Page 36 of His Blue Moon Princess (The Silver City #1)

“Father!”

Suddenly, someone barges in the room. A young man runs in, exchanges a look with me, and walks up to the old man. He supports him but brings him back to his chair with an annoyed look. The old man tries to push him away and resist him, but he is clearly no match.

“Out of my way! Out of my way, William! This child is Black’s partner! I will—”

“You will do nothing, Father! Enough of this! Gloria!”

To my surprise, the woman we saw earlier runs into the room as soon as she is called. Was she right behind the door all along? She totally ignores us and runs to the old man. The young man that just called him father looks annoyed at her, too.

“Take him back to his room, make sure he stays there until I am back!” He says with an angry tone.

I realize the chair is actually a wheelchair when Gloria starts pushing him. As ordered, she takes the rambling old man out of the room with her, slamming the door behind them. With the three of us here, the situation has completely changed. Neither Bobo nor I have moved, but I have no idea how to react to the guy that just came in. He seems pissed when he turns to face us.

He is frowning, but I am more concerned about something else. This is the same feeling I have when Elena is around. That familiar, invisible sensation down to my stomach. He runs his fingers in his curly hair, taking it off his face.

“I am William Blue, the Alpha of this Clan. Who the hell are you?”

I keep detailing him, trying to grasp this feeling I get. My eyes wander to the portrait again, and back to this man. Those blue eyes, the same as mine, the same as this portrait. How come he has them, too?

“Nora Bluemoon.”

“Bluemoon? You...”

His eyes run to the portrait and back to me several times. He doesn’t hide his confusion but stays silent for a while.

So, I speak first, trying to get to him as I did with the man earlier. “Please. I came here to talk about your grievances against the Blood Moon Clan. I thought that man earlier was the Alpha, I—”

“He is the former Alpha. That man is my father, Alcott Blue. He’s no longer the head of this Clan, I am. Are you saying you are from Black’s pack?”

This guy is younger than I thought, maybe around Damian’s age, no more than thirty. I hope he will be more reasonable and listen to me.

“Not exactly. I am his fated mate. I came to—”

“His fated mate? Isn’t this guy engaged to that slut from the Gold Moon Clan!”

I can’t help but roll my eyes. I wish he hadn’t brought that very annoying detail up...

“He will no longer be! That is what I came to talk about. An Oath of Peace with the Sapphire Moon Clan.”

He raises an eyebrow and crosses his arms, surprised. Even I am a bit surprised by my own words, but it just came out on its own. What am I thinking? An Oath of Peace? The Sapphire Moon Alpha seems to take it rather seriously, as he observes me very intensely.

“Why would his fated mate come to seek peace with us? Why should I trust you, or that man?”

For a few seconds, I was feeling better seeing that he was willing to listen, but now, I have no idea what to answer to that. He is right. I came here totally empty-handed, with nothing but my thoughts and no way to prove my good intents. I sigh. Why does all of this as to be so complicated? Come on, Nora, think of something. This man doesn’t seem as harsh as his father earlier.

“I’m concerned. Not only about the Blood Moon Clan, but about everyone in Silver City. A Witch is threatening all of our packs. This is all linked to the attack. We have confirmed that those vampires were controlled by a Witch, and she will try again. I came here because if inner conflicts arise within the packs, we might be too weak to defend ourselves next time, and that is something no one wants.”

He stays silent for a while, and leans on the desk, staring straight at me. I can’t decipher what he is thinking or if he believes me or not. I want to ask him about many things. Why does he have the same eyes as me? Who is this woman? Yet I can’t, for now. This is more important.

After a while, he sighs. “We already know a Witch was behind the attacks. She was nice enough to send us multiple threats over the past few years.”

What? The Sapphire Moon Clan received direct threats? This is totally new!

“What kind of threats?” I ask.

“Dead birds, mostly, and some of our sources of water were poisoned. It started a few years ago when I was not even ten. We handled it as we could, so far, but the vampire attack was a first.”

“Why didn’t you tell the other packs? They could have—”

“Helped us? Should I tell you how the Sapphire Moon Clan was treated for years?”

Right... Back then, Damian’s father was still the Alpha King, and the other packs were all struggling for survival. None of the neighboring clans, even if they had been willing, would have helped. This is sad, but he is right. They were on their own until now.

“So, this is why you didn’t help when the vampires attacked?”

