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“Double the security,” I ordered. “Get Colton to go above the surface if need be. He’d be good to involve just in case things get ugly.”
“Aww,” Lexi hummed, which drew our eyes to her as she quietly clapped her hands. “Are you going above and beyond to ensure my safety? Isn’t that sweet?”
My wolf howled in glee while my demon seemed irked that she’d caught onto our actions without even trying. Either I was an open book or my mate was simply surpassing the expectations I currently labeled her with.
“It’s probably unnecessary,” she noted but shrugged. “But if my Alpha wants to protect me so diligently, who am I to refuse?”
My scowl simply made her giggle before I glanced back at Wallas. “Like I said. Up security and get Colton.”
“Yes, Master,” he replied.
Gaia proceeded to walk over to stand next to Wallas, but I knew the Commander Chief wasn’t going anywhere.
As fucking usual.
“What, Wallas?” I’d bet he was pushing my patience on purpose.
“I actually have a question for Lady Heartwell,” he confessed, and his eyes were on the woman in question. Her eyes were closed briefly but opened at the mentioned comment. With a slight arch of one eyebrow, those orbs of mesmerizing tranquility were observing Wallas in great interest.
“Yes?” she answered.
Wallas glanced back at me and I knew he was waiting for my permission. “Proceed.”
“You mentioned that Master Gaia has been training you for a very long time,” he brought up. “However, you just commented that she was training your Maleficient Astra.”
He brought up the fact that the rest of us had overlooked due to the shift in their conversation.
“Correct,” Lex answered.
“If that’s true, are you stating that the Lexianne Heartwell who entered the valley was in fact your Malifecent Astra form?” he inquired with great interest.
“Sort of,” she confessed and closed her eyes once more. I wasn’t sure if it was because she was tired of keeping them open or if she was deep in thought, but she soon followed with, “In order for me to survive and portray a weak persona during my time in the Shade Moon Pack, I always ensured I used this persona during the nights when I was down below in the dungeons and being dealt with based on Alpha Shade’s priorities for the night. Since those long nights were rather exhausting, I’d allow the daytime to be where I used my Malifecent Astra form to act like the weak healer female who worked overtime to appease the pack while finding a role of purpose. It's pretty good training when you think about it. Also aids in furthering my abilities to keep both sides of myself split for such theatrics.”
“How is that even possible?” Felix brought up. “You’re saying that you can make it so there are two physical entities of yourself?”
“And if that’s so, how did no one find out?” Fynn inquired.
“To be frank, I stumbled upon the ability without realizing it,” she admitted and glanced my way. “Though due to such special circumstances, it may have been a rooted ability I’d learned from a certain Alpha when we were kids.”
I couldn’t stop myself from pouting because my memories of my childhood that involved the “null-Astra” side of her were still a bit blurry. I wouldn’t push myself to recall everything, but that was certainly one of a shit ton of things I’d need to rediscover within myself.
“Any demon can make two entities of themselves. You can even make more if you carry enough magic to support long-term illusions. In my case, I didn’t see the need to make a temporary illusion of myself because that would be utterly useless. Imagine being whipped like a do—”
She was cut off by the low rumble that vibrated against my throat, but she grinned sweetly and carried on like my overprotectiveness was just for show.
“—dog while one of your pack members gets injured in battle at three in the morning and requires the pack healer’s assistance. I can’t simply teleport from my torture cell and be all strong and magically ready to aid the individual in question. Thus, the only way of keeping up with my dual personality was using my Maleficient Astra form to my benefit from the beginning,” she explained. “As for how I wasn’t caught, the only one who even caught a glimpse of what I was doing was Alpha Shade himself. He couldn’t possibly believe I was capable of making my Astra form less demonic-appearing or ‘helpless’ in nature, which makes sense. When you think about it, when do you see a Maleficient Astra act like a normal wolf shifter? They’re normally diabolically insane and carry the inability to follow orders. So he assumed I was making a temporary illusion during the nights to protect my image and appease his tactics. Pretty funny to believe I’d waste such energy trying to uphold my role of pack healer when I was but an outcast. He really was pretty gullible for a frightening Alpha with so much greed for power that he wished to be rid of his own son so he’d be able to be Alpha for longer.”
She bobbed her head and opened her eyes once more.
“Then again, Alpha Shade couldn’t even tell his own son conned him since he was but a toddler and created a baby Astra version of himself that he managed to maintain and completely convince the rest of the world was his little brother,” she summed up and seemed far too proud of my revealed accomplishment. “That’s what you call talented.”
“Holy hell,” Felix and Fynn said in unison.
“I guess we can talk about that in detail later,” Lex encouraged and looked back at Wallas. “Due to the circumstance that led to me entering the valley, my usual self and my Astra persona were pushed back into one unit. The drop did a number on my memories, but after I’d rejected Nathan, I purposely used my own shadow magic to ensure I couldn’t recall my original motives for rejecting Alpha Malifer’s Astra in the first place. I wanted things to be as real as possible. I based the decision on the chance that Malifer’s ‘rejection and death’ would potentially do a number on his memories.”
“You literally took a guess that Alpha Malifer and uh…I guess Alpha Nathan, which is Alpha’s Maleficient Astra, wouldn’t fully recall you after Malifer was rejected by Laura and pushed off the cliff, igniting the creation of Demon Valley Pack,” Felix attempted to summarize.
“Even if your guess ended up being potentially in your favor in the present moment, how did Alpha Nathan not clock in on your Astra form after Alpha Malifer’s apparent death?” Fynn inquired. “And how is it that he was even bonded to Laura when you two were always mates?”
