Centuries of Sin : Book IV

40 (bonus chapter)

I didn't know where to put these, but I thought they might interest some people as backstory. They're the other epilogues from the prequel to this so if you happen to be reading that you might want to skip this one and the next one to avoid spoilers. This one is Elizabeth's father and it doesn't really need any explanation beyond the fact her grandfather had visions similar to hers.

My father had to drag me away from Marlene as she slept soundly in the bed we had shared together. 

If he had shown up alone, I would have killed him, and he must have known that because he had two other Pack members with him. In retrospect, I realized he had chosen people who would have been willing to kill Marlene without questioning the situation, and that he had intended to kill her in front of me if I tried to fight him. 

I wanted one last moment with her - to say goodbye to her, and tell her that I loved her, and to explain that I hadn't just abandoned her and the baby - but they had shown up while we were asleep, and they didn't give me a chance to wake her.

I hadn't even been able to put any clothes on before they bound my wrists and forced me out of the room so they could shove me unceremoniously into the back of my father's car. 

I had to watch my father walk away from the car towards the building Marlene was still sleeping in, and when I made an attempt to go after him I was punched hard in the abdomen over the wound my brother had inflicted. 

I was petrified that he was going to hurt her, but he was only gone for a few minutes before he returned, and he tossed my keys to one of the others as he told them to drive it home. 

I was left alone in the car with him, and after we were far enough from the camp site that I couldn't run back he pulled over for a few minutes as he removed the binding from my wrists and let me put some clothes on. 

"For what it's worth, I am truly sorry about this."

"Why?" 

My father kept his eyes on the road and I didn't think he would answer me. 

He told me he was sorry because he believed that I was genuinely in love with Marlene, and because he knew I would have been a good father to our daughter. 

He asked me casually whether we had chosen a name for her, and I wanted to slam his head into the steering wheel. 

"You know that I'm not going to tell you that."

He shrugged coolly, "I'm just trying to make small talk, Daniel." 

I bit the inside of my cheek, remembering how Marlene had asked me to name our daughter.

I had always loved the name Artemis - I liked the idea of naming my girl after a goddess of hunting and the moon - but at the last minute, I suggested Elizabeth Artemis instead.

I could see how devastated Marlene was about losing her friend, and even though she had asked me to name our daughter, I decided it shouldn't just be about what I wanted. She was touched by the suggestion, and I was proud I had thought of it, because it felt like it was the right name for our daughter. 

I wasn't even sure if she would use the name I had chosen, but it's how I always thought of our daughter whenever she came to my mind.

Karl's daughter was born three weeks after I got back; the girl's mother was my new Mate, and I was expected to raise her as my own.

I could barely bring myself to look at her; every time I looked at the girl I was reminded of everything I had lost, and I felt a constant ache in my chest. 

I didn't even know whether Marlene was alive by the time our daughter was supposed to be born, and I couldn't ask my father because I didn't want him to know that I was still in love with Marlene and that part of me still hoped we could be together one day.

I tried hard to make my Pack proud, but everything I ever did for them was because of Marlene; she was always in the back of my mind, and I had a constant and inescapable need to push away the pain and anguish that still threatened to overwhelm me even years after we had last seen each other.

My father died eleven years later, and one of the last things he told me was that he had seen more than he had been willing to reveal about my daughter, and that he was sorry that things had worked out the way they did between me and Marlene because he knew I had never moved on.

I had always suspected that he knew more than he had revealed at the time, but it wasn’t comforting for him to tell me so directly that there were things he hadn’t revealed when he still refused to tell me what they actually were.

I used his death as an excuse to try to find them - nobody questioned it when I left on my own to go to Canada, because there were a number of packs over there we would benefit from stronger ties to and I had an 11 year old step-daughter to find a partner for.

I refused to bring her with me on the grounds that it could be too dangerous, but in reality I just wanted to go alone - I didn’t want anybody with me.

I had arranged to speak to several people while I was there, but I didn’t have much intention of actively negotiating with them or trying to foster better relationships between our packs - it was just a cover story.

It wasn’t hard to find Marlene again. She had a distinctive enough name that I knew it had to be her when I found her name on the list of staff at the main hospital in Edmonton.

I hoped that meant she was happy there, because I hated the thought that she might have been trapped there miserable for over a decade if she wasn’t happy.

All I knew about our daughter was that she was alive, and that when she was three it didn't seem like she had inherited any abilities or attributes from my side; but that wasn’t unusual, and I had been furious at my father for the fact he wasn’t willing to have someone check in on them again when she was a little older.

I told myself it would be better for my daughter if I did show up, because then I would be able to offer her some help if she took after me. I believed that even if Marlene had moved on a long time ago, it might help her to know I hadn’t just abandoned her- I had never wanted her to wake up alone without me, and it still killed me to know she had been through that... that I had relived every day of the time I spent with her a thousand times over, and I didn't regret any of it, and that the only thing I had ever regretted was the fact I wasn't brave enough to fight for her the way she had wanted.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should have done more to be with them, or that I might have been happy with them now if it wasn’t for my brother.

I wanted to tell Marlene I was sorry, and that she had been right to be angry at me for not fighting hard enough for them, because there were nights I felt like dying would have been better than sending her away.

I got as far as showing up at her office; I didn’t know what the hell I was going to say to her after all this time, or whether she would tell me she didn’t want to see me at all, but I couldn’t reason with myself, and so I arrived at the hospital and asked the receptionist whether she was free.

I guess my accent and use of her first name was a clue that I wasn’t one of her patients, because the receptionist told me that Marlene was still off on bereavement leave for another week.

My heart froze, and I felt like everything was crashing down around me.

“Her daughter…”

It was all I could say, and the human woman looked at me with her eyes full of sympathy.

“She’s doing well, all things considered, but... it’s never easy to lose a parent, and she adored her dad.”

It felt like a sign, and I knew all that I needed to know.

Marlene had married another man, she had moved on from me, and her new partner had raised our daughter as his own.

Now she had just lost her husband - our daughter had just lost her father - and I couldn't come back into their lives now.

All I could possibly bring with me was chaos and confusion, and they didn't need any more pain in their lives.

I returned to my Pack a few days later, and I didn't even think about going back to find my daughter again - I knew that if I did I would break down.