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The question shouldn’t take me by surprise, but it does, and the insult of it cuts deep. I know it was unreasonable to expect this man to know my name. He told me himself that he thought my mother had died before I was born. Until recently, he did not even know I existed.
Still, there had been a small part of me that had hoped, and it’s now crushed with such a sudden force that it nearly knocks the wind out of me.
“Nothing,” I reply coldly, my voice barely above a whisper. “You should call me nothing. I have no name. My mother lost her mind before giving birth to me, and she died shortly after. I was born with nothing. You left her with nothing, and she died insane and alone. I was never given a name.”
Surprise flashes across his scarlet eyes, and it looks unnatural on his sharp features.
“What are you talking about?” he asks, taking a step toward me. “My dear child, I did no—”
“I am not a child,” I snap, a sob cracking my voice, and when he moves to close the distance between us, I push my hands against his chest, shoving him back. “I stopped being a child long ago, and I am certainly not yours. You don’t know me. I don’t even know me. You have no idea what I have been through because you weren’t there. I don’t know what you did to my mother, but do not think for a moment that it makes me yours.”
“What I did to your mother,” he replies sharply, anger burning behind his bloody gaze, “was love her. I adored Vanessa. Many years ago, when your uncle was still an overly ambitious young man, he sought to secure himself as the next Alpha of the Banes. He sent out scouts high into the mountains, farther than any wolf in their right mind would have ventured. He was looking for power, trying to prove his worth as a future leader. What he found, instead, was me.”
Something darkens in his expression, and I do not dare interrupt him. Honestly, I’m not even sure I want to. I’m horrified and furious and heartbroken, but I’m finally getting some answers.
“My people had lived in peace for centuries, thriving in the shadows of secrecy, but your uncle and his squadron discovered my kingdom; Viktor did what Viktor does best. He caused trouble, foolishly believing he could wield the strength of my clan for his own purpose and take over my kingdom. But when he realized he’d picked a fight he could not win, he abandoned his petty little battalion and fled. My nightwalkers killed every single Bane that stupidly tried to take our own home from us. Only two wolves survived the battle: Viktor, who turned his back on his men to save his own skin, and his sister Vanessa, who’d been unwillingly dragged into your uncle’s schemes.”
I knew there had been conflict before Viktor became Alpha, but from what I’d heard, everyone believed it had been against another pack of wolves. Viktor had covered up the truth of his encounter with the vampires to conceal his failure. Knowing my uncle, he probably spun it into a tale of heroism, claiming that his team had been attacked by rogue wolves or some other villainous pack. When he became Alpha, he certainly would have had the resources to bury the truth, turning himself into a brave warrior for the pack, and the nightwalkers became little more than legend.
Right now, none of that really matters.
I’ve always known the length to which my uncle is willing to go for his own selfish gains, and it’s no secret that my knowledge of my own world and the people who inhabit it has been limited at best. I’d been wrong about the Rovers being a bunch of rabid rogues, and I was wrong about the existence of vampires. I’ll add it to the growing list of things I feel clueless about in my life.
But Vanessa... I’ve never known my mother. And that I cannot ignore.
“What did you do to my mother?” I ask, my hands clenching into fists.
“I let her go,” Marcos replies calmly, resentment crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Vanessa was kind and wise, and she tried to warn Viktor against his suicide mission. She was not like the others. She neither feared nor fought the things she did not understand. She was merely fascinated by them.” Something soulful and sorrowful washed across his elegant features, and his gaze was distant, blurry with affection and regret. “We wrote to each other throughout the years, even after her brother became Alpha. She was such a loving, lonely woman. I did not realize I was falling in love with her until I found myself dreaming of her during the day and longing for her every night. I did what I swore I’d never do, and I left my lands to sneak across the territories to visit her.”
A forbidden affair between a wolf and a nightwalker. My mother was never marked. She never mated with a male... she couldn’t. A vampire’s bite would be fatal to a werewolf, so even if my father loved her as he claimed he did, he could never mark her.
And the offspring of such a union would be the hybrid of two enemy species. I’ve never fed on blood, but I’ve also never shifted into my wolf form. Neither one nor the other.
Tears sting my eyes, and I take a shaky breath, feeling the fight drain out of me.
It turns out my uncle was right—I’m a half-breed mutt, after all.
Chapter Eight
I thought uncovering my past would make things easier. I thought I'd discover why I was different and unlock my wolf. I thought I'd find my name at last.
But for each answer I've been given, a new question is already forming.
"I sensed it when the wolf king brought you into his kingdom, which borders mine. I sensed you, and I did not know what it meant until I got closer and I smelled your mother's blood flowing in your veins. Fate has given us a second chance, sweet girl."
"You- you can't just... swoop into my life like that out of nowhere." My voice trips over my own words, my breathing ragged as I stutter in a sad attempt to express what I'm feeling. "You can't swoop in with your riddles, and your secrets, and-and your bats! Do you have any idea what it's been like? Do you even know what it was like for my mother, all because of you?"
Marco frowns, hurt flickering through his blood-red gaze once again. "I loved your mother more than I have ever loved anything in this world. I adored her, and I never wanted anything but joy for her. I knew I could not be her mate, but I wanted her to be my queen."
"So why wasn't she?" I ask, tears stinging my eyes as my voice rises. "Why weren't you there when she got sick and lost her mind? Where were you when her pack turned against her for having a bastard freak? Where were you when I had to grow up without parents? Don't stand there and tell me you wanted my mother to be your queen. She never got to be, and I was raised without an ounce of love. I wasn't even given a name! So where were you?"
There is more anguish than accusation behind my words, a desperate sort of sorrow washing over me and threatening to pull me under. Marco closes the distance between us as a sob breaks out of me.
"Where were you?" I ask again, and I slam my hands against his chest, shoving and hitting with all my strength.
But I may as well be fighting a wall. He stands there and takes it, unyielding against every blow until I'm panting in between my tears, and I no longer have the strength to push him away.
"I'm sorry, my sweet princess, I'm so sorry," he says softly, his tone soothing. When he wraps his arms around me, it's all I can do to collapse into his embrace. "Your mother feared Viktor would wage war if he found out about our affair. She wrote to me about you and formulated a plan. She would fake insanity, acting like she'd lost her mind to cover up the truth from Viktor. Her brother would have killed her if he found out she'd slept with a vampire, and she could not risk involving someone else in the deception in case he uncovered the lie. The only way to spare herself was to say she did not remember who the father was."
