MOONBOUND: THE HUMAN HEART

Chapter 14 – Father Figure

I didn't sleep that night.

How could I? Thorne's words were still echoing in my skull, bouncing off the walls of my brain like bullets in a chamber.

Your father is Dmitri Volkov. Nikolai's father.

That makes Nikolai not your fated mate. It makes him your brother.

I'd run from the library. Run through the dark hallways, past sleeping students, past portraits that watched me with painted eyes. Run until my legs gave out and my lungs burned and I collapsed against a wall somewhere in the north wing, gasping for breath.

Brother.

Nikolai is my brother.

The boy I almost kissed. The boy whose hands were in my hair. The boy who looked at me like I was the sun and the moon and every star in the sky.

My brother.

I'd thrown up in a potted plant.

Then I'd crawled back to my room and lain on the floor, staring at the ceiling, waiting for dawn.

Morning came too fast.

I didn't go to class. Didn't eat breakfast. Didn't answer the knock on my door—Kai's knock, gentle and hesitant, followed by his voice: "Ela? I heard you weren't feeling well. I brought you some tea."

I pressed my hand over my mouth and didn't make a sound.

After a while, he left.

The tea cooled on the floor outside my door.

I didn't drink it.

By noon, I couldn't stay in my room anymore.

The walls were closing in. The ceiling was pressing down. Every shadow looked like Lukas's smile, every creak of the floorboards sounded like Nikolai's footsteps.

I needed answers.

And there was only one person who could give them to me.

The headmaster.

The clock tower stairs were endless.

I climbed them slowly, one at a time, my legs heavy, my heart heavier. The photograph was tucked into my pocket—the one Thorne had shown me, the one of my mother and Dmitri Volkov, their arms around each other, their faces bright with joy.

If Dmitri is my father, why did the headmaster claim me?

Why did my mother run away with him instead of with Dmitri?

Why does nothing make sense?

I reached the top of the stairs.

The door to the headmaster's office was oak, carved with the same wolf-and-moon motif as everything else in this place. I'd been here once before, right after the arena, when Headmaster Vane had told me my mother was a student.

He hadn't told me the rest.

He hadn't told me anything.

I knocked.

"Enter."

Headmaster Vane was sitting behind his massive desk, just like before. His gold-flecked eyes lifted from the papers in front of him, scanning my face.

"Ela Demir," he said. "I wasn't expecting you."

"I'm sure you weren't."

He tilted his head. "Something's happened."

"You could say that."

I walked into the room. Didn't wait for an invitation to sit. Just stood in front of his desk, my hands clenched at my sides, my eyes fixed on his face.

"I know about my mother," I said.

He didn't flinch. "I see."

"I know she was a student here. I know she fell in love with a wolf. I know she got pregnant and ran away to protect me."

"Then you know more than most."

"I know she was expelled. I know the Council wanted to take me from her. I know she chose exile rather than give me up."

Headmaster Vane set down his pen. Folded his hands on the desk. Looked at me with those ancient, gold-flecked eyes.

"What else do you know?"

I pulled the photograph from my pocket.

Slid it across the desk toward him.

He looked at it.

And for the first time since I'd met him, his mask slipped.

Just for a moment.

A flicker of something—recognition, pain, grief—crossed his face. Then it was gone, smoothed over by centuries of practice, replaced by that calm, unreadable expression.

"Where did you get this?" he asked.

"The archives."

"The archives are restricted."

"Apparently not restricted enough."

He picked up the photograph. Stared at it. At my mother's face. At Dmitri Volkov's arm around her shoulders.

"Leyla," he said softly. "She was so young."

"You knew her."

"Yes."

"Know her. Present tense." My voice cracked. "She's dead, isn't she? The Shadowborn killed her."

Headmaster Vane set down the photograph.

His hands were steady. His face was calm. But his eyes—his eyes were not.

"Yes," he said. "She's dead."

The words hit me like a blade.

Even though I'd known. Even though Thorne had told me. Even though I'd been preparing myself for this moment since last night.

Hearing it from someone who had known her—someone who had seen her smile, heard her laugh, watched her live—

It made it real.

"How?" I asked.

"The Shadowborn found her six months ago. They wanted information about you. About your bloodline. About the prophecy."

"What prophecy?"

He didn't answer.

"She refused to tell them," he continued. "So they killed her. Quickly, I'm told. She didn't suffer."

"Didn't suffer?" My voice rose. "She was murdered. By people who work for this academy. By people who probably walk past me in the hallways every day. And you're telling me she didn't suffer?"

"I'm telling you the truth."

"I don't want the truth. I want—" I stopped. Swallowed. Forced myself to breathe. "I want to know who my father is."

Headmaster Vane was silent.

