Russel wasn’t sure how to begin. He had spent so many years, so many hard and painful years, trying to block the memory from his mind. He’d erected wall after thick wall inside his head to stop himself from going completely crazy. And now he was about to bring those walls crashing down. It was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do, even harder than the fight against his father. He wanted to stall, to keep hesitating, to do anything to not have to force himself to relive that horrible moment.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Lola told him.

Already he could feel tears start to fill his eyes but he wasn’t ashamed of them. He let them fall.

“The first thing you need to know about werewolves is that weakness is a sin. An unforgivable sin. Show weakness of any kind and it will come back to hurt you,” Russel started to say and as he did, that horrible day started to bash through each of the walls, making them crumble as if struck with a sledgehammer. He saw flashbacks of her face. Her kind, sweet face. His mother had been a beautiful soul locked inside something dark and twisted. “The other thing to know is that some wolves take things too far and become…feral for lack of a better word. My father and mother were very different sides of the same coin. My father was a savage, brutal man with a quick temper and a hunger for killing but, he had a masterful level of control over himself and never went too far into the wolf. My mother was a kind-hearted woman who cared about all of us and loved her children so much, she would do anything for them. But she had almost no control over herself in her werewolf form. It is a rare and debilitating condition that affects maybe 1 in 10,000 wolves. Once becoming the beast, they are essentially under its control instead of the other way around.”

“And your mother was like that?” she asked.

“She was the worst case anyone had seen in centuries. It was so bad she was forbidden from changing form at all by my father. Can you imagine what that must have been like for her? Having to shut down part of yourself forever?” he asked.

Lola shook her head no. She tried to but she honestly had no idea where to even begin.

“One day, she couldn't take it anymore. The beast inside her wanted out and it wanted out in a bad way. She was strong, my mother, but she wasn’t strong enough to last against that kind of mental strain forever. So she gave in.”

His eyes went haunted, the faint screams of agony from anyone in her way still echoing across time and space to him in the present. He felt his entire body go cold at the memory of all that devastation. All that blood and death.

“It took almost two full squads of werewolves to finally bring her in and by the time it was all over, only four had survived. My father barely came out of that fight alive either and it took him seven days to fully recover, even with our advanced healing abilities.” He looked her in the eyes. “My father was furious with her and decided to use her as an example to his children. He forced us into a room with her. She was chained to the wall, thin and frail. I don’t know how long she’d been there but long enough to leach nearly all vitality and life from her. She was crying. Sobbing so much that she looked like she would choke on her own tears. Then before we knew what was happening, she went feral again. My father immediately went to stand next to her, his hand wound into her hair to where he could yank her head back.”

The tears fell even harder now. Lola wanted to go to him. Wanted to make him feel better somehow but she knew there was nothing in the world that could do that. She knew that from experience, which was the whole point of him telling her the story in the first place. He had probably harbored so much bitter resentment against his own father and hadn’t been able to do anything about it, just like her with Drake.

“I can still remember everything about that moment. The look in his eyes. The smell of that horrible room. The way the torchlight made the shadows move along the walls like they were alive. My brothers crying with me. The look of my father’s claws. The way my mother looked like my mother but wasn’t. Her face was all beast, even in her human form.” That distant, haunted look in his eyes deepened suddenly, making Lola feel even worse. She suddenly wished she hadn’t been so stubborn and snuck along on the mission. If she’d known this was where it would have ended up, she might’ve actually stayed behind like he’d originally wanted. “I remember my father kept ordering us to keep looking, to make sure we saw everything. He told us our mother was a prime example of what losing control looked like. And it was horrible. Even as he held her back, I could tell there was practically nothing left of her actual mind. It was almost entirely wolf at that point. She didn’t even speak. All she could do was snarl or growl.”

“That’s why you didn’t want me around when you let so much of the wolf in before? You thought you would be like your mom and not be able to come back?” she asked.

He didn’t say anything but he did nod his head.

“My dad used my mother as an example to all of us. Never let the wolf take over. Always, without exception, remain in control. To seal that lesson into our minds forever, he killed her right in front of us. Her blood sprayed onto us. Sometimes, I can still feel it. It feels hot, like red-hot metal searing my flesh.”

He looked down at his hands. They were shaking.

Lola lunged forward, practically leaping across the distance between them, and hugged him as hard as she could. She was crying too.

“I’m so sorry,” she told him.

She knew the story was going to be a bad one but she had no idea just how bad. The things his father did to him were unimaginable. It was a wonder he grew up to be the man he was and not more like his brothers.

“I may not have gone through what you did exactly, Lola, but I’ve been through shit that is equally horrible. I know what it's like to want revenge. I hated my father for what he did that day. Despised him even. I wanted to take his head right then and there but there was nothing I could do. He was too strong.” He paused so he could let his next words sink in. “And I’m telling you, Drake is too strong for you.”

She wanted so badly not to believe the words he said but there was an undeniable truth to them. Or was there? Her mind jumped back to her fight with Nora, even though she really didn’t want to relive that horrorfest. She had won that fight, somehow. Nora had been a werewolf. It stood to reason she could do it again.

Maybe.

She still had no idea what really happened that night but maybe whatever it was that did happen, it would do so again but to Drake.

“I can do this though,” she said. “I beat a werewolf already.”

Flashbacks of that started assailing her mind again and she visibly shuddered.

“You don’t even know how you did that and killing that werewolf traumatized you so badly, you could barely speak. Just trust me, Lola. You don’t want to go down this road. I will get Drake. I will bring him to justice. I will take on all that myself.” He stared hard at her, trying to beg her with his eyes to stop being so foolish. “You do not want to stain yourself like this. Trust me.”

Lola was about to argue further but a shadow fell across the tent’s opening. They both went quiet.

“I do not mean to interrupt this sweet little back and forth but I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation and thought I might weigh in.”

The voice belonged to Hank. As soon as Russel heard the words, he felt anger start to swell up.

“This is a private conversation. We do not need you to weigh in,” he declared.

The tent flap opened and Hank walked in regardless of what he’d just been told. There was an irritatingly amused look on his face as if interrupting their very heated conversation was the highlight of his day. He glanced at the two of them, back and forth several times, and then stood there with his arms folded across his chest.

“What do you want?” Lola asked, her face stern.

“I just wanted to inform His Highness here that despite what he clearly wants, you will be accompanying us to Harvenk, Ms. Tarnvol.” He looked at Russel with a tinge of disdain. “You really think I didn’t notice her?” He turned to Lola next. “Really? Come on. What kind of amateur do the two of you take me for? I knew you were here the whole time. I didn’t say anything because I figured that was for the best. But now that you’ve been discovered and the king here wants to send you home, well I can’t allow that.”

Russel glared at Hank.

“What do you mean she has to come with us?” he snapped. “She was never part of this deal.”

“Yes, yes. Only because you’ve taken a very deep interest in Ms. Tarnvol and I could tell you would have done the stupid thing and fought me and my men rather than allow that. I could also tell, Ms. Tarnvol, that you had no intention of being left behind. It was a calculated risk, sure, but as you can both see, one that paid off in the end.”

“Why do you want her with us?” Russel asked.

It was a fair question and one Hank took his time answering. He contemplated the best one for several minutes before opening his mouth again.

“To be blunt,” he started to say, “my king is curious.”