Flicking her long, dark ponytail over her shoulder, Adriane licked her lips. “I’d offer you coffee, but . . .” But she didn’t want them to stay long.
“I understand, so I’ll just get straight to the point,” said Shaya. “We’d like to know why Hector hates shifters so much.”
Tilting her head, Adriane asked her, “Do you have pups?”
Shaya smiled. “I do.”
Those distrustful easy brightened slightly. “How old?”
“She’s three.”
“You love her.” The light in Adriane’s eyes dimmed. “I’d imagine you have no idea what it is like to be terrified of your own child.”
Jesse blinked, taken aback.
The human averted her gaze as her expression took on a faraway quality. “Even as a toddler, it was obvious that something was wrong with Hector. His eyes . . . it was like looking into a bottomless pit of nothing. He didn’t play. He didn’t laugh. He was stubborn when it came to toilet training—wore diapers until he was seven. The other pups made fun of him for it, but he didn’t seem to care. He didn’t behave like a child at all.”
Adriane’s head whipped back to face them. “Don’t think he was abused or anything. People are always quick to scream ‘abuse’ when a child is cruel. He had loving parents and a supportive pack. It was like he was just wired wrong or something.”
Shaya raised her hands in a placatory gesture. “I wasn’t assuming he was abused.”
After a moment, Adriane gave a curt nod.
Nick said, “You said he was cruel. How?”
She fiddled with her fingers. “He would threaten me. Threaten to cut me or himself. If I wouldn’t give him what he wanted, he would urinate all over his shoes and clothes. He was manipulative. Always lying. So spiteful. I swear one look from him could give me an icy chill. Punishments didn’t work because he simply didn’t care.”
“The pack didn’t help?” Nick asked.
“They would have, but they didn’t see the real Hector for a long time. He was very good at showing people what he thought they wanted to see.”
A little like Clive, Jesse thought.
“I suppose you can’t truly know a person until you’ve lived with them. To the pack, he was polite and quiet. They were all ‘poor little Hector, he can’t get the hang of potty training.’ The truth was that he had the control to use the bathroom, he just didn’t want to use it. But they didn’t know that, and they felt bad for him. One of the other mothers said she’d ‘teach’ him. He did it for her, let her pretend she’d taught him the control, to make me feel inferior. The others all decided I was just a bad mother. He thought that was funny.”
“What about his father?” asked Nick.
“Thad saw him for what he was, but he thought being firm with Hector would make him change. It didn’t.”
“We were told Hector was accused of playing a part in a rape and murder,” said Shaya. “Was that true?”
Adriane swallowed. “At that point, his behavior had gotten worse. People started to see that something wasn’t quite right. They saw through his lies, they weren’t so easy for him to manipulate, and they would tell their children to stay away from him. I think on some level he may have felt lonely. Maybe not loneliness as we feel it, but . . . isolated. Like he had no one that understood him.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. It could be that I’m just trying to make excuses for him because I don’t want to face the reality of what he is.”
Shaya said, “You gave him up to your parents?”
Adriane looked surprised by the question. “No. He left of his own accord. He gave my parents a big sob story about how we were bad and abusive and hadn’t defended him against the accusations. They took him in, convinced he would be happier with humans.”
Nick leaned forward, hands loosely clasped. “Do you believe he was innocent?”
“Hector was guilty. I know he was.”
“How do you know?” asked Nick.
“He told me. No, he taunted me with it. It wasn’t until after we left the pack, though. Just before he went to live with my parents. Jenny, the girl who was assaulted and killed, was such a sweetie. She was a great help to me, and I often wonder if that was why he did what he did. He didn’t like to share my attention, you see. He didn’t like me having friends or even Thad, so he tried to isolate me.”
Jesse recalled Garth’s tale of how Adriane had isolated herself from the pack. It would seem that Hector was responsible for that.
Nick’s mouth twisted. “What made you and your mate step down from your position as Alpha pair?”
“We were blackmailed.”
Every Mercury wolf stilled. It was Nick who spoke. “Blackmailed?”
“I didn’t know about the blackmail.” Adriane crossed one leg over the other. “Thad told me he wanted to step down because the pack didn’t trust us anymore. He didn’t tell me until after we left the pack, but the Beta male, Jerold, had evidence that Hector was involved in what happened to Jenny.”
“What kind of evidence?” asked Shaya.
“Photos were taken by Jenny’s ex-boyfriend and hidden in his room. When Jerold was searching for evidence against the boy, he found them. Apparently some of them showed Hector very clearly. Jerold told Thad that if he promoted him to Alpha, the photos would be destroyed. I suspect he also blackmailed the parents of the other guilty boys in some way—maybe tried to extort money from them.”