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I was surprised by the voice that flowed into my mind while the aroma of woodsy spice with a dash of pine confirmed that the being in question was right outside this door.
Nathan, you shouldn’t be here.
My Maleficient Astra simply laughed at my attempt to shoo him away
“Do you really believe I’m gonna sit on my ass and play my honorable role of temporary Alpha of Shade Moon Pack when the truth slammed me in the fucking face?”he inquired while each word kindled a rise of anger that oozed off his growly voice. “I literally rejected the Maleficent Astra of our real fated mate and really was going to go on with a fucking alliance with an imposter?! How in the flying fuck were we so brainwashed to forget all these memories from the past? How are you even standing there like we didn’t fucking screw our future up? We should be on our knees begging for Lexianne’s mercy for treating her like trash when we were victims to our own fucking shadow magic. Why did we agree to forget to go down this fucked-up path?”
We went down it to see who was truly on our side and who would betray us at the first opportunity.I had to remind him even though it felt like I was thinking those words to remind myself of why we’d agreed to go down this route.
“Why are you standing in front of the door and not confronting Lexi?”
I’m embarrassed to do just that.
“Have you gone soft? You’re a fucking demon lord. Do I need to come back in there and remind you that we created this valley from scratch while managing to fool the world above that you were dead? What could possibly make you into a fucking coward right now?”
My silence made him huff and I simply tightened my grasp around the knob of the door so he wouldn’t attempt to wiggle it.
“Malifer. Let me—”
Lex sacrificed her womb to save us from Father’s diabolical plan to be rid of both of us.
If only I could see my alter ego. To witness his body grow rigid at the news while his eyes widened in shock. I bet the image would have made Lex laugh in glee, and maybe she’d even frame the damn image so she could rub it in Nathan’s face as punishment for what her Astra had endured the last five years from our pack alone.
“What?”
Lexianne can’t have kids, Nathan. That bastard that we’re forced to call our father not only tortured her for years and placed a fucking collar around her neck, but cursed her that if she fucked you before she reached the ripe age, you’d die, which means we’d die. That was simply the tip of the iceberg, for he was waiting for her to reach the ripe age so he could force Lex to reject you the exact same way Laura rejected me and proceed to repeat the past by forcing Lex to push you off the cliff. The moment that transpired, there would be no heir to his place as Alpha of Shade Moon Pack. He had the intention of then trapping Lex in the dungeon 30-feet in the fucking ground and fucking her senselessly until she was pregnant and would give birth to a new heir that carries all the hidden qualities Lex carries matched with Father’s Alpha qualities and shadow magic. He’d abandon Lex to perish and use that child as leverage to create an alliance by force between the Shade Empire and Lex’s family, which is the Monarch Empire.
I expected his prolonged silence as he had no choice but to acknowledge the ultimate truth hidden from all of us.
Tell me. How can I face her and pretend that I’m confident in my ability to protect her above the surface when I’ve come to discover I did such a shitty job protecting her from our own father? We failed at noticing that she was using her Astra form and managed to fall right into her ploy to protect us at her own expense. We can’t even use forgetting our connection with her as a valid excuse because she was forced to forget as well and still managed to protect us from our real enemies.
My magic had to have stopped time, for Lex still hadn’t said anything to me yet, but this was the moment of solitude I needed. To express my feelings to the half of me that would attempt to use reasoning and his Alpha experience to see if there was a possible way to make it up to Lex.
What could possibly be done to make up for what she did on our behalf?
“If I were on your side of this door, I’d stop wallowing in my emotions, that you really suck at dealing with, and allow her to understand me,”Nathan surprisingly suggested.
You would never do that.
“You’re right. The Nathan Shade before this door wouldn’t express my feelings, for that side of me crumbled long ago, but since when did demons have issues with admitting the truth? When have you needed a moment to think and filter through your emotions? Did that ever get you the outcome you desperately craved? No, because the one thing demons are good at is using their actions to speak the truth rather than their words.”
He was right—I knew he was fucking right which was such a pain in the ass to admit—but I still felt that heaviness of shame that weighed me down.
“When you woke up at the bottom of the cliff and I begged you to let me return to our body to help you survive through the agonizing pain, what did you tell me?”he brought up.
That this is my journey that I need to endure so we can take action and save all those who were on the chopping block to be slain in our pack.
“That shit was what triggered you meeting Wallas. That level of compassion you carried when your entire body was fucking broken and your blood was becoming the new life force for the ground beneath your crumbled frame. That’s what made you worthy of being bestowed half of the shadowed essence of the valley and gave you the strength to endure all the trials of the Forest of Infinite Souls. That strength triggered the beginning of our duty to save as many of our own as we could, and that progressed to aiding so many other shifters who now carry badges of freedom from our cynical father’s reign. All of that led to us being right here in this moment where we get to discover the truth we were unable to see with our own eyes,”he declared.“Does any of that make things right with Lexianne? No. It doesn’t solve fucking shit. Nor does it help fix our broken pride, but standing here and reminiscing on all our fucking flaws and missed opportunities to see the truth right in front of us isn’t going to prove our loyalty to Lexianne. It ain’t going to help us get her payback. It's not going to give her the life she’s been craving. It does absolutely nothing and will only give our father another advantage if we don’t get our asses to the site for the deal.”
I can’t rush speaking with her. I need to observe her. This side of Lexianne isn’t the naive, feisty woman who dives headfirst and asks questions later. She’s calculative, scrutinizing in judgment, and probably despises me for all I lack.
“If she really despised you, do you think she would have allowed her Astra form to go through the trials of the forest before the challenges in the Haven up to the Residence just for the hell of it? Do you believe she’d love you enough to rekindle the bond her Astra form shattered halfway, knowing it would affect us both? You can be a depressing demon sulking over all your flaws, but at the end of the day, our pretty little monster was willing to accept our mark and ignited hers upon our flesh in return. No matter if she wishes to be our enemy, she wouldn’t doom herself to carry such a burdensome bond if she didn’t mean it.”
I hate when he made fucking sense, especially with his cocky personality.
“I’ll delay as long as necessary on my end. Take your time and confront this head-on. Don’t beat around the bush or be a cryptic fucker who can’t admit his feelings. Use that demon confidence and tell it how it is. We’ll never be able to move on and repay Lexianne for our stupidness if we don’t start somewhere.”
How are you still here if you’re stalling the deal?
