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She doesn’t look up while she’s making the tea, so I sit down and prepare to be patient, stifling the first yawn that threatens to escape from my lips.
Last night, I was determined to hunt down monsters.
I don’t know what I thought a lone female wolf could do against Goddess only knows how many monsters there are in The Abyss, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I was running on instinct. My own, fuelled by anger, and my wolf’s, fuelled by white-hot-rage.
Artemis’ possession of my body seems to support that crazy instinct, but I have no idea if that was real, or if I dreamt it along with everything else.
Nothing makes sense and I know Alina is keeping something from me.
When she pours a cup of tea and puts it in front of me, I sign my thanks.
She puts her own down after a moment of hesitation, and then brings a tin of cookies out of the cupboard. When she sets them down and opens the tin, I know she’s ready to talk. She only breaks out the sugary treats when there’s something difficult we need to discuss.
She sits down and picks up her tea, taking a slow sip before she looks at me.
I know it’s easier for her to talk when we’re sitting like this, rather than to sign.
My eyes are a little tired, but this is important, so I concentrate on her lips as they begin to move.
“I had a son, before I took you in.”
I blink at her, and sign asking her to repeat, sure I picked her words up wrong.
She gives me a sad smile, and signs, “A son.”
Questions fill up my head as I stare back at her, but only one stands out.
“Did I ever meet him?” I sign.
“He was exiled to The Abyss about a year before you were born. He was five years old.”
I stare at her in shock. That’s the same fate she saved me from.
I know if she was able, there is no way she would have let her own flesh and blood be sent away like that.
She fought so hard for me. She would have fought even harder for him.
My dislike for our Alpha is turning into hatred.
I knew about the exiles, the rejected, because Alina told me it was what would always happen when a child was thought to be less than perfect. The pack had to be the sharpest, and the fastest to survive and keep the rest of the world safe from the creatures living inside The Abyss. They made up those reasons to justify what they did, but really it was a heartless act.
It isn’t something that’s happened since I’ve been old enough to know about it, so I guess I pushed it to the back of my thoughts like it was some barbaric practice from the distant past, an act that was stopped when someone realized how inhumane and viciously evil it actually was.
Knowing it was something that directly affected someone I know and love is like taking a knife to the heart. My guardian is the kindest person I know. She would never dream of hurting someone, even if they hurt her.
Knowing she lost a child is heartbreaking.
“He’s the reason the Alpha let me keep you.”
I frown, signing, “I don’t understand.”
“I told him the child died when he was born. I raised him in secret for five years, until the Alpha found out and discovered why.” She picks up a cookie and starts breaking it up on the table next to her cup, before she looks back up at me. Her eyes are so sad. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for her. She starts to talk again and I’m quick to move my gaze back to her lips. “… Excited at first, he was angry when he saw our little boy was afflicted with a rare genetic condition that can only be passed along on his father’s side.”
“The Alpha was his father?” I sign, barely believing it.
She nods. “He blamed me for our son’s condition, and he told me the boy should have been smothered the moment he was born.”
Goddess, our Alpha deserves to be thrown into The Abyss and eaten alive by the monsters he doesn’t believe in.
