MOONBOUND: THE HUMAN HEART

Chapter 13 – Mother's Past

The photograph slipped from my fingers.

Floated down to the stone floor like a fallen leaf.

I didn't pick it up.

Couldn't.

Because my hands were shaking too hard, and my vision was blurring at the edges, and my brain was screaming at me to make sense of what I'd just seen.

Nikolai's father.

My mother.

Together.

Intimate.

"What is this?" My voice came out strangled. "Thorne, what the hell is this?"

Thorne bent down and picked up the photograph. He looked at it for a long moment, his gray eyes unreadable, then handed it back to me.

"Your mother," he said, "and Dmitri Volkov. Nikolai's father."

"I can see that." I stared at the image. At the way my mother was leaning into him. At the way his arm was wrapped around her shoulders. At the way they were both smiling—not the polite smiles of acquaintances, but the real smiles of people who knew each other. Really knew each other. "Were they...?"

"Lovers?" Thorne shook his head. "No. Something more complicated than that."

"More complicated than lovers?"

"Protector and protected. Friend and friend. Two people who shouldn't have trusted each other, but did." He took the book from my lap and turned to a marked page. "Read this."

The page was written in that same old language—Turkish, maybe, or something close to it. But at the bottom, someone had scrawled a translation in messy handwriting.

Record of Expulsion

Name: Leyla Demir (nee Kaya)

Bloodline: Human (unmarked)

Crime: Consorting with a wolf. Bearing the child of a wolf. Refusing to surrender the child to the Council.

Sentence: Permanent exile from Silvermoon Academy and all wolf territories. Stripped of all rights and protections. Forfeit of the child's inheritance.

Date: Seventeen years ago.

Signed: Headmaster Aldric Vane

My mother's name.

Leyla Demir.

Not the woman who cooked lentil soup and asked me when I'd get married. Not the woman who looked at me with sad eyes and never talked about the past.

This woman.

The one who had loved a wolf. The one who had borne his child. The one who had chosen exile rather than give up her baby.

Me.

She'd chosen me.

"She never told me," I whispered. "She never said a word."

"Would you have believed her?" Thorne asked.

I thought about it. About the mother I thought I knew. About the life I thought I'd lived. About the girl who'd grown up feeling like an outsider, like she didn't belong anywhere, like there was something wrong with her that everyone could see but no one would name.

"No," I admitted. "I would have thought she was crazy."

"Then she was right to keep it from you."

"But—"

"She was protecting you." Thorne's voice was soft. "The way mothers do. The way your mother did, even when it cost her everything."

I traced my finger over the words on the page.

Refusing to surrender the child to the Council.

"The Council wanted me," I said. "When I was born. They wanted to take me away from her."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because you're not just a human with wolf blood." Thorne closed the book. "You're something else. Something they've been looking for for centuries."

"What?"

He didn't answer.

"Thorne, what am I?"

"I don't know." His gray eyes met mine. "But your mother knew. And she died rather than tell them."

The word hit me like a blade.

Died.

Not left. Not disappeared. Not ran away.

Died.

"What did you say?" My voice was barely a whisper.

Thorne's jaw tightened. "Your mother didn't leave Istanbul because she wanted to. She left because she was running. And they caught up with her."

"Who?"

"The Shadowborn." He said the name like poison. "The same people who killed my mother. The same people who marked me. The same people who've been watching you since the moment you arrived."

I shook my head. "No. No, that's not—she's still alive. She's in Istanbul. She's—"

"Ela." Thorne's voice was gentle now. Too gentle. "When was the last time you spoke to her?"

I opened my mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

When was the last time I spoke to my mother?

The day I left. The day I got on the plane. She'd hugged me too tight and whispered in my ear, You're hiding something, Ela. You've been hiding something since the day you were born.

I'd pulled away.

I hadn't called her since.

Oh God.

"She's not answering your calls, is she?" Thorne asked.

"No."

"Because she can't."

I stared at him. At his gray eyes and his tattooed neck and the scar hidden beneath his collar.

"You're saying she's dead."

"I'm saying the Shadowborn don't leave witnesses."

The room spun.

I grabbed the edge of the bookshelf to steady myself, my knuckles white against the old wood. My breath came in short, sharp gasps—too fast, too shallow, not enough.

My mother is dead.

My mother is dead and I didn't even know.

My mother is dead because of me.

"Ela." Thorne's hand closed around my wrist. "Breathe."

"I can't—"

"Yes, you can." He pulled me down until I was sitting on the floor, my back against the shelf, my head between my knees. "Breathe with me. In. Out. In. Out."

I followed his breathing.

Slowly, the world stopped spinning.

Slowly, the darkness receded.

Slowly, the tears came.

I cried for a long time.

Thorne didn't try to stop me. Didn't tell me it would be okay. Didn't offer empty comfort or meaningless words.

He just sat there, his hand on my back, his presence solid and steady.

When the tears finally slowed, when my sobs faded to hiccups, when I could breathe again without feeling like I was drowning, I lifted my head.

"Why are you helping me?" I asked. "You said you didn't care."

"I lied."

"Why?"

"Because you remind me of her." His voice was quiet. "My mother. The way she looked at the world. Like it had hurt her so many times, but she still believed it could be beautiful."

"I don't believe that."

"Yes, you do." He pulled his hand back. "Otherwise you would have left already. Otherwise you would have run and never looked back. But you're still here. Still fighting. Still trying."

