THE ALPHAS LOST LUNA

Chapter 4

I stared at him. Something in my chest tightened.

“So what the hell are you talking about?”

Ronan rubbed his thumb across one of the scars on his hand, thinking. “I’m talking about the family you were born into, not the family you were raised by.”

“My parents raised me.”

“No.” The word was quiet. Certain. I didn’t like it.

“Don’t do that. Don’t talk like you know my life better than I do.”

“I know parts of it that you don’t.” He continued before I could find something to argue with. “The people who raised you are not your biological parents, Heaven. Your real parents entrusted you to them. They took you in, but they do not really know everything about who you are or where you came from.”

The words landed harder than I expected.

“No.”

“They took you in because your father needed you hidden.”

“My parents wouldn’t have lied to me about something like that.”

“They may not have known everything. I wasn’t there for every conversation they had with your father. I can only tell you what I know.”

I looked away. The room seemed suddenly too large.

Ronan’s voice stayed calm. “I was your father’s Beta.”

The words didn’t make sense at first. Then they did, and I hated them.

“My father wasn’t an Alpha.”

“He was. You never knew him, Heaven.”

That shut me up. Not because I agreed with him. Because he was right. I had never known my father. I’d grown up with photographs, secondhand stories, and the vague outline of a man who had died before I was old enough to remember his voice. People had told me he was kind. Strong. Protective. A good man. But those were stories. I had spent my entire life filling in the empty spaces myself.

Ronan watched me quietly before continuing. “Your father was the Alpha of his bloodline. He had enemies long before you were born, and by the time you came into the world those enemies had become dangerous enough that hiding you wasn’t optional. They wanted the bloodline gone. Not weakened. Gone. And they nearly succeeded.”

I swallowed. “And my mother?”

His face changed. Barely. But enough.

“I knew your father better,” he said when I pressed. “I know what she meant to him. I know she loved you. I know she was involved in keeping you hidden. But there are parts of her history I don’t have the information to explain.”

“Don’t have the information or don’t want to?”

“Both are possible.”

I almost laughed. “You’re incredibly annoying.”

“So I’ve been told. Among others, by your father.”

Despite everything, that made me smile. It disappeared when I remembered what he’d said.

“Who killed them?”

Ronan’s expression became serious again. “People who wanted your family’s bloodline erased. They thought they succeeded. For twenty years the world believed the line was dead. If they learn otherwise, they will come looking. And they will not be careful about who gets hurt in the process.”

I stared at him. “You’re saying they don’t know I’m alive?”

“They didn’t. Your powers were sealed. By your father. Because making you powerful would have made you easy to find. A child displaying unusual abilities would have been a beacon. So he sealed what he could, hid your identity, and placed you somewhere those people would never think to look.”

“So he made me ordinary.”

“He made you look ordinary.”

The distinction bothered me. I looked down at my hands again. The silver pulse had become almost impossible to ignore.

“So all these years, this was inside me?”

“Yes.”

“And everyone knew except me?”

“Not everyone. The people who raised you knew you had been entrusted to them by your real parents. I don’t know how much they knew about your powers or your father’s enemies.”

I looked up sharply. “So they knew I wasn’t really theirs?”

“I don’t know what your father told them about your parentage. I only know that you were placed with them for your protection.”

For once, I believed him. He didn’t seem interested in making himself look omniscient. If anything, he seemed almost irritated by the amount he didn’t know.

I rubbed my palms against the gray shirt. “I always felt like something was wrong with me.”

“There wasn’t.”

“Then why did I feel like something was missing?”

Ronan’s expression softened slightly. “Because something was.”

I waited. He didn’t continue.

“That’s it?”

“For now. I’m trying not to overwhelm you.”

“Too late.”

That earned a quiet breath of laughter from him. “Your father spent years making sure you could grow up without knowing what you were. He wanted you to have an ordinary childhood. He wanted you to be safe enough to complain about school, argue with the people raising you, fall in love, make stupid decisions, and believe your biggest problems were normal ones.”

I swallowed. “You make it sound like he knew he’d die.”

“He knew it was possible.”

“And you? You said you’ve been protecting me for twenty years.”

“I have. I knew where you were. I watched when necessary. If you knew about me, you could have been traced through me. Your father didn’t ask me to become part of your life. He asked me to make sure you had one. There’s a difference.”

That was the first thing he’d said that I didn’t immediately want to fight.

“You could have at least said hello.”

“I considered it. You were six. You bit me.”

I stared at him. “You’re lying.”

“I am not. The one time I got close enough to make sure you were safe.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. A real one this time. Ronan’s mouth curved faintly.

Twenty years of everyone else knowing pieces of my life that had been kept from me. And now, in the span of one night, the whole thing had cracked open. I’d left the pack because I thought I needed to find myself. Apparently I had no idea who the hell I was. The girl who packed a bag and walked into the trees wasn’t the same one sitting in this stone room listening to a stranger tell her that her entire life had been a carefully built lie.