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Chapter Twenty-One

L ILA WINTER

“Hey? Are you doing okay?” Ethan’s voice comes out a little strangled. He holds a sleeping Lina in his arms with guilt in his eyes.

“That car came out of nowhere, Lila. I swear. I would never intentionally put you and Lina in danger. The boss gave me…the job of protecting you—I would never…”

I take Lina from his arms, my arms still weak and shaking like a lightning-struck tree that barely manages to stay rooted.

“We are okay. I’m not blaming you for anything because…we are fine.”

I’m anything but fine.

My mind works too fast, my body pumps blood inside my heart too violently, and I'm barely managing to ward off the vomit lodged in my throat.

But I can't do that in front of Ethan, because that will freak him out after we almost died.

Some maniac driver had wandered into our lane, swinging in front of us out of nowhere, and luckily, Ethan had swerved away from the car, sparing us from a very bad collision.

I’d been spooked. Not from the near-death accident, but from the sharp pain that had descended on my mind like hail.

Lina had screamed her heart out, calling my name over and over again. After the day we’d had, she’d fallen asleep twenty minutes later after I assured her everything was fine.

“I’m sorry once again, Lila. Please, if you could not mention this little incident to the boss, I’d appreciate it.”

The rain has stopped, but the dark, ominous clouds are still there.

The cool humidity is still in the air, sharp as ever, tormenting as hell.

“I won’t.” I smile. “I have to take Lina to bed, so if you’ll excuse me…”

“Yeah, sure.”

I turn around, walking into Alaric’s house like my feet are on fire. The living room is still warm with the scent of cinnamon, which happens to be Alaric’s signature scent. He must be back from the pack meeting.

The light from the fireplace flickers against the stone mantle. It’s cozy. Inviting. I feel nothing but suffocation as I take tentative steps upstairs toward Lina’s room.

Lina’s fingers are curled around mine, her tiny body leaning into me by the time we get to her room. Her breathing is shallow and steady. At least I can tell that she’s still breathing despite the shitty news the healer broke to us this morning.

Stroking her curls and placing her on the bed next to Bear, my vision is blurry due to the unshed tears as I lean in to drop a kiss on her forehead.

“I’ll fix this,” I whisper. “Even if it kills me.”

When I take a seat in one of the couches in Lina’s room, everything I’ve kept bottled up since we almost had an accident rushes inside my mind like an open floodgate.

Heaps and heaps of memories click and fall into place like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

I am the girl from the Moonlight Pack. Born to the Luna and Alpha of the Moonlight Pack as their only child.

I’m the girl who had a loving mother who’d sing me lullabies at night and tell me how special I would grow to become. And my mother? She had eyes like mine, she had the kindest heart, and most of all, my father and I were her world.

I rub my chest painfully. Every memory of my mother evokes tears.

I’m the girl who had the strongest father as the Alpha of the pack. The same father who called me “moonflower” after his favorite flowers, and because I was the miracle he never thought he would get from the Goddess.

I remember the war too, the one that left my dad standing at the front lines so he could protect me and my mom. But in the chaos of it all, I had been separated from my mother, and when the attack on our pack had ended, I was taken to the hospital.

I remember calling out for my mom and dad. I cried until my eyes couldn’t shed any more tears. Then I remember running from that hospital, through the streets, letting my illness take control and wipe out all the memories from my childhood.

I’m also the girl who once played hide and seek in the woods with a boy who used to smile like the whole world rested in his hands. A boy with stormy eyes and messy dark hair. A boy who called me his.

And that boy? He’s the man I now live with.

Alaric.

My heart beats like it’s trying to escape my ribs.

The boy in my dreams, the one who held my hand when I was too scared to go into the dark, who picked flowers for me, and said he’d always protect me? It was him.

And I’m none other than Irene, the lost and missing daughter of Alpha Chris of the Moonlight pack.

Did he know?

And if he didn’t, our meeting under such circumstances must be fate.

Yet when he calls me two hours later informing me that he might not make it tonight, I don’t have it in me to ask him everything running on my mind. When I decide to ask him everything I know now, it’ll be face to face not over the phone.

Alaric goes ahead to ask how Lina’s visit to the hospital was and I have to pretend that everything’s okay. That I'm not going insane thinking about Lina’s condition and my past.

He’ll be back tomorrow and he’ll make everything okay. He’ll answer all my questions and help in every way he can to make sure Lina winds up okay.

After I cut the call, I go to bed praying to the Goddess that tomorrow things change for the better.

By the time morning comes, I pull myself away from Lina, dropping a kiss on her forehead and stepping out of the room.

The healer might have crushed me yesterday but I got my memories back and I’ve gotta believe they are worth something when it comes to helping my daughter.

Yet, first things first. I have to tell Alaric about everything. My memories. Lina. The paternity test results that might be back any time now. And how he’s going to save Lina if he’s her father. I bank on Alaric being Lina’s father.

My steps down the hallway that leads to Alaric’s office are brusque. I stand outside his office door, but I don’t bother knocking. I barge right in.

“Alaric I—”

I’m met by silence.

Alaric’s office is as meticulous as he is, an organized mini-library. It has an oval desk similar to the one in his office and grey rugs that match the grey walls. Everything oozes strong masculinity.

I thought he’d be home by now. I thought…

I should leave.

I should wait for him downstairs and tell him everything.

