Crossing Paths With The White Wolf

Gonzalo

POV

I don't like this - I tell Dario as I am driving back from the bank and a few other errands to pick up my amulet and a few other items for the trap. - We should be doing this after the full moon.

We have to trust things will go how they should. All we need to do is make sure we're next to Kassie. As long as we stick to that plan, let the rest of the world fall apart around us. We do not leave our mate. - Dario answered with full determination. I sighed as I saw the gates coming up in the distance - That sounds easier said than done in the middle of a fight, especially when we start divided.

Maybe that needs to change. She has to know Kassie is mated to a wolf. She wouldn't go alone. We need to make Helios listen and let us go with them. Karissa is bringing Braden. Why can't we go too? We can keep up with their speed. Maybe that's why my sister gave us that gift.

Maybe I said distractedly as I pulled up and saw Karissa come to the door of the vehicle as I turned off the engine.

"Can we talk?" She asked. I debated it for a while before I nodded and followed her to the bench on the side of the packhouse. It seemed this was a talking bench for the pack.

We sat there watching the change in patrol in silence. I was already beginning to regret agreeing to talk to her. Was she waiting for me to apologize for yesterday?

Pfft, she'll be dead before that happens.- Dario growls in my head.

"What did you need to say, Karissa? I'm expected upstairs." I asked.

She remained quiet for a long time and I was about to stand when she finally spoke. "I'm glad you forgave Kassie for leaving you that night. It wasn't her choice, you know. It was all my fault. When I saw you when I came here in December, I knew it was my chance to make things right."

I'm not sure what I was expecting but it was not that. Once she started, she just kept talking. I think she'd been waiting for the opportunity to have someone listen.

"Kassie is only 2 years older than me. A minute for our kind, but an eternity between her and father it felt like. By the time I came along, they already had this unquestionable bond. Father loved me, but it wasn't the same kind of connection he had with Kassie. Mother...well, mother was never very affectionate with anyone. I think she had us out of duty to the crown. She was certainly never very maternal." She explained. "None of that ex-" I started to say angrily, but she interrupted me.

"I'm not trying to. Just listen please. Kassie and I grew up quite close. She always had this air of grace and calm around her. She was supposed to be the Queen. My mother trained her well. I just never saw how much she hated it. She never talked about it. I envied the attention she received. I was the spare. I was left to do my own thing and yet all I wanted to do was earn my parent's approval." She laughed, but it was a bitter self-loathing laugh. "I was so stupid. I had never noticed how much I had actually been spared because of her. She took it all and never complained. I didn't realize what she did for me until I no longer had her as a shield. She had my mother's attention but also her soul-crushing criticism. She had my father's approval, as long as she did what he wanted." She looked down at her hands. "When she asked me for help to see you, I thought you were just her way of rebelling. The boy daddy doesn't approve of. So, I did what any brat jealous of her sister would do. I told on her and followed my father's plan to catch her in the act. I had finally gotten his approval on something." She looked me in the eye then.

"I swear, I didn't know he would kill you. He told me he would just have them beat you up a little and banished from the country." A tear gathered and fell from her face and she looked away again. "I also didn't know how much she actually loved you. I really didn't. She never let me apologize. I know I didn't deserve it."

"Why are you telling me this, Karissa?" I asked, conflicted with this information.

"I... I have a bad feeling about this. I know she's not ready to talk to me, and I am not going to push her, but I am also selfish and I need her to know that I didn't mean to hurt her the way I did. She was right about one thing. She deserves to live her life in peace. It's taken me a while, but I understand it now. I've watched her here, with you. All of you. The way they treat her, talk to her. She always hated the thought of being a Queen, and here, you treat her like one and your people respect her like one, but they also treat her as a friend. She is happy here." She finished with a sad smile.

"I hope she is. I will do my best to make sure she is never unhappy again." I sighed.

