Chapter 35: The Real Reason
1128 Words
NORA POV
Roy left first.
He picked up the documents, gave Rhett one more look that was doing a lot of quiet work, and walked out. The document room felt smaller after he was gone. Just me and Rhett and three walls of old records and that narrow table between us.
I looked at Rhett.
He was closing the bound record. Careful. Like the pages deserved that.
“I have a question” I said.
“I know.”
“Did your father bring Dana in specifically because of the prophecy?” I kept my voice level. “Not for politics. Not for alliance. Because he expected one of the Cole twins to be the memory wolf and he wanted access to that.”
Rhett put the record back on the shelf. Stood with his back to me for just a second. Then he turned around.
“Yes” he said.
That was all. Just yes.
I had known it was coming. I had been building toward that question for days, since August, since the document room, since reading his grandfather’s notes in that small tight handwriting. I had known and it still landed somewhere solid when he said it.
“The strongest pack in the region” I said. “That’s what your records said. A Luna who was the memory wolf would make Blackwood the strongest pack around.”
“That was what my father believed.”
“And he built a whole arrangement around it.”
“Yes.”
“With my mother. Who had the same records. Who had already figured out which twin carried it and had been sitting on that information while she worked out how to protect me from being used exactly the way your family planned to use her daughters.” I said it straight. No heat. Just the shape of it. “Two families reading the same prophecy and making two completely different decisions.”
Rhett looked at me. “Yes.”
“Yours decided to acquire it. Mine decided to hide it.”
“That is an accurate summary.”
I moved to the table. Pressed both hands flat on it and looked at the space between them. The dusty surface. The old grain of the wood.
“When you figured out I was not Dana” I said, “and you decided to let me stay.” I looked up at him. “Was that partly because of the prophecy? Because you knew what I was and you knew the pack would benefit from having me here?”
He was quiet.
One second. Two.
“Partly” he said.
I nodded. I had expected that too. The clean rational answer. Partly. Strategic. Practical.
“What was the other part?” I said.
He looked at me for a moment. Something moved across his face. Not much. Just a small shift.
“I am not going to answer that right now” he said.
I straightened up. “Why not?”
“Because the answer is not a simple one and right now we have two days and a waking wolf and Warren Steele building something sixty miles away.” He held my gaze. “I would rather give you the real answer when we are not in the middle of a crisis and there is actually time to sit with it.”
I stared at him.
“You’re serious” I said.
“Yes.”
“You will not answer a direct question because the timing is inconvenient.”
“Because the answer deserves better than this room right now.” He said it plainly. Not defensive. Not apologetic. Just straight. “When this is done. When you know what you are and the pack knows and Warren has been dealt with. Then I will tell you.”
I looked at him.
He looked back.
His face was doing that thing. The completely level thing. Except I had been reading his face for five years and there was something in it right now that was not level underneath. Something held very carefully in place.
He meant it. That was the thing. He was not deflecting or managing or protecting himself. He genuinely wanted to give it properly and properly was not this cold dusty room in the middle of everything falling apart.
I did not know what to do with that.
“Fine” I said.
“Fine?”
“I said fine. I will wait.” I moved toward the door. “But when this is done you do not get to change your mind about answering.”
“I won’t.”
“I will hold you to that.”
“I know” he said.
I pushed through the narrow doorway back into the library. The normal library. Big and lit and smelling like regular books instead of decades of sealed records.
I stood for a second near the shelf that had hidden the door.
The answer is complicated.
Not I don’t have an answer. Not there is no other part. Complicated. Real enough that he wanted to do it properly. Real enough that he was willing to say not right now instead of just giving me something easy.
My chest pulsed. Hard. One single hard push that went all the way up to my throat and then settled back down.
I put my hand flat against my sternum automatically.
The pressure was different today. Not higher exactly. More present. Like it was paying attention in a way it hadn’t before. Like whatever was sitting inside me had heard that conversation and decided it had an opinion.
Rhett came through the doorway behind me.
He stopped when he saw my hand on my chest.
“It’s fine” I said before he could ask.
“You said that already.”
“Because it is still fine.”
He looked at me for a second. “Have you eaten today?”
I blinked. “What?”
“Have you eaten today.” He said it again. Same voice. Like it was a completely normal question in the middle of everything.
“That is what you are asking right now.”
“You look like you have not slept and have not eaten and those two things together are not helpful when your body is doing what it is currently doing.”
I stared at him.
“Come on” he said. And he walked out of the library toward the kitchen like that was the end of it.
I stood there for a second.
The pressure pulsed once more. Steady. Patient.
Like it was satisfied with something.
I followed him.
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