Yet my eyes land on the pile of documents on Alaric’s desk, and curiosity, coupled with the shock that came in the form of my memories, makes me walk up to said desk.

At first, I almost ignore the documents, since they are mostly financial records about the Blackwood Pack, but when I venture a little further, the documents underneath end up being something that almost makes my heart drop to my stomach.

There’s a profile of Irene, or should I say me?

A file with everything about her likes and dislikes as a child and possible locations of where she…

no, where I…stayed. Next to the profile is a series of maps with locations marked with X’s using a red marker.

I almost feel sick when I recognize some of these places are places I’ve lived before over the years.

Then, to the final document, the one that sticks out like a sore thumb and beckons to me. It’s the documentation as well as the contract that binds Alaric to Irene through marriage if he manages to find her.

It states here that the Blackwood pack gains more resources and everything that belonged to the Moonlight pack if Alaric marries Irene…no, if he marries me.

Becoming Alpha is in the contract, too, if he goes ahead with the marriage, and it might as well be a bonus point for him.

I knew he was looking for Irene, but I didn't think it was for this reason.

Aisha’s words ring through my head like a howl of warning and an “I told you so”.

She said Alaric, just like Julian, is in it for the power, and I can’t help but wonder; did he know who I was? Did he lure me in because he knew I was his gateway to him being the Alpha and his pack receiving more assets?

The thought of it makes me sound insane. My mind keeps circling the same possibility like a vulture, and that possibility is that Alaric knew. He knew who I was. And yet…he said nothing.

I try to reason it away, to tell myself he’d never do that, that if he recognized me, he would’ve told me. He wouldn’t have kept that kind of secret from me. Would he?

But doubt seeps in and festers inside my mind. I remember him so clearly, my childhood friend, my first crush.

The boy who used to race me through the fields until we were breathless and laughing. Back then, his eyes held wonder and mirth. They’re the same eyes I’ve stared into as a woman and felt a pull I couldn’t name.

What if he felt it, too?

What if he recognized me the moment he laid eyes on me?

My chest tightens. The room tilts slightly as my thoughts take off on their own. If he knew…if all this time he knew I was Irene, and still chose to treat me like a stranger, a pawn, then everything between us was a lie. It had to be.

My knees weaken under the weight of that possibility, and my heart races. I can almost feel my pulse pounding in my ears.

I trusted him. I wanted to trust him. But now, all I can see is every moment that could have been him just manipulating me. Every dirty word, every lingering look that made me want to fall for him even harder somehow starts to feel like it’s tainted.

I don’t know what’s worse: that he knew and kept it from me… or that he didn’t.

The confusion marred with the gazillion questions is put to rest when the phone that’s still on the purse clung to my shoulders buzzes with a loud notification.

Needing the distraction, I take my phone out and my face pales when I see an email with ‘paternity results’ as the subject.

The nurse assured me they’d take my case as top priority but I didn’t think they’d be this fast. I thought they’d be here in a few days or a week. Goddess, I know I wanted this badly for Lina but rereading the word ‘paternity’ has my heart beating painfully in my chest.

I swallow the invisible pricks scratching my throat, my finger gingerly pressing on the email.

I read once. Twice. Thrice. And by the fourth time, I can almost hear every shattered piece of my heart drop to the floor.

“Negative” is written in bold.

Alaric and Lina are not related.

Alaric is not Lina’s biological father.

Which means…

I barely get to mourn, let alone re-read the results for the umpteenth time, when my phone flashes with a call from an unknown caller.

I have worked as Alaric’s assistant for weeks. I've saved his contacts in my phone, as well as memorized every number he talks to, and yet as I pick up this call, I pray to the Goddess that it’s him.

I need him. I need him to tell me that the results are not real. I need him to hold me and tell me none of what happened today is real.

“Peaches.” His voice is like hot piss on a sunny day. Vile, rotten, and sadistic.

“Julian.” His name trembles out of me in disbelief.

“I was serious when I told you I'd be better for you. I divorced Aisha, and I’m a free man, peaches. Well, technically not free because I'll do everything to win you back.”

Does he know about the results?

I don’t even ask about that, because I don’t think I have a voice anymore.

“I didn’t handle things well, Lila, and for that, I'm deeply sorry. For real this time. I want to be better for you and our little girl because I believe she’s mine, peaches. You know she’s the product of our love, right?”

She’s not yours, she’s mine!

You are not her father because you don’t even know her name, nor have you bothered to ask.

“Let me make it up to you, peaches. One more chance, baby.”

I swallow down the vitriol and the devastation that threatens to slice me open.

The next words I let out feel like a deep betrayal to both Lina and Alaric, but my baby’s life is literally in the hands of Julian. What I'm about to do is…the only way.

“H–how will you make it up to me after everything you’ve done to hurt me?”

“It’s not too late to invite you and Lina out for dinner, is it? We can talk about everything over dinner.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you for—”

“Dinner in a public restaurant where it won’t just be me, you, and Lina. I don’t trust you after what you did to me the last time we met.”

The last time he drugged me. The last time he tried to…I have to do this. For Lina.

I can hear the smirk in Julian’s voice before he even speaks.

“It’s a date. I’ll send the address.”

The call ends, and I stare at my reflection in the darkened screen.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t cry.

I can’t scream.

Not yet.

Because my little girl’s life is at stake.

And I’ll walk through fire if it means saving her.