"I know you will. When I saw you back in December, I could see the recognition in your eyes. The anger it showed whenever you looked at me sealed my suspicions of who you were." She sighed again, "I've known for a few years that I'm not the best Queen. I learned to hate it as much as she did, but the difference is that while she would have still been a good Queen despite her hatred of it, I let Armand take over most of the day to day work. I wanted nothing to do with my life for the past few decades. I'm the reason this is all happening. I let it happen by simply not paying attention."

"I'm pretty sure the fault here is with the people that decided to experiment on innocent people," I said, wondering when things had turned into me trying to make her feel better.

She ignored my comment and continued, "After I ascended as Queen, I received a letter. It was from Miles Lee. I didn't know who he was at the time. He told me what Kassie had become and asked me to take her out of that place. He explained to me that her spirit was dying. She wasn't over you. She needed to do something more than think about you for days on end in her bed. She wasn't feeding. She wasn't making friends. She wasn't even making enemies anymore. It took a long time to convince my father, but by that time, even he was beginning to feel the shame of what we had done to her. Mother was the only one that still opposed, so I was allowed to get her out with the caveat that as long as we kept her busy and at the service of the crown, she could go around freely." She confessed.

"I know I have seemed callous and frigid to her since, but I hope someday she can believe that the only way I could keep her away from the council's warpath was to send her out. I would choose something silly that would take her away from the Estate and hoped she would find someone worthy of her and she would run away. It took me another 50 years to realize she would never get over you and I tried to get her sent away on a permanent assignment, but Armand had taken a liking to humiliating her by that point. You were my last chance to get her out and thank goddess you did. I will be forever grateful for it. I know you're the one that convinced her to help me as well."

She looked over at me again, "I think you would have made a good king at her side. Maybe then none of this would have happened. Will you tell me?" She finally asked.

"Tell you what?" I said, once again confused at the turn of the conversation.

"What happened to my sister. Why her face was bleeding the way it did yesterday. You said 23 years. That was when she went missing. When I had hoped that she had simply run away," She explained. "Your mother arranged for her to be kidnapped and experimented on." I said simply.

"Mother?" I nodded at her question.

"She pretended to be you. The questions about your emails we've asked over the last week. We found emails sent from your email address to the lab she was taken to where they detailed the sale of a vampire with royal blood. We at first thought you were behind it, but Adrien pointed out something that had us digging further and we realized you were being set up. That's why we believed you when you said it wasn't you." I'm not sure why I was telling her this. A part of me, I think, realized she was Kassie's Kassie. I didn't give Kassie a chance until it was almost too late.

"The experiments are what caused her bleeding?" she asked.

"When she gets overwhelmed. Emotionally. She begins to have seizures and she begins bleeding. It's been escalating lately." I said worriedly.

"Do they know what's happening? Has she seen specialists?" she pressed on.Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

"No one has answers." I said, not exactly lying but still not willing to trust her completely.

"Tomorrow, when it's time. Whatever happens. Get her out. Don't leave her. I will do whatever I can to give you the opening, but if it comes down to running or dying, you grab her and leave." She ordered.

I snorted. "You don't need to tell me to choose between you and her. I am sorry, I know it may seem heartless because you're pregnant, but I won't sacrifice my mate for you."

"Good. That's all I needed to know. I have already talked with Alpha Helios. You're coming with us." She stood up as I heard Braden coming up behind us.

"What are you planning, Karissa?" I asked suspiciously.

"Nothing you need to concern yourself with," she said as she walked away.

Braden hesitated before following. He also seemed to want to talk to me, but in the end, he followed his Queen. I stared after them, wondering what the f**k I was going to do, when Kassie dropped from the sky in front of me. Her face told me everything I needed to know and I just grabbed her into a tight hug.

"Why can't I just have one simple f*****g thing in my life?" She cried.

"Let's go for a run?" I said, because really, she was right and I had no answer.

"OK." She said and started to walk towards the forest but I pulled her back. "Not like that." I smirked. She tilted her head in confusion and her eyes widened as I took my shirt off. I could feel Dario getting excited too as he realized my intentions. "Hang on tight and look out for low hanging branches." I winked before I let Dario come forward.