She Dances with Wolves

Chapter Six

Katherine's POV

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        The lunch date went very well and the next two days Randy did everything that he could to spend time with me. Even invited me up to his room to watch the Olympics figure skating the night after our date. He seemed truly interested when watching as he asked me questions now and then between holding me close to him and showering me with kisses. It was nice and he even asked to watch some of my old videos of my competitions. Who told him about those? It had to have been my meddling grandmother trying to push the two of us together.

        It was day five of the seven days that the werewolves would be at the hotel and I was starting to feel down. I hadn't known Randolph for long but I was getting attached to him and getting used to having him around. Thinking of him returning to Virginia made me sad as I sat in the kitchen going over the menu for the last two nights of their stay.

        "Nipotina*, what is the matter? Why do you look like your world is coming to an end?" (Granddaughter)

        "Hello, nonna*. I'm okay I guess." (Grandmother)

        "No you aren't, you are thinking about that nice young man that has been trying to win your heart the past few days."

        I gave my grandmother a sad smile as I sighed until I remembered a comment that she made in passing the other day and I narrowed my eyes at her. "Nonna, what do you know?"

        "What do you mean, nipotina?"

        "I know you oh wise one, you know things that mom and dad don't know that I know. So I know that you know what I know about our guests. So spill, what do you know?"

        My grandmother let out a sigh before she pulled on a chain that was around her neck. On the chain was a silver pendant with what looked like an animal tooth that was pierced clean through. Taking a closer look at the pendant I saw what looked like a man stabbing a sword through a wolf in Greek style artwork. "This belonged to your grandfather and his father before him and his father before him and with all the men in the Rodgers' family long before we were named Rodgers. But if you want to know the story behind the meaning you'll need to bring the young man with you because this is something that you both need to hear. Maybe even his guardian to confirm what I have to say."

        I nodded to my grandmother, though rather confused, and left to go find Randolph and Phil. I brought them to the dining hall where a table was set up for not just my grandmother, Randy, Phil, and myself but both of my parents as well. My parents and grandmother were already there as Randy pulled out my chair for me to sit in the middle of him and my grandmother at the round table. She had a thick, old photo album in front of her with the pendant laying in the middle of the table. I felt Randy stiffen when his eyes fell on the pendant and I looked at him concerned before my grandmother spoke up.

        "He knows the meaning behind the design, nipotina. I'm right aren't I?"

        He nodded his head slowly as he straightened his back. "It's the symbol of a werewolf hunter. There used to be as many of them as there were us, but their numbers took a bigger hit than we did over the years but they are still around." Randy looked over at my grandmother with a serious stare. "How did you come to have this?"

        "Wait wait wait, you are telling me that there really were werewolf hunters? People that actually went out and hunted wolves thinking they were some magical beast," my father asked not realizing that he was in the presence of two said werewolves at that very moment.

        "Yes, figlio* and your father was the last one of this family. (son) The traditions died with him when he passed." The look on my father's face told me that he didn't believe a word of what grandmother was saying until Phil stood up and we all looked at him. Backing away from the table he stripped himself of his clothes and began to shift into his wolf form. He wasn't as large as Randy's wolf and Phil's wolf was reddish-brown in color with blue eyes. He walked around the table slowly to get my parents to take in what had happened and really look at him before he shifted back and redressed.

        "Werewolves are very much real sir, and your home is currently full of them."

        I looked over at my parents as my mother's face was a bit red from seeing a man other than her husband naked and my father was trying very hard to put pieces of a puzzle in his mind together. I then looked over at Randy who was still staring down at the pendant. This new bit of information meant that I was the granddaughter of his enemy. That I was his enemy! I wanted to reach over and touch his hand, to hold it like he held mine so many times but I pulled away from him. As much as I wished to know what was going on in his mind I also didn't.

        "What about you grandma? Were you a werewolf hunter as well?"

        "No no, your grandfather kept me out of the order after I married him. No one that was married into the family became a family hunter unless they came from another hunter family. That was part of their tradition. Though the family hasn't been active hunters for generations now, at least not actively hunting just because they knew there were werewolves in the area. They only went after rogues when the first Rodgers stepped onto American soil in the 1700s. It wasn't until the late 1800s that all hunting stopped."

        I looked over at Phil who was nodding his head and my eyes narrowed a bit. "You knew this though, didn't you? You know about my family history better than I do."

        He let out a sigh and nodded his head. "Yes, I know of the Rodgers family and their past. I may even know one thing that your grandmother doesn't and that is that they at one point tried to make peace with one of the packs that once lived close to here. I believe it was your great, great grandfather that tried to form a union between your family and the Blood Moon Pack. Their alpha at the time said that they would only form a union if a wolf happened to take a Rodgers as a mate."

        "Your great aunt, some years later, was fated to a wolf from the Blood Moon Pack," my grandmother continued. My eyes grew big and I leaned in closer as she opened up the photo album, finding a picture of my great aunt inside. "She was rejected however the moment the wolf realized that she was human. It was worse when he learned of her surname." I looked at my grandmother with a raised eyebrow when Randolph finally spoke again.

        "A full name and rank are needed to perform the rejection correctly. He would have needed her name to reject her and break the mate bond that was between them. And the same is needed in order to accept or reject the rejection."