“Not exactly. My father forbids our warriors to go help the other packs, but I was mostly concerned about the vampires’ aim. See, all these years, that Witch tried to steal something we never had in the first place, attacking our territory only. Yet now, she suddenly sent vampires on several turfs away from ours. I was curious to see what her aim really was, so I let it be.”

“Wait, so you already know what she was after?”

He slowly nods, looking serious.

“We knew it, but we never believed it. For years, we thought she just wanted something she thought we had. Turns out, what she wanted was really there, but she was looking in the wrong pack all these years.”

My head is buzzing as I start to understand what this all means. Pieces are falling together, and I look at the portrait once again. I remember the attack, what those vampires said. What the Witch wanted, she thought the Sapphire Moon Clan had it. Why would she have thought that in the first place? And as to know why she suddenly understood she was wrong, the past few weeks made it all too clear, too.

I feel my legs going numb, and for a while, I need to lean on Bobo to support myself. William is watching my reactions, too, and we both already grasp what is going on. However, we are still missing some clues.

A silence of a few seconds follows, but the thoughts are too loud in my head. He sighs, and his eyes go to the portrait as he starts talking again. “You said you were the Blood Moon Alpha’s fated mate, right? Is this the truth? The Moon Goddess paired you with Damian Black?”

“Yes. Damian knew of our bond ten years ago, but I only learned it very recently when we found each other again. I have been staying with his pack ever since.”

“You are not mated or marked yet.”

I shake my head. At another time, another place, I might have been embarrassed, but not now. I push my curls onto my shoulder, not caring about exposing my neck.

“That’s right. But we are fated mates, I swear.”

William Blue scoffs, shaking his head and muttering to himself. “Moon Goddess, sometimes she is playing cruelly with our fates... Or is this her way to show us the way, I wonder? “

Those questions are not addressed to me, and moreover, I don’t know what he means to say, so I stay silent. He takes a few steps, walking past Bobo, and sits on the couch. Elbows on his knees, fingers crossed, he raises his eyes to the portrait. He observes the woman for a long while, completely ignoring us. I don’t feel any threat coming from him anymore, and Bobo has stopped growling. We observe his lonely figure facing the painting.

“I’ve seen this portrait a million times since I was born. She has been here for fifty years, in the Sapphire Moon Alpha’s office. Yet I never get tired of watching her.”

I step away from Bobo a bit to come closer, watching the painting, too. William Blue keeps talking, his eyes never leaving the woman.

“Her name was Diane. Queen Diane, my great-aunt. She died long before I was born, but my father talked about her so often, I feel like I know her better than I knew my own grandmother.”

Queen Diane. I have heard that name before. Some unknown man I came across at Damian’s hotel called me that. How could he confuse me with a woman that passed away so long before I was born?

The answer is now clear. Queen Dian does look a lot like me. Or should I say, I’m the one that resembles her? I thought so the second I saw this painting.

“My family is a descendant of Royals. The Alphas before me were always so proud of their Royal Blood, but I always thought this didn’t mean much nowadays. Just a few droplets, how much more of the Royal Blood could have been conserved after centuries? But that woman...”

He points at the portrait, with a faint smile.

“Queen Diane is a living legend for our Clan. I don’t know how much of what I heard about her life is true, but if half of it is real, she was a living deity for our kind.”

“A living deity?” I ask, a bit confused.

He nods. “They say Queen Diane was a doctor, but she could heal people just with her hands. Her wolf form was as represented here, white as fresh snow, with blue eyes like a newborn. A blessed child of the Moon. She feared no Alpha, and any wolf obeyed her words. She never had to fight a single fight, all she had to do was talk, and it was as if the Moon Goddess herself spoke.”

All of this sounds all too familiar, and I start shaking unconsciously. I feel Bobo’s fur pressing against me, but no warmth can help me. He keeps talking, unaware of my present condition.

“Everyone thought the Moon Goddess had been reincarnated, but she just wanted the life of a simple she-wolf. Her younger sister, my grandmother, adored her, too. She had Royal Blood and was called Princess Cynthia, but compared to Diane, that was nothing. But those two were as close as sisters can be. My grandmother was much, much younger than Diane, but her older sister aged very slowly. When Cynthia turned thirty, with a husband and children, Queen Diane was almost fifty years old. However, she still looked exactly like this painting: young and beautiful.”

