Chapter 13

~Eliana~

After the incident that had occurred the previous day, my mind had been unsettled. Knowing that Alistair wasn’t entirely human was scary, but I had been hoping that I was wrong. Seeing him transform into a wolf was even more terrifying, and although I knew he meant no harm, I couldn’t stop myself from feeling frightened about the whole situation.

He had been sending messages to me and had even dialled my line, but I couldn’t bring myself to pick up his calls, or give replies to his messages. Whenever I wanted to, I just remembered the way he had transformed into a werewolf, and would just leave my phone to ring, without doing anything about it.

The memory of him becoming a hulking, muscular and a half-beast with black fur lingered on in my mind. What if we were making love one day, and all of a sudden, his dozens of razor-sharp teeth bit my nipples, or he lost control and dug his claws into my neck, and killed me on the spot? The other time, it had been my ass. The next time, it could be my throat, or even my pussy.

I had thought that something that wouldn’t scare me was finding out that werewolves actually do exist, but maybe I hadn’t been ready to confront the truth just yet. Besides, I had wanted to see one face-to-face someday; I never said I wanted to have sex with one, or be in a relationship with one.

I heard a knock on my door.

As soon as the knock came the fourth time, my heart skipped and I was sent into panic mode. What if Alistair had decided to show up at my place again? He already knew that my parents would welcome him with open arms after finding out he was a billionaire, and even one of the wealthiest people in America. They didn’t know that he had transformed into a werewolf, so, they couldn’t hate him. They’d gladly let him into our home, and apologise, and force me to continue whatever it was that I had going on with him.

“Miss Venator?” The maid called from outside.

Was he downstairs and sitting on a couch, waiting for me? I wondered. I just decided to shake my fears off, and open the door for her. It’s not like he could blow his cover by transforming in public and try to attack me or something.

I inhaled and exhaled twice, in a bid to calm myself down, then I climbed out of my bed, and walked to the door, after which I opened up the door, to see only Jane, my personal maid standing outside the door.

“Good morning, Miss Venator,” She said.

“Good morning, Jane. What’s the problem?” I asked.

“You’re ten minutes late for breakfast, and your parents said I should make sure you’re at the dining room as soon as possible,” She replied.

“Oh, shoot. I didn’t realise it was already time for breakfast. By any chance, do you know if a man is downstairs waiting for me?” I inquired.

“What man, Miss?” She asked.

“A good-looking man. He has fair skin, blue eyes, and he is very tall...about 6’2, and he knows how to slay in his outfits. He always looks well-dressed, even though all I’ve ever seen him on are suits. Oh, except that one time at the beach, where he had put on only shorts, and had revealed his bare chest and back, which by the way, is such an awesome sight to behold. He’s very muscular... In fact, he’s just everything you want in a man. The only thing is...” I explained to her, and she listened to me intently, trying to understand what I was trying to say.

I wanted to say that the only thing that didn’t make him everything you could possibly want in a man, was the fact that he was a werewolf, who could feed on me if he had the chance to.

However, I managed to stop myself halfway, and just concluded my very long response to her simple question, by saying, “The only thing is I don’t know if he came around like he had promised, so, tell me, Jane, is there any man that matches my description downstairs?” I inquired.

She shook her head slowly. “The only man who’s downstairs, and waiting for you is your father, and we both know he doesn’t suit your description at all,” Jane replied.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, on the brink of laughing out loud, by how she had said we both knew my father wasn’t like who I was talking about.

She bowed her head a little low. “Permit me to take you downstairs, Miss,” She said, ignoring my last question.

“Sure thing. My stomach has even been rumbling for hours. I could use breakfast,” I said, leading the way downstairs.

My entire family was at the dining table, waiting for me, with looks of frustration and annoyance that showed that they were eager to eat, and probably tired of waiting for me to show up before they had the opportunity of satisfying their hunger.

“Oh, wow. You didn’t tell me that my entire nuclear family is around. I’d have worn something other than a tank top and shorts to the dining room,” I told Jane.

“You may go, Jane,” My mother said.

She bowed, then took her leave, leaving only my parents, siblings and I at the dining room.

“Sit, Eliana,” My mother said.

“Nah. I’m just going to take my food upstairs, since every sane person is around,” I said.

“Eliana, sit on the damn seat. Fuck!” My elder brother, Elio, who was the first child in the family, said.

“Aren’t you going to talk to him? He’s using foul language at the table,” I said.

My mother rolled her eyes. “You guys aren’t kids anymore. Have a seat, Eliana. We’ve been waiting for you to come down, and we’ve not had a bite from any of the dishes. You should understand Elio's frustration,” She said.

“Fine. Whatever,” I said.

Before sitting, I exchanged my food with that of my mum’s, and gave her a mischievous smile.

“She still does this? Seriously, Eliana, you think your own parents would try to kill you?” Elvira, the third child, who was only a year older than me, asked.

“If they could kill me emotionally in public, who’s to say they can’t kill me physically? Then, they could lie that I took my own life, because as everybody already knows, I’m a psychopath,” I said, defending my actions.

“Can we just eat already?” Eleanora, the second child, said. She was married to a senator in the country, and was extremely fat, not that I was body-shaming her on anything, but she’d do herself a lot of good if she could workout and stop eating food with many calories.

“Funny how you still manage to eat, like your stomach’s not already filled with food,” I noted, and bit off some toast, which I chewed noisily.

“You heard Eliana, mum. You’re not going to say anything about it? This is why I didn’t want to come over here, or eat with her. She’s practically out of her mind,” Eleanora said.

