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“When your instincts tell you to do something, chances are, your intuition is about to save your ass,” Lex noted. “Rejection is harsh on one’s mental state. Obviously, it bruises any shifter physically and emotionally, but the mental aspect is extra fragile. Now match that with being pushed off a cliff by the very mate who rejected you. Certainly your own mind wouldn’t let you remember all the fine details of such a relationship for your own sanity. Nathan knew my Astra side before Malifer was rejected and ‘killed.’ Whatever effects occurred when he fell off the cliff obviously affected Nathan. My memories are a tad fuzzy, but I can safely assume that we were in on one another’s plans but things shifted when Nathan’s counterpart experienced the same memory loss as Alpha Malifer. It's a bit complicated honestly, and I don’t think this is the time for us to try to play Clue and figure all of it out. Pressuring our minds to remember all the fine details will only prompt misinformation and assumptions. I’m sure with the bond reestablished, we’ll be able to make a web of connection and decipher this mystery.”
She had a point and I agreed with her theory. We’d have no choice but to figure it out sooner or later, but that required time and we had to focus on other things that were of priority.
“Like I said earlier, Alpha Shade was doing anything he could to get his sons out of the way, or at least Malifer. The curse that’s haunting the Shade family’s Alphas would be broken by an Alpha who showed qualities of a kind heart. Alpha Shade didn’t want that to happen and he surely knew Malifer would be an Alpha who didn’t resonate with the tortuous and strenuous shifter traditions many wolf packs currently uphold, especially in Hollow City. Obviously, with the knowledge you’ve gained thus far, it must be becoming clearer that everyone who was chosen by Alpha Malifer and then Alpha Nathan was on the chopping block. Have you ever heard an Alpha that carried enough confidence in those chosen shifters to encourage their sacrifice so they could fall into the clutches of the valley he controls and give these individuals not only freedom but a platform to strengthen themselves and deliver an opportunity for rebirth? That surely proves that Alpha Malifer has a heart of fucking gold and his kindness is the reason why the Demon Valley Pack even exists. He probably chose all of you when you weren’t even showing true signs of perfection or strength but held enough assurance in each pack member to let you go through the challenges you faced before becoming official members of DVP.”
She took a moment to pause before bobbing her head from side to side.
“Those who never made it to the finish line weren’t chosen by Alpha Nathan, which makes sense. Alpha Shade certainly cared about strength, but many of those sacrificed were chosen out of fear.”
“Out of fear?” Wallas asked. I was surprised he was still here, but I was sure this ‘research’ wouldn't take them very long to attempt to acquire unless there were more precautions placed to stop them from retrieving the information we needed regarding the Monarch Empire.
“Fear of betrayal,” Lex got right to the point. “Those individuals weren’t necessarily weak. In fact, Alpha Shade would request readings on them from Master Gaia and myself depending on how he felt about an individual. He rarely asked me. I was more like one of those canaries that only cry out in warning. So whenever he asked me whether an individual had the potential to be great, it meant he didn’t believe Master Gaia’s prediction, which is rather stupid. Master Gaia is never wrong in her predictions.”
“Your confidence in me brings me great happiness, Lady Heartwell,” Gaia hummed in delight.
Lex smiled, though it was becoming clearer that she was truly drained by the conversion which was why she hoped to wrap it up with the important facts.
“As for how Alpha Malifer was connected to Laura, that was actually Alpha Shade’s meddling,” she surprisingly revealed. “Those specific interactions are rather rough around the edges, but I’m pretty positive Laura got a Tainted Time Keeper to create the bond between her and Alpha Malifer. How exactly she was able to proceed with something as fate-changing as that is beyond me, but it clearly worked well enough to feel real. It wasn’t long after your fate bond awakened before she betrayed you, isn’t that right, Alpha Malifer?”
“Yes,” I simply answered.
“But doesn’t that mean Nathan didn’t force Laura to reject Alpha Malifer?” Fynn acknowledged.
“Correct,” Lex answered as if she had been there. She was just a young teen back then. The fact that she knew this surprised me immensely. “Another tweak in his memories courtesy of Alpha Shade and Laura.”
“Wait. So if Laura was so involved in all of this, how did she get pushed off the cliff by Lauren?” Felix asked another good question.
“Oh.” Lex pouted her lips before she smirked. “That was the Tainted Time Keeper’s doing. The same one she’d requested to create the bond in the first place between herself and Alpha Malifer.”
What?
I wasn’t the only one stunned by the information—Felix, Fynn, and Wallas were once again rendered speechless by the news. Gaia took the chance to elaborate as to why.
“The same Tainted Time Keeper who is currently playing imposter above the surface is the one who ended up betraying Laura and pushing her off the cliff to join her ‘mate’ in the valley. The only thing that would allow a Tainted Time Keeper to carry such a lengthy grudge against a previous client is when the individual doesn’t give the proper payment for their intervention. That means Laura had made a deal with this Tainted Time Keeper by offering something of immense value but didn’t hold up her end of the bargain. One should never abuse a Tainted Time Keeper’s services. They are immortal beings that can carry grudges for all eternity. That’s probably why, even after five years of her gaining her payback against Laura, she’s still continuing her role as Lauren,” Gaia explained.
“Don’t you love a badass woman who can hold a grudge and execute a plan that continues to make that betraying bitch look bad? That’s exactly why I worked with her in the sacred lagoon in Shade Pack.”
“Wait,” I spoke up. “That’s the same of the Tainted Time Keeper you bargained with to give you the opportunity to choose our mate?”
“How do you know that?” she practically sang as her devious grin proved once again that she probably already knew the answer to her question.
I huffed with an eye roll. “You know how.”
“True,” she replied but wouldn’t let it go. “But I wanna hear it leave your lips.”
Of course she does. She wants the damn world to hear all my secrets today.
“I requested Wallas to look into things seeing as you were a new potential recruit who dropped into the valley. It’s protocol,” I explained. “Now answer me.”
She just stared back at me which was going to fucking irritate the shit out of me if she kept being disobedient—as if she weren’t always disobedient.
“Lex, can you confirm that the Tainted Time Keeper currently acting as Lauren is the same one you used that fateful night?” I attempted to ask with a slightly nicer tone. I doubted it was any different, but that satisfied my pretty little monster enough.
“Certainly, Alpha,” she purred with an added wink. “Yes. They’re the same person. If you simply want to know which side she’s on, I can confirm she’s on ours.”
“Seriously?” Felix and Fynn gasped.
“Mhmm,” Lex replied before her expression darkened and her lips curled further upward. “Do you really think Alpha Shade’s sudden coma was solely an alibi?”
