THE ALPHA'S BRIDE IS A ROGUE

CHAPTER 5- THE CALL

"Come home."

Ravenna shivered as the voice echoed through the trees. For six years she'd tried to hold onto her mother's voice without giving in to the ache that came with it — the warmth of Elara's hands, the songs she used to hum, the way her palms would brush Ravenna's shoulder whenever a storm rattled the forest. All of it locked away, folded into memories she rarely let herself touch. Now that voice was calling her back, telling her how badly she was needed.

Tears fell before she could stop them. "Mom?"

The sound of her own voice, raw and pleading, made Ronan turn to her sharply. "Ravenna, don't." But she barely heard him, already moving toward the window.

"Mom!"

Nothing answered but the wind through the trees.

Something shifted in the shadows below.

Her heart slammed in her throat, and a flash of anger burned through the tears as she wiped at her cheeks. "You heard her," she said.

Ronan came to stand beside her, eyes fixed on the tree line. "I heard a voice."

"You know it was her."

"No."

He said it too fast, and she rounded on him. "Don't lie to me."

He finally met her eyes, his expression guarded. "You don't know what grief can make you hear."

"Don't." Her voice shook. "Don't you dare use grief against me. I know my mother's voice." Hope cut through the fear even as she tried to hold it back — because if there was even the smallest chance she was still alive, she needed to know.

"I need to know," she said again, quieter, her eyes wet.

Ronan's expression softened, and he stepped closer. "And if that wasn't your mother?"

She swallowed hard. "Then I'll find out."

She turned for the window, but he caught her arm. "You're not going out there."

"Let go."

"No."

She pulled against him, tears still falling. "You don't understand what this means to me."

"I understand more than you think."

She shot him a hard look. "Then tell me."

He hesitated, his gaze dropping to the pendant at her throat. "Your mother came here years ago because someone was hunting her."

A chill moved through her. "Who?"

"I don't know."

"What did they want?"

"I don't know."

Frustration flared up in her chest. "Then what do you know?"

His eyes stayed on the pendant. "I know she was terrified. And I know she believed the only way to keep you safe was to keep you hidden."

Ravenna's knees nearly gave out, and she leaned back against the wall for support. "She never told me any of this."

"She couldn't."

"She could have trusted me." Her voice dropped to almost nothing. "She could have told me why she was leaving."

Ronan said nothing. The words she wanted to say clawed their way up her throat, and she forced them back down. For years she'd carried the quiet belief that she hadn't been enough — that whatever she'd done, or failed to do, had been the reason Elara couldn't stay. She'd turned it over a hundred different ways, looking for the version where it was her fault. But now a different thought had taken root, one far more unsettling than the first: maybe her mother hadn't left her at all. Maybe she'd been trying to save her.

A sharp knock rattled the window.

Ravenna flinched back with a gasp as something dark curled over the sill — not a hand, something longer, darker. A mark. The same symbol from the black fabric. The same one etched into her pendant.

Ronan's eyes snapped to it and he moved closer. "Don't touch it."

She ignored him, hovering her hand just above the glass. The symbol seemed to ripple as she got near, and a strange current ran up through her fingertips. Then the room fell away.

Her mother stood in front of her, young and afraid, hands gripping her shoulders.

"If they ever find you..." Elara's voice trembled as she pressed something cold and heavy into Ravenna's small hands. "Run."

The memory shifted. A different room now — a door sealed shut behind her, voices shouting on the other side. Elara turned and pressed the pendant into her trembling palms.

"Whatever they tell you, don't trust—"

The vision cut off, and Ravenna dropped to her knees as it crashed over her all at once. Ronan knelt beside her instantly.

"What did you see?"

"My mother." Her voice shook. "She was scared."

"Of who?"

"I don't know."

The mark on the glass had already vanished. Ravenna looked past the windowsill, but there was nothing left but darkness — until something else caught her eye on the floor near the window. Something small and white.

It hadn't been there a moment ago.

Ronan reached for it, but she stopped him with a hand against his chest. "It's addressed to me." Her voice sounded strange to her own ears as she said it, hands trembling as she tore it open. A single page inside, six words written in careful, familiar script.

If you want answers, come alone.

Her eyes flew to the dark trees beyond the glass.

Beneath the line, in the same handwriting she'd know anywhere, was one more word.

—Mother.