen was so terrible?”
“She did,” Beth replied softly. “Over and over she asked me, but I didn’t want to spoil her happiness. Besides, it was my home, filled with memories of my mother. On top of that, I was worried about Stephen and what he was going to do.” Her voice broke. “I thought that, if I stayed, I could make sure he left Lucy alone. He was getting more and more angry with her decision to marry Greg.” Tears swamped her vision. “It was on the day she left, the day she laughed in his face. My sister, so proud and strong in her decisions and in her life.”
“What happened?” Connor asked gently.
Beth drew in a shuddering breath. “When he discovered that Greg knew about shifters and that she’d told him about her abilities, that was the end of the line for him. He threatened to do something, but she just laughed and told him that it was her life and that he had no say in what she did or who she married.”
An eerie silence filled the room, as though the pack knew what she was going to say. The words echoed round and round her mind, forcing themselves to the tip of her tongue although she didn’t want to say it.
“Stephen was the one who killed her.”
An audible gasp came from Sarah, and Beth felt Connor tense beside her. Closing her eyes, she fought tears, trying to keep herself together. There was more to say.
Connor’s hand tightened around her shoulders. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” he muttered, with a trace of anger in his voice. “That is pure evil.”
“It gets worse,” she said, attempting to keep her voice above a whisper. “I found out what he had done and he—he made sure that I went along with his plan, and that I didn’t say a word to Greg about what had happened.” She couldn’t bring herself to go into detail about what Stephen had done. He’d turned her from a strong, confident shifter into someone who shook every time he walked past.
“He broke me,” she whispered as moisture dripped from her lashes. “And he used Davidson for his own means.”
“Maybe we should take a break,” Jenny said, clearly worried about the effect this was having on her. “Beth? Do you need to stop?”
It would be so easy to say yes, so easy to retreat into her shell, but with Connor’s arm around her, Beth found the strength she needed to shake her head. “I think I’ll just get it all out at once.”
“You can do this,” Connor murmured in her ear. “Keep going, Beth. We’re here to help you.”
Taking in a shuddering breath, Beth lifted her head and faced them all. “Davidson was so grief-stricken that it was easy to convince him that it was shifters who had done it. Stephen helped him come up with the plan to get rid of all the shifters he could find to wipe us out.”
“But not you two,” Ash interjected, his eyes bright as he focused on her. “Why not you both?”
“Because Stephen has a plan,” she explained, hating that she’d been forced to be a part of it. “Before we met Davidson, we moved around the area, finding other packs. I never knew what was going on, and I wasn’t allowed to ask. Now I realize that Stephen was using Davidson, not the other way around. He’s decided to build his own pack. He wants to make it the most powerful shifter pack in the state.”
“So, he was using Davidson to wipe everyone else out,” Connor said slowly. “So, he’s the real threat, not Davidson.”
"Yes, exactly," Beth whispered, feeling utterly exhausted. "I'm his relative, so I was going to be useful for breeding when the time came." Sagging against Connor, she closed her eyes, aware of just how terrible the truth sounded. "I'm so sorry."