The clock tower ticked overhead, each second echoing through the room like a heartbeat.

"You know who he is," I said. "You've always known."

"Yes."

"Then tell me."

"I can't."

"Can't or won't?"

He stood up. Walked to the window, his back to me, his hands clasped behind him. The afternoon light caught his white hair, his lined face, the slight tremor in his shoulders.

"If I tell you," he said quietly, "they will kill you."

"The Shadowborn?"

"The Council. The alphas. Everyone who has a stake in keeping the bloodlines pure." He turned to face me. "Your father is not just a wolf, Ela. He is the wolf. The one they've been hunting for centuries. The one whose blood carries the key to something they've been trying to destroy since before this academy was built."

"What?"

"The bond." His gold-flecked eyes burned. "The true fated mate bond. The kind that can't be broken by distance or death or time. The kind that makes wolves equal to humans, not above them."

I didn't understand.

Couldn't understand.

None of this made sense.

"I don't care about any of that," I said. "I just want to know who my father is."

"You care more than you know."

"Tell me."

"No."

"Tell me."

Headmaster Vane walked toward me.

Stopped in front of me.

And for the first time, I saw him clearly. Not as the headmaster. Not as an ancient, powerful wolf.

As a man.

A tired, broken, grieving man.

"Ela," he said softly. "Kızım."

My daughter.

Turkish.

He spoke Turkish.

My blood turned to ice.

"What did you call me?"

His hand rose. Trembling. Reached toward my face.

I stepped back.

"Don't."

"Ela—"

"Don't touch me."

He lowered his hand.

His eyes—those gold-flecked eyes that I'd always thought were just wolf eyes, just ancient eyes, just his eyes—

They were my eyes.

The same shape. The same color. The same way they crinkled at the corners when I was trying not to cry.

Oh God.

"No," I whispered. "No, it's not—you can't be—"

"I am your father," Headmaster Aldric Vane said. "Your mother and I... we were young. We were stupid. We were in love."

"In love?" I laughed—a hollow, broken sound. "Thorne said you took her. That you didn't give her a choice."

"Thorne doesn't know everything."

"He knows enough."

"He knows what he wants to believe." The headmaster's voice was tired. "Your mother and I... it wasn't simple. It wasn't clean. But she wasn't a victim, Ela. Not of me."

"Then who?"

He didn't answer.

"Who made her a victim?"

"The Council." His jaw tightened. "They found out about us. About you. They said the child couldn't live—that a child born of a human and a wolf was an abomination, a threat to the bloodline."

"So she ran."

"She ran. And I let her go." His voice cracked. "I let her go to save your life. And I've regretted it every day since."

I stared at him.

At the man who was supposed to be my father.

At the man who had watched me walk into his office days ago, knowing who I was, knowing what I carried, knowing everything—and said nothing.

"You're lying," I said.

"I'm not."

"You have to be lying. Because if you're telling the truth—" My voice broke. "If you're telling the truth, then you abandoned her. You abandoned me. You let her raise me alone, in secret, in fear, and you did nothing."

"I did everything I could."

"Then it wasn't enough."

"No." His eyes glistened. "It wasn't."

He reached into his desk drawer. Pulled out a folded piece of paper—old, yellowed, worn soft from being touched.

"Your mother wrote this," he said. "Before she left. She asked me to give it to you when you were old enough. When you came here."

I didn't take it.

"I've been waiting seventeen years for this moment," he said. "Seventeen years to look at you and see her face. Seventeen years to—"

"Stop."

"Ela—"

"Stop." Tears streamed down my face. "You don't get to do this. You don't get to pretend to be my father now. Not after everything. Not after her."

I turned toward the door.

"Ela, wait."

I stopped.

Didn't turn around.

"If you leave now," he said quietly, "if you walk out that door without knowing the truth, they will come for you. The Shadowborn. The Council. Everyone who wants what's in your blood."

"Then let them come."

"Kızım—"

"Don't call me that." My voice was ice. "You lost the right to call me that the day you let her walk away."

I reached for the door handle.

"Ela." His voice broke. "Please. If you learn the truth—if they find out what you really are—they will want you dead. Not exiled. Not marked. Dead."

I turned.

Looked at him one last time.

His face was wet. His hands were shaking. The great Headmaster Aldric Vane, the most powerful wolf in the academy, was crying.

And I didn't care.

"Then I'll die knowing who I am," I said. "Which is more than you ever gave me."

I opened the door.

"Kızım," he said one last time. "Eğer gerçekleri öğrenirsen, seni öldürmek isteyecekler."

My daughter. If you learn the truth, they will want to kill you.

I stepped into the hallway.

The door closed behind me.

And I walked away from my father for the second time in my life.