My eyes are fixated on the painting, trying to imagine the life of that woman. As I listen, a feeling grows inside me, and I say it out loud without thinking. “She must have felt lonely.”

He looks at me, a bit surprised, and nods before turning his eyes to the painting again.

“That’s exactly what my grandmother said. Diane was always alone. She dedicated her life to others, to her pack, but she never let anyone in, as if she had some secret she could never share. Yet one day, she suddenly revealed to her sister that she was pregnant.”

William suddenly gets up and steps closer to the painting.

“When people asked about a father, Diane said there wasn’t one, no matter how many times she was questioned. Queen Diane was preparing her last miracle, a pair of twins growing in her womb without any father. Do you believe it?”

No father? How could this be? She couldn’t have conceived them on her own... right?

“She had a boy and a girl. DNA tests didn’t exist back then, so I guess there was no way to know if they had no biological father or not. I guess we will never know. Back then, everyone knew about what Queen Diane could accomplish, so when she said she carried children all by herself, they believed it. Children conceived as if Moon Goddess had carried them herself, about fifty years ago.”

“What happened to them?”

William sighs, and turns to me.

“When Queen Diane had her children, she said this birth would endanger the whole pack. According to her, her children would have the same characteristics as she did, but that meant they would also become prey for some dangerous people. Sadly, it turned out to be true. As the children grew, more and more attacks came. From vampires, witches, dark creatures lurking after the power of Moon Goddess’ blessed children. Queen Diane, worried for her children, asked my grandmother to seek somewhere safe, somewhere her children could grow in the middle of werewolves, and be protected. My grandmother, Cynthia, listened to her and left, taking half of the pack with her. This is the story of how we came here. Looking for a new place to live, we came from the North, as the Sapphire Moon Clan. As sisters, Diane and Cynthia had equal Alpha ranks, but Diane was the oldest and a blessed child of the Moon Goddess. She was the one with the purest Royal Blood. So, when my grandmother came here, with half of the pack, she was not the Alpha of the main Clan. So, naturally, this pack that had come with her became a branch Clan, the Sapphire Moon.”

I close my eyes. Something indescribable is growing in my stomach, and I can barely breathe. When I open them again, William is waiting for me to ask, as if he could read my mind.

“What was the original name of your Clan?”

“...The Blue Moon Clan.”

I almost lose balance. William Blue’s words float in my head like an echo that won’t stop. The Blue Moon Clan. So there really was a Blue Moon Clan. It was real. I came here to stop a war, but now I suddenly learn about something I was not prepared to hear. Something about me, about where I come from. My legs are shaking.

I breathe deeply, but William Blue just calmly walks past me to go back to the desk.

“I really didn’t think I would one day meet someone wearing the name of Blue Moon. My grandmother gave up that name when she came here. If you’re the real thing, you are a survivor, miss Nora. So, I really hope you have a good story to tell me.”

A good story? Does he mean about my origins? I don’t know anything! Aside from what Alec said, I’m at a loss. Whether it’s about my mother or my birth, I don’t know a thing. Shouldn’t he be the one to tell me more? And why would I be called a survivor? He can’t mean... I stare at him again, confused.

“What happened to the original Clan?” I ask. “To Queen Diane and her children?”

I want to ask what happened to my mother, but those words won’t come out. This truth hasn’t fully sunk in yet.

He shrugs. “You tell me. You came all the way here to introduce yourself with that name, so I want to know what you know.”

“I don’t know anything!” I yell out of frustration.

All I could do was gather pieces about my birth that always turn out to be fake or wrong one after another. Now that I finally meet someone who could finally tell me where I really come from, who my birth mother really is, he suddenly wants to hear from me? Moon Goddess, this is impossible to bear!

“I initially came here to ask why you resent the Blood Moon, my mate’s Clan, so much. I had no idea I was related to your pack at all! All I wanted was to find a way to stop the war between the Clans, and a way to stop that Witch! I never imagined this…”

At some point, I start crying, and I feel Bobo worrying about me. He pokes me gently with his nose, but the tears won’t stop. All the stress and the emotions are overflowing right now, and I can’t stop it.

“Nora, where the hell are you?”

Oh, Moon Goddess. Damian. I completely forgot! How long were we gone? He is already looking for us, and I didn’t manage to do anything yet! He must have felt my distress, too.