The Alpha Imposter Wife

Chapter 16: The Full Prophecy

NORA POV

“Tell me” I said again.

August looked at me for one more second. Then he pulled one of the old books closer and folded his hands on top of it.

“Sit down, Nora.”

“August…”

“Sit.”

Something in his voice made me do it. I pulled the nearest chair out and sat and put both hands flat on the table and looked at him. Dana was still beside him. Still not looking at me properly. Her eyes were on the window.

August spoke slowly. Like every word had weight and he was making sure none of them got dropped.

“The prophecy has been translated twice” he said. “The original language is old enough that some of the meaning shifts depending on who handles it. I am giving you the version I trust most.”

“Okay.”

“It describes a wolf born between two mirrors.” He held my eyes. “Identical in face. Divided in nature. It says that wolf carries something the records call the unbroken thread.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you are not inheriting something through blood. It is older than that. The records describe it as a kind of gravity inside a pack.” He paused. “Wolves near the bearer become more themselves. If they are brave, they become braver. If they are afraid, the fear goes sharper. Loyalty goes deeper. Rage becomes something that can move through an entire pack like a current.”

The room was quiet.

“And the bearer” I said. “What does the bearer feel?”

“At first, nothing she can control. It just comes out of her. She does not aim it. She does not choose who it touches.” He looked at my hand still pressed against my sternum. “But it cannot be faked. It comes from something bone-deep. And because it cannot be faked, it is the most honest measure a pack has ever had of who actually belongs in a leadership role.”

I sat with that.

The pressure in my chest pulsed once. Slow.

“And the twin who stays” I said. “That line in the prophecy. The one who does not run.”

“Inherits what the other could not carry” August said. “Yes.”

I looked at Dana.

She finally met my eyes. Her face was red around the edges. Jaw tight. She looked like she had been holding herself together for the last hour and was not entirely sure she could keep doing it.

“Your mother knew” August said.

I pulled my eyes back to him. “She knew which one of us it was.”

“She knew before you were born. She had heard the prophecy. She knew what packs do with children who carry something like this.” His voice was even. Not cold. Just straight. “She did not want that for you. She did not want you to be something a pack could use. So she found someone who said they could suppress it and she let them do it.”

“While I was a child.”

“Yes.”

I breathed in through my nose. Out slow.

My mother had sat across from August in this house in the middle of the night three years ago. She had come here and she had talked to him about what she did to me. And August had told her it was not supposed to be possible.

And she had done it anyway. When I was small enough that I had no say.

“She thought she was protecting me” I said.

“I believe she did” August said. “I also believe what she did was not hers to do.”

“Okay.” I pressed my hands harder against the table. “And Dana.”

Dana’s shoulders went tight.

“Warren came to her” I said. “Before the wedding. He showed her the prophecy.”

“Yes” August said.

“He told her that if she walked into Blackwood as Luna, the thread would know she wasn’t the right twin. That it wouldn’t activate for her. That eventually the pack would feel the absence of it and start looking for the source.” I watched Dana’s face as I said it. “He told her she would be exposed.”

Dana’s mouth opened slightly. Closed.

“He was right” August said quietly.

“So she ran” I said. “And she put me in her place. Knowing that I was the one who actually carried it. Knowing the pack would feel it the moment I walked in.”

“Yes” Dana said. Her voice came out rough. “I know how that sounds.”

“Do you?”

“Nora…”

“You used me” I said. Not loud. Just flat. “You didn’t just run. You chose me specifically. Because I was the right one. Because the pack would settle around me and nobody would look twice and you would be safe somewhere else while I lived your life.”

Dana pressed her lips together. Her eyes were wet.

“I was scared” she whispered.

“I know you were scared” I said. “You keep saying that.”

Silence.

I looked back at August. There was one question left. The one that had been sitting at the back of my head since he started talking.

“Does Rhett know?” I said. “About the prophecy.”

August was quiet.

Just one second too long.

“August.”

“The Blackwood family commissioned the original translation” he said. “Forty years ago.”

My brain took a second to process that.

“What?”

“The Blackwoods found the records before almost anyone else did. They paid for the first proper translation. They have had a full copy since before either you or Dana were born.”

The room tilted slightly.

“So Rhett’s family arranged the marriage to one of the Cole twins” I said slowly. “Knowing. Knowing that one of us was the unbroken thread. Knowing that the right twin would stabilise their pack in a way nothing else could.”

“Yes.”

“And Rhett.” I could hear how flat my own voice sounded. “He has known about the prophecy.”

“Yes.”

“He has known who I am for five years.”

“Yes.”

“And he said nothing.” I stood up. My chair scraped back on the floor. “He sat across from me last night and asked me what I wanted and called me by my name and he has known about all of this since before I ever walked through his front door and he said nothing.”

August looked at me. That look again. The one that was not pity but was something close to it.

Dana was very still.

“He watched you” August said carefully. “He made a choice to…”

“Don’t” I said. “Don’t explain it to me right now.”

I walked to the door.

“Nora” Dana said behind me.

I stopped. Hand on the door frame. Didn’t turn around.

“I’m sorry” she said. “I know that’s not enough. I know it doesn’t…”

“Not right now” I said.

I walked out.

The corridor was empty. Cold. My footsteps were too loud and my chest was doing that thing, that deep pushing pulse, stronger than it had been all week. I pressed my back against the wall and just stood there.

Rhett’s family commissioned the translation forty years ago.

He knew.

He had always known.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​