THE ALPHA'S BRIDE IS A ROGUE

CHAPTER 3- WHAT SHE LEFT BEHIND

Ravenna couldn't breathe. Her mother's name still hung in the air, echoing off the walls like it had nowhere else to go. Lyra's grip on her arm had tightened to the point of pain, but she barely registered it. Her eyes stayed locked on the gates, on whoever had just spoken from the dark, waiting for them to say something else.

They didn't. The silence that followed was worse than the voice had been.

"Who is that?" she muttered.

Ronan didn't answer. He stood several feet ahead of her, every muscle drawn tight, staring past the windows like he could will the answer into being.

"Ronan." Her voice sharpened into something close to a growl. "Who is outside?"

His jaw set. "I don't know."

"You're lying."

He turned to face her then, and for the first time since she'd met him, she saw something in his expression that unsettled her more than anger ever could. It was fear.

A second round of fists slammed against the gates, hard enough to rattle the windows. Muffled voices carried from the other side, along with the steady thud of warriors falling into position around the building. Ravenna moved toward the window, but Ronan stepped into her path.

"Stay away from there."

"Move."

"No."

She stared at him, incredulous. "That voice knew my name. It knew my mother's name. You recognized that symbol the second you saw it. What aren't you telling me?"

He said nothing.

"What did my mother leave behind?" she demanded.

The look on his face suggested he'd rather take a blade to the ribs than answer that question. His eyes dropped to the pendant at her throat, then back to her face. "I don't know."

She laughed, short and humorless. "You keep saying that."

"It's not that simple."

"Let me decide what's simple."

His expression hardened. "Your mother spent years making sure certain people never found you. If they have, then something's gone very wrong."

That stunned her into silence — for about a second. "You knew my mother."

He didn't answer.

"How?"

"Before you were born, Elara came to this territory."

Something in Ravenna's chest lurched. Six years she'd spent chasing scraps of information about the woman who raised her, and every lead had run cold eventually. Now someone was finally handing her answers, and she almost didn't know what to do with that.

"Why did she come here?" The question was out before she could stop it. "What was she running from?"

"I don't know."

She would have laughed again if the situation weren't so serious. "You knew her, but you don't know why she came. You recognize that symbol enough to know something's wrong, but not what it means. Is there anything you actually know, or just enough to tell me to stop asking?"

A sudden hush dropped over the grounds outside. The warriors' voices died away, and even the wolves went quiet. Ravenna turned toward the window. "Why did it stop?"

Ronan didn't answer, just crossed to the door and eased it open. One of the warriors stood on the other side, his face drained of color.

"Alpha," he said, "the gates are still shut, but there's no one out there."

Ronan's expression darkened. "What do you mean?"

"They're gone."

"Gone?" Ravenna stepped forward.

The warrior nodded. "We searched the whole east side. Nothing."

Ronan's gaze drifted toward the tree line. "Keep everyone inside."

The man hesitated, then nodded and withdrew. Ravenna turned back to Ronan.

"They came all this way just to say my mother's name?"

"Maybe."

"You don't believe that."

He didn't answer that either.

She walked back to the table, where the scrap of black fabric still lay untouched — dropped there in Ronan's rush to reach the gates. She picked it up and studied the symbol again. It felt familiar in a way she couldn't place, not like something she'd seen recently, but something older. A room. A voice. Warm hands. Her mother's face, gone as quickly as it appeared.

"I've seen this before," she whispered.

Ronan's head came up. "Where?"

"I don't know." The fabric felt heavier than it should have in her palm. "But my mother knew it."

"How can you be sure?"

She turned the pendant over and held it up to the light. "Because it's on the back of this."

Ronan crossed the room in an instant, stopping just short of touching it. His eyes fixed on the small inscription etched into the metal. Ravenna had worn that pendant her entire life and never once thought to look at its back. Now the symbol stared up at both of them, and neither spoke for several long seconds.

"You knew," she finally said.

His jaw tightened. "I suspected."

"Suspected what — that I was adopted? That I'm some kind of weapon?" She took a step back. "Why didn't you say something?"

"Because I wasn't sure."

"And now?"

His eyes met hers. "Now I'm sure someone is looking for you."

Her stomach twisted. "Who?"

A sound broke the silence from the corridor outside — slow, deliberate footsteps. Ronan's hand moved to the dagger at his hip. Ravenna turned toward the doorway just as the footsteps stopped. Three soft knocks followed.

Ronan's eyes met hers, and for the first time since she'd arrived, she thought she saw something like recognition pass through them.

A voice called from behind the door.

Not the one from the forest. This one was muffled but familiar in a way that made her stomach drop before her mind caught up.

The pendant at her throat felt suddenly, impossibly warm against her skin.

"...Ravenna."

Her eyes went wide.

She knew that voice.

And her mother had been dead for six years.