"I don't have anywhere else to go."

"Neither did she." He stood up, offering me his hand. "Come on. There's more you need to see."

He led me deeper into the archives.

Past shelves of books and scrolls and artifacts I couldn't name. Past a door that required a password in a language I didn't speak. Into a room at the very heart of the cavern, hidden from everyone who didn't know exactly where to look.

The room was small.

Circular.

Lit by candles that burned with blue flame.

And on the walls—

Portraits.

Dozens of them. Hundreds, maybe. Faces staring down at me from every angle. Wolves and humans and things that were both. Some of them I recognized from history books. Some of them I'd never seen before.

And in the center of the room, on a pedestal made of black stone—

A book.

Older than the others. Thicker. Bound in leather that looked like skin.

"This is the Blood Registry," Thorne said. "Every wolf born in the last thousand years. Every human who ever mated with a wolf. Every child born of those unions."

"Why are you showing me this?"

"Because your name is in here." He opened the book to a page near the middle. "And so is your mother's. And so is your father's."

I looked at the page.

The handwriting was beautiful—looping, elegant, centuries old. But at the bottom, near the end of the page, the handwriting changed. Became sharper. More modern.

Leyla Kaya (human). Admitted to Silvermoon Academy, age sixteen. Expelled, age nineteen. Cause: unauthorized union with a wolf.

Issue: one daughter, Ela Demir. Bloodline: mixed (human/wolf). Status: unmarked.

Father: —

The line was blank.

Someone had scratched out the name.

But not well enough.

I held the page up to the candlelight, tilting it until the shadows fell just right.

And there, faint but visible, were the letters.

Aldric Vane.

My father.

The headmaster.

The man who had welcomed me to Silvermoon Academy with cold eyes and colder words.

He knew.

He always knew.

And he'd said nothing.

"Thorne," I said slowly. "Did my mother love him?"

"No."

"Then why—"

"Because he didn't give her a choice." Thorne's voice was hard. "He was the headmaster. She was a student. He wanted her. And what the headmaster wants, the headmaster takes."

The room tilted.

"Are you saying he—"

"I'm saying your mother didn't run away because she wanted to." Thorne's gray eyes burned. "She ran away because she was pregnant with you, and if she'd stayed, the Council would have taken you from her the moment you were born."

"And my father?"

"Aldric Vane doesn't have children. He has assets. And you—" He looked at me. "You're his greatest asset. A child born of a human and a wolf. A child with dormant blood that's been waiting centuries to wake up."

"I'm not an asset."

"No," Thorne agreed. "You're not. But that's how he sees you. That's how all of them see you."

I closed the book.

My hands were steady now. My voice was steady. Something had hardened inside me—something cold and sharp and unbreakable.

"What do I do?"

Thorne studied my face.

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to survive." I met his eyes. "I want to find out who killed my mother. And I want to make them pay."

"That's a dangerous thing to want."

"I know."

"It could get you killed."

"I know."

"It could get me killed."

I looked at him. At the scar hidden beneath his collar. At the pain he carried in his gray eyes.

"Then why are you helping me?"

Thorne was quiet for a long moment.

Then he said: "Because someone should have helped my mother. And no one did."

He turned away, walking toward the door.

"Thorne."

He stopped. Didn't turn around.

"Thank you."

He glanced back at me over his shoulder. His expression was unreadable—but something flickered in his eyes. Something almost warm.

"Don't thank me yet," he said. "You haven't heard the worst part."

I followed him out of the room, back through the archives, back up the spiral staircase, back into the main library.

The candles were burning low. Dawn was still hours away.

Thorne stopped in front of a window, looking out at the darkened grounds.

"You asked me earlier why your mother never told you about this place," he said.

"Yes."

"Because she was trying to protect you. From the wolves. From the Council. From the headmaster." He turned to face me. "But there's another reason."

"What?"

"Because she knew that if you ever came back here, you'd find out the truth about your father."

"The headmaster."

"No." Thorne shook his head. "Not the headmaster."

I stared at him.

"Your mother didn't love Aldric Vane," Thorne said slowly. "She never wanted him. But she did love someone. Someone she met here. Someone she left with. Someone who—"

"Thorne, what are you saying?"

He took a breath.

Let it out.

And said: "What if I told you that Aldric Vane isn't your real father?"

The words hit me like a physical blow.

"What?"

"Think about it, Ela. The headmaster is ancient. Powerful. Cruel. Do you really think he would have let your mother leave if she was carrying his child? Do you think he would have let you leave?"

"I don't—"

"Your mother ran away with someone else. Someone the Council wanted dead. Someone who's been hiding ever since." Thorne stepped closer. "Someone who's still in this academy."

"Who?"

Thorne's gray eyes held mine.

"Your father," he said, "is a wolf. And he's been watching you since the moment you arrived."

"Who is he?"

Thorne didn't answer.

Instead, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a photograph.

Older than the others. More faded.

It showed a man and a woman standing in front of the clock tower, their arms around each other, their faces bright with joy.

The woman was my mother.

Young. Beautiful. Alive.

And the man—

The man had white-blonde hair and ice-blue eyes.

The same eyes I saw every time Nikolai looked at me.

"Your father," Thorne said quietly, "is Dmitri Volkov. Nikolai's father. And that makes Nikolai not your fated mate." He paused. "It makes him your brother."