“Trust me, I don’t wish to eat with you either. I feel bad for sitting here with you to eat, instead of giving you an advice from the bottom of my heart to go and lose some weight. People giving you food aren’t helping you at all,” I said, then sipped the tea, that was getting warm.

“Eliana! That’s body-shaming,” Elvira said.

“It’s the truth, and if no one will tell her, I will!” I yelled, saying the exact words Eleanora had said to me five years ago, after I had graduated from the University of California, Riverside, and expressed my hopes of joining in the family business someday, when we were having dinner together.

“Is anybody going to tell her, or should I?” She had asked, then, without waiting for a response, she added, “You studied trash for four years, and we just let you, because you don’t even matter. Maybe we’d put a zoo in your name, but you don’t have any business knowledge, plus you’re insane, so, there’s no way you can join the family business. Just keep being a pretty little thing, and go out on dates with sons of wealthy business men, and be satisfied with being a shareholder in the company, okay?” When Elvira, who was the most reasonable one in the family, chided her, she had defended herself by saying: “It’s the truth, and if no one will tell her, I will,” She then stormed off. That was the last time I ever saw eye to eye with her.

“Eliana! Eliana,” Elvira called.

I shook, jolting from the bad memory that had flashed through my mind, in that split second, and my fork, which I had been on the verge of using to pick up the fried eggs clattered to the floor.

“Are you okay?” Elvira asked.

I nodded, in the affirmative. “I’m fine, just zoned out for a moment or two,” I said.

“About yesterday...” My dad started.

“Dad, if this is about Alistair, you better keep it to yourself,” I said, giving him a cold stare.

“Oh no, it’s not about him,” He said.

My mother placed her hands on mine, “Just tell him we’d love to have dinner with him someday, okay? Maybe when he’s less busy,” She said.

I removed her hands from mine, and said, “No. I won’t tell him anything.”

“So, about what we saw the other night...” My father started.

“I’ve been right all these years, while you’ve been wrong,” I said, munching on my bacon, and smiling like I had won a lottery.

My father heaved a deep sigh. “Actually, we’ve always known you were right about what you said you saw,” He said.

“What are you trying to say?” I asked, unable to believe my ears.

“You heard us right, Ellie,” He said.

“You’re telling a lie. You just want to make it seem like you knew everything, because you hate giving me credit for doing anything,” I said, angrily.

“What do you think your surname means?” My mother asked.

“Venator?”

“Didn’t realise you had another surname,” Elio said, with a scoff. He was so immature, and it was hard to believe that he was almost in his mid-thirties, and was even married, with a son.

Ignoring him, I responded, “Venator is the Latin word for “hunter". How does that have anything to do with any of this?” I asked.

“I seriously still think she’s unfit to hear what you want to say to her right now,” Eleanora said.

“She deserves to know though,” Elvira objected.

“We’re hunters, Ellie. We hunt supernatural creatures, like the werewolves, for example,” My father said.

“Wait. Hold on. You mean that we’re a family of werewolf hunters?” I asked, not really believing what they had said.

“Yes,” They all chorused.

“Why do you hunt them?” I asked. “You know what? I don’t even care. I just want to know why you pretended to not believe in the supernatural realm all these years, and made me believe I was crazy,” I said, feeling really hurt.

“That’s because you kept on telling reporters the same thing. We had to make you believe you were only imagining things, so, you could move on, and the world would believe you were only hallucinating, and understand the burden you were going through after losing three of your friends in one day. Hunting down werewolves is a secret that’ll forever be hidden away from the public,” My father explained.

I scoffed, trying to believe the bombshell they had just dropped. “In order to hide the truth from the rest of the world, you painted me to be a crazy woman, isn’t it?”

“We were also trying to protect our reputation. We went into the forest, but didn’t even find the so-called beast that had attacked you and your friends. What if you were asked to produce evidence to support your claim? Besides, life is much more better without knowing that half-human, half-beast, truly exist,” My mum said.

“I agree with that last statement you made, but you should have told me that you knew I was right, and I wasn’t crazy,” I said, blinking back tears, as I now realised that they weren’t joking at all.

“You were going through a hard time...”

“...and you made it harder by joining outsiders to say your own child was out of her mind.”

“We thought you would be better off without knowing...”

“I’d have been better off with knowing. You ruined my entire life. All I wanted was for someone to just believe me, and have faith in me. How do you think I felt, not having anyone on my side for ten years? Have you searched my name on the Internet? All you’d see are things like “Ghastly motor accident survivor, Eliana Venator sparks another mental health struggle”. All they say about me is that I’m out of my mind. If you had told me all these, I would have kept it as a secret till I died, but I kept on telling everyone what I had seen because I just badly needed someone to believe me. Alistair was right. You’ve failed as parents,” I said, wiped my hands with a napkin, and walked out of the dining room.

“Eliana!” My sister, Elvira called after me.

“Let her go,” Eleanora said.

I was pissed, mad and angry at what I had just heard. I couldn’t believe that one’s own parents would do such a thing to their daughter. They had made my life a living hell, and they were supposed to be my family. I had known Alistair for only a matter of weeks; yet, he had supported me countless times, and believed in me.

Although he was partly an animal, he had more humanity in him, than all my family members, even if they were combined. So what if he was a werewolf? I was certain he wasn’t going to let me fall flat on my face, even if the world was going to. He had my back, and werewolf or not, I needed him, as the little trust I still had in my family had been broken, and I was all by myself now.