Jace closed the distance between them and took her hand. “I know your father pisses you off, but fuck that guy. Don’t let your anger at him drive you into doing something dangerous.”
“I do dangerous things all the time.” Even she could hear the dullness in her voice.
He gave a small smile. “I know. But you’re smart about it. When you’re out in the field, you don’t let anyone run your life. You don’t let some asshole with a bunch of military awards tell you what to do. Besides, the Colonel doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.”
She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them and looked straight up into the Jace’s dark, caring eyes. “He does know what he’s talking about, at least when it comes to me.”
“He doesn’t know anything about you.” Jace’s face darkened. “That couldn’t be more clear from the way he treats you.”
Piper turned away from him, folded her arms, and faced the door. Jace didn’t know about her past. Staring at the door, she said, “You’ve got three minutes, Jace River.”
Jace loomed at her back without touching her. “The Piper I know faces down military MPs and sneaks into a house full of shifters. What did you see during Olivia’s spell that scared you so badly? Did he… did your father do something to you when you were a kid?”
“He didn’t do anything to me.” She unlocked her arms and let them hang by her side. “He hated me before I was even born.” She turned to face him. The confusion on his face was mixed with a kind of sadness—a concern she’d never seen before, not directed at her, anyway. It worked a kind of magic inside her, prying loose the truth and forcing it up to her lips.
“He called me a bastard.” She huffed a small, mirthless laugh. “And it’s true. I’m not really his daughter. The Colonel fought and killed my biological father. He wanted my mother for his own, but she was already mated to another man. It wasn’t until after he shattered the mating bond by killing my biological father, that the Colonel discovered my mother was already pregnant. Even she didn’t know she had a pup growing inside her. Me. The Colonel wanted her to abort me. He literally wished I had never been born. My mother refused, but ever since I came into the world, he’s resented me. After that, he wanted a new pup, a real progeny, so he forced himself upon my mother for years, trying to impregnate her. She secretly took birth-control pills to stop it, but when she was finally discovered, the Colonel threw them all away and finally got what he wanted: Daniel. The Colonel always treated me like I was the kid who didn’t exist. But that wasn’t the worst of it.”
Jace’s horrified expression was working its way into her heart, loosening her tongue even further, spilling out things she had never told anyone—not anyone who didn’t already know, like Noah.
“What the hell… what kind of alpha does that?” Jace was aghast, and she was sure that in the perfect world of the River brothers, with a loving family and mates who adored them, this kind of thing must seem… impossible.
“He was the kind who abused everyone… including my mother. I don’t think he actually hit her—although I don’t know what happened behind their closed bedroom door. I think the mating bond, perhaps, protected her a little. At least enough so that he didn’t actually kill her. But he made her so miserable, she decided to take care of that herself.”
She had to stop talking because her throat was closing up too much.
Jace moved even closer. Her back was up against the door—the door she had been ready to charge out of just a moment ago—and he was so close, they could almost touch.
“Piper, I’m so sorry.” His voice was a gentle whisper that knocked loose the words again.
“The mating bond killed her. That, and having a bastard child with a mate who didn’t want me. So, you see, I really did ruin everything.”
“Piper. No—”
“No, it’s true.” She put both hands on his chest and pushed him slightly away, unable to deal with the fact that he was so close and so caring and so concerned with those dark, gorgeous eyes. “I long ago swore off mating. I saw what it did to my mother. And I was worthless, good for nothing to my father… except whatever he could sell me for as mate for some other asshole alpha he knew.” Tears were coming up unbidden to her eyes. “I was never good for anything but a strategic alliance. It was the only thing I could take from him. So I did—I left. I vowed never to mate. And I’ve been running my life my own way ever since. And now he’s ruining my brothers’ lives with some other damn scheme of his that I’m sure increases his power or prestige or something. And I’m not going to let him do it! I’m not to let him take the one thing that matters to me in this world, the only person who’s ever given a damn about me—Noah was there when Mom died. He knows the truth about how our father is, what he’s really like.”