The Moon Warriors Second Chance

Chapter 5

AMARIS

I stand there stunned. I heard the words that came out of his mouth, but I don’t believe him. Luna Kate cheated on him? Who’s my real father? Does he know about me? I want to ask Artemis but she’s still retreated in the back of my mind trying to get some of her strength back, so I’m on my own.

“What?” I whispered.

Alpha Robert laughs like he told a funny joke instead of turning my world upside down. “You aren’t my child. Or I guess I should say our child. You’re adopted. The worst mistake of my life taking you in as ours, but I needed you close so we could monitor you.”

My mind is racing, and my breathing getting harder. My chest feels like it’s getting tighter. There’s a faint buzzing in my ears.

Adopted?

It makes sense; I look nothing like them. I understand now why they wouldn’t let me call them anything but their title. How they could be so cruel to me, but doted on Kyle and Bri. Moving me out of my room on the Alpha floor before I was a teen and forcing me to work with the omegas. Why they wouldn’t let me train, but had to keep appearances because some people knew me as theirs. The beatings, the time I spent in the cells. The more I think about it, the more sense it makes.

“I can’t believe you believed we’re your parents. When we took you, I wanted to kill you, but Kate wanted a daughter. We tried for years after having Kyle, but couldn’t conceive. So I thought, what better way to get back at your parents than raising you as our own? Then Bri came three years later, and it was too late to get rid of you. People already thought you were our child. We had no choice but to keep you.” Alpha Robert scowled. “After we had Bri, we had no use for you, but like I said, we couldn’t just get rid of you. No, that would cause too many questions I didn’t want to answer. So we waited until you were older and moved you with the omegas. Giving them free rein over you, slowly people stopped asking about you, and eventually, everyone forgot you.” he shrugged like it was no big deal.

I can’t believe he’s admitting all this in front of the entire party. I look around to see how people are reacting to this and see that all the guests are gone. The only people still here for his confession are Luna Kate, Kyle, Bri, Kevin, and a few pack warriors. Some warriors look disgusted by what he’s saying, but as their Alpha, they have no right to speak out against him. My ‘family’ and Kevin don’t look surprised by anything he’s saying, and I realize they must have known all along.

“Who are my parents? Why did you take me from them? What did they do to you to make you do something so cruel?” I asked, my voice cracking, tears streaming down my face, but I make no move to wipe them away.

“I took you from them because they took everything from me! I should have been the Alpha of the pack, not your sorry excuse of a father. It was MY family that started that pack! Your family stole it from mine! My family was never happy just living in the pack. We were going to overthrow him and the rest of the ranked members, but somehow they learned of our plan and your father SLAUGHTERED my whole family. We were lucky someone tipped us off before he came for us. When we were leaving, we just came across you and the person looking after you. After I killed her, we took you and fled. Luckily, I knew the previous Alpha of Silver Claw and he took us in. Sadly for him, I needed to be the Alpha of a pack for my plans to work, so I gave him and his ranked members a choice: join me, die, or leave. That sorry excuse abandoned everyone. He didn’t even fight me.”

“But why take me?”

Alpha Robert laughed like an evil villain. “Because, my dear, they said you’d be special. That you’d be an unstoppable fighter. So we were going to raise you as ours, train you, have this unstoppable fighter on our side for when I’m ready to take over all the packs and become King. But then we had our own little girl and we couldn’t stand to look at you. We tried. Oh, we tried so hard but we couldn’t stand you. You look just like your parents.” He spit the word parents like it was a curse. “When it became too hard to pretend anymore, we made you our slave. When you didn't get your wolf I cut you completely out of my plan. There's no way you would be what they said you would without a wolf.” He scoffed.

My head is spinning. My whole life was a lie. These people took me from my parents all for some stupid revenge scheme. King? Unstoppable fighter? I guess I picked up fighting well enough, but unstoppable, me? I try to reach out to Artemis but, she's still not answering me.

I look at my ‘family’ and see them snickering and smiling at me like this is the best thing they have ever seen. Bri’s eyes go hazy like she’s mind-linking someone, and a warrior walks up with the bag I packed this morning. I didn’t know it was possible for me to feel worse than I did a minute ago, but I do. The panicky feeling is back. The warrior looks at me with sad eyes, but otherwise, his face is unreadable.

“Dad, I had a warrior search Amaris’s room, and he found a bag. Looks like she planned on running away. She even took some of our jewelry.” Bri says, smiling at me.

“I didn’t.. That’s not mine.” I say meekly. I don’t know why I try. Of course, he won’t believe me.

Alpha Robert looks at me with hard eyes and tells his warriors to grab me. My body moves before I even register what it’s doing. I spin and punch one warrior in the face hard, knocking him out. Two come at me this time, trying to catch me off guard, but I block the punches and kicks they send my way, surprising them enough to get my own hits in. It takes a few seconds, but I knock them out as well. Huffing, I turn and look around the room. Do I stay and fight, which will lead to me being locked up or dying, or do I try to escape? Everyone is looking at me with a mix of surprise and fear on their face. They must have linked more warriors to come for me while I was fighting the other three because there’s about 15 warriors here now.

“You coward, won’t even take me on yourself!” I yell at Alpha Robert.

The warriors rush me at once, trying to catch me off guard. I try to call on Artemis, but she’s not not responding to me. Without her, there’s no way I can escape. But I will not give up easily. It’s a flurry of punching and kicking, my body moving like it has a thousand times before. I take out warrior after warrior and just when I think I might escape, a warrior hits me from behind, making me stumble and giving them the opening they need to take me to the ground. Two warriors hold my arms, while two hold my legs. No matter how much I try to get free, I know they have me.

“It’s too bad you don’t have a wolf. Maybe I would have let you live.”

Maybe I should tell him I have a wolf, but I would rather die than take his side in any war coming our way. Instead, I stare at him, my face void of any emotion. The last thing I see before I close my eyes is Alpha Robert laughing about finally being able to kill me, and his fingers changing to his claws.