Page 255 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha

I shook my head. “I didn’t go that far back.”

“What was it like navigating the memories?” Violet asked after she brought me a glass of water.

I gingerly took the glass. I didn’t trust myself not to drop it unless I held it with two hands. “It was bizarre,” I replied. “It was so difficult to focus on a single memory at first, but once I got hold of one, the visions became clearer. In fact, I can confirm that she lived on Warg territory.”

Violet nodded, a slight smile on her lips. “Anything else?”

“I was hoping to see some of the people she might have interacted with, and I got lucky.” I looked up at Night, and I touched his cheek. “I saw you when you were little, my love.”

His eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yeah. You were just a cute little boy. I think you were around six years old. Maybe seven?” I eased off his lap to sit next to him. “Why didn’t you ever mention that you knew my mother?”

“I had completely forgotten that I knew her until tonight. And even then, I didn’t start to remember her until Mom asked me about her.” He nodded to Violet. “It was like your mother had been erased from my memories.”

“Yes, that was how it felt for me,” Violet said. “I hadn’t thought about her until Night mentioned you wanted to know more about your birth parents, Bryn. Only then could I start to access those old memories.”

“Why is that?” I asked. “Why was it important that so many of you forgot who she was?”

“Only the spirits understand why things happen the way they do,” she replied. “I do, however, have a theory. I believe those memories were kept hidden from us because it wasn’t important that we remember them until it was time for you to learn about your past.”

“But why now?” I asked.

“I suspect it’s because you’re getting closer to achieving your destiny. Whatever the Fates have planned for you is approaching more quickly, so now is the time for things that were hidden from us to be revealed.”

The enormity of her words made me shiver. I wasn’t sure what to do with all of this. The surrealness made me feel like I was still in that dream world. I couldn’t shake the impression that the Fates had wasted their time on me. After all, I was just some girl. Why was I so special?

Elder Woods cleared her throat, catching my attention. “What else did you see, Bryn?” she asked. “Did you see what happened to your mother?”

I finished the water and wiped my mouth on my sleeve. “I did. Sort of. I didn’t see everything that happened the night she died, but she was tied to a bed in a strange room within the Kings’ territory. My father rescued her, and they escaped into the forest. He helped her give birth to me, and she died right afterward.” It pained me to remember how she’d faded away. It was such a quiet, tragic ending for someone so important. “I didn’t get to see what happened to my father or how I ended up in the spot my mom found me in.”

The ritual was a success, but disappointment lingered bitterly at the back of my tongue. I wished I’d seen more. There were still so many things I didn’t understand about my mother.

“Did you see your father?” Violet asked.

I nodded. This was what I’d been slow to bring up because I was still processing the information. “It was Lucian Slate.”

“Lucian?” Night blinked. “You and Dom have the same father?”

“Yes. I saw a memory where Lucian mentioned that Dom was looking forward to being my big brother.” I shifted a little in my seat. “I saw Lucian. Dom looks just like him.”

“That…that is huge,” Night said. “We wondered if you had any siblings, but I didn’t think your family would be this close.”

“Neither did I.”

“The more I thought about the pack mother, the more I wondered if you and Dom were related,” Violet said. “She and Lucian were very close, but she was quite guarded about anything related to her relationships and personal life. It makes more sense to me now than it did back then.”

“Violet, I never heard anyone say her name. What was it?” I asked.

“She asked us to call her Blossom. As far as I know, she never revealed her last name.”

“Blossom,” I repeated quietly, reverently.

“I never realized that Blossom was a pack mother,” Night said. “But now that I’m thinking about it, it makes so much sense. She always seemed special to me. I got the impression that I could never misbehave around her.” He ran his hands over his face. “She used to tell me her baby was going to be my mate, but I didn’t know that was you. Like Mom was saying, it’s like a fog is lifting from my brain, and the more I think about Blossom, the more I remember.”

I could almost see the gears turning in his mind as he went through his memories. I envied that he had easier access to information I could only access through a ritual. But I would pick his brain about this later.

“Do you think Dom will take the news well?” I asked. “I’d hate it if things got awkward between us.”