        "Your great aunt rejected the wolf's first rejection but accepted his second. She never found love after that. Sure some men tried but she said that she could never fell the love in their hearts."

        "As for the wolf," Phil chimed in, "he too never got a second chance mate. And the knowledge that a werewolf hunter was his mate lead him to the bottle. It's hard for our kind to get drunk but he found a way to stay drunk until his final day."

        With my elbows resting on the table my hands went through my hair as my mind tried to wrap around this information. There was so much to take in and yet there was more. I was missing something, a big something but I wasn't sure what yet. "If you knew of my family and our history... why are you even here?" I looked up at Phil once again as the gears were slowly working in my mind. "Why risk bringing werewolves to the home of werewolf hunters for such an important ceremony?"

        "Because this place was offered to us by your family. After the first attempt of truths was denied they went to the elders after learning of the werewolves having trouble finding their true mates. The elders were arguing over where the ceremony that they came up with would be held when your great grandfather and grandfather offered their home as neutral ground. It was laughable at first, to say the least until they offered something up. They said that they would stop all hunts, even rogues, all together and that the ceremony would be a way to keep an eye on them that they had kept to their word. And they did as clearly they never trained their offspring in the ways of the hunt after the agreement was made."

        It was true, I didn't even know of grandmother's necklace, let alone the history behind it, until this very day. And I was hoping to use figure skating as a means to get away from what I thought was the family business. Randy stood up and walked out of the dining hall and went into the garden. I watched helplessly as he went straight for the woods before I got up in turn and walked to my bedroom. There, I laid on my bed and curled up with my pillow hugged close to me and cried. He hated me and it was breaking my heart. What was worse was that I didn't know why I was hurting this much.

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Randolph's POV

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        She was a werewolf hunter. Kat came from a family of werewolf hunters! The perfect little angel that I laughed with, held, kissed, and desired above anyone else came from a family that killed my kind. Of course, she didn't kill any werewolves herself but the fact that her family at one point did was a hard pill to swallow. I kept catching her looking at me the entire time I was in the dining hall with her family and Phil and even at one point tried to reach over to touch me but didn't. Was she scared of me now, ashamed of me? Did she no longer want to be around me because she learned that her family considers my kind monsters? So many thoughts were swimming through my mind that I struggled to keep up with all the new information. But what angered me the most was the apparently Phil and the elders knew about them. They knew and still allowed us to come to this death trap. True the only recorded injuries on werewolves were those caused by werewolves but that didn't mean someone could have tried something at any point in time.

        It became too much for me at that point so I left. I needed to leave and clear my head so I decided to go out into the woods. There I shifted into Fenrir and let him run around for a bit. Maybe burning off some energy would clear my mind and help me figure out what to do next. After what seemed like forever, I shifted back when I happened upon the clearing where I first met Katherine. Sitting down against the tree that she was leaning on, I closed my eyes to try and think.

        "I know that you are there, Phil. So go ahead and come out already."

        Phil walked out of the tree line and walked up to me when I opened my eyes but made no attempt to stand up. "I hope you know how foolish and selfish you look right now."

        "Oh save it, would you? You have no right to talk to me after the stunt you pulled. You knew... you knew about her and yet said nothing to me." A thought dawned on me, causing me to groan as I rubbed my face. "f**k, my parents. They know about her family history too, don't they?"

        "Yes, they do know all about her family."

        "f**k! That's the real reason why they were concerned about her because they knew what she was."

        "What she was, sir was a world-class figure skater. One that would have made it to Bejing right now if the Moon Goddess didn't interfere and kept her here for you to find instead. She was never at any point a hunter. But-"

        "But what, out with it man."

        Phil sighed tiredly which caused me to growl at him. "But now she is in her room crying because the man that claimed to be her mate is acting like he is going to reject her."

        That stung. Not stung, more like a silver dagger was digging into my heart when I heard that. Kat, my Kat, was in pain because I didn't do or say anything to ensure her that I still loved her. After promising myself that I would never do anything to make her question my motives. I let out a howl before hitting my head back against the tree hard enough to cause the last few colored leaves to fall all around me.

        "What do you plan on doing?" Phil looked at me while handing me the clothes that I had tossed after entering the woods. Standing up, I threw them on before running back to the hotel. Finding her room in no time I quietly listened at first, hearing her sobs tore at my heart. I knocked quietly on her door.

        "Go away!" Her sad voice tugged at my heart, squeezing it tightly like a vice.

        "Kat, it's me. Please open the door, I want to talk to you." After a moment I heard her move from her bed and walked to her door before she opened it. Her blue eyes were framed with bloodshot veins and puffy eyelids, cheeks stained with tears. I didn't think my heart could hurt any worse than it already was as I tried to reach over to touch her face but she pulled away from me.

        "Okay, let's get this over with. You start it because I don't know what to say. Go on." Her voice was sad and bitter, she was angry with me. I just wanted to hold her close and tell her sorry but the way she was acting had me confused. What was she going on about? "Aren't you here to reject me as your mate?"

        My heart shattered! She thought I came to her not to comfort and beg for forgiveness but to reject the very gift the Moon Goddess gave to me. This proved how badly I had behaved in front of her and how badly I broke my promise for her to even suggest that I wanted to reject her. It was at that moment that I realized that I really didn't care about her family's past. She was my mate and I wanted her, all of her.