Claimed by Alpha and Omega: The Fated Luna

CHAPTER 3: The Lie That Raised Me

The corridor stayed silent long after the wolf disappeared. Every soldier in the hallway kept glancing toward me, waiting for some reaction I did not know how to give.

My throat felt tight. "What did he mean by that?"

Kael stepped in front of me immediately, his shoulders squared, his voice low. "Do not listen to him."

He stood close enough that I could feel the warmth coming off him, but I could not stop staring at the broken window where the man had vanished.

Cassian remained still, his amber eyes fixed on the darkness outside, his jaw tight enough that a muscle worked visibly along it. "He is trying to confuse her," he said, his voice carefully even. I did not believe the calm in it. Not with his hands clenched at his sides the way they were.

"You knew him," I said. "Both of you knew exactly who that was."

Neither answered. Their silence hurt more than any answer would have.

Cassian ordered his warriors to secure the building the moment we stepped back inside. Kael refused to move from beside me, his arm brushing mine every time I shifted my weight, as though he could not make himself put distance between us.

"They know where she is now," Kael said. "They will come back for her."

"They will not get the chance," Cassian answered.

"Then she needs to leave."

"She is coming with me."

Kael's eyes narrowed. "Over my dead body."

For a moment there, I thought they might actually fight, standing inches apart, neither one willing to give ground. I could not bear it any longer.

"Stop," I said, my voice cutting through the corridor. Both of them turned toward me at once. "I am not going anywhere until someone tells me the truth. All of it. No more riddles. No more deciding what I am allowed to know."

Kael's expression softened, guilt flickering across his face. Cassian's remained unreadable, though his eyes lingered on me a moment longer than necessary.

"You are coming with me," Cassian said finally.

I wanted to argue. Something inside me, quiet but certain, told me the hospital was no longer safe. So I followed him.

The headquarters of the Born Wolves was not a building. It was a fortress, ancient stone walls rising around a compound so large I could not see its edges in the dark, armed warriors patrolling every corridor we passed. Some of their eyes caught the torchlight and glowed faintly. Others stopped mid-step and lowered their heads as Cassian walked by.

Whispers followed us the entire way.

"She is human."

"No. I can smell a wolf on her."

"That is impossible."

I kept my chin level and refused to let any of them see how frightened I was, though my hands stayed curled tightly at my sides the whole walk.

Cassian led me to a private room where fresh clothes and food already waited, as though someone had known I was coming before I did. He turned to leave without another word.

"Wait." I caught his arm before he could step away. He stopped, and for a moment neither of us moved, his sleeve still caught loosely in my fingers. I felt the tension beneath my hand, the way his whole body seemed to hold itself carefully still, as though my touch had cost him something to allow.

"You knew my parents," I said. "Did not you?"

Something flickered behind his eyes, brief and unguarded, something that looked almost like grief before he smoothed it away. "I knew of them," he said.

"So they were werewolves."

"Yes."

My chest ached. "Why did not they tell me?"

"They were trying to protect you."

"From what?"

He hesitated, and I waited, hoping for once that I would receive an answer instead of another closed door. "For now," he said quietly, "that is all I can tell you."

I released his arm, anger burning through the ache in my chest. Everyone kept handing me pieces of a truth they refused to let me hold in full.

Sleep would not come. Hours later, I left my room and wandered the cold stone halls in bare feet, the fortress silent around me. Then I heard voices drifting from a study nearby, and some instinct told me to stop walking and listen instead.

I pressed myself against the wall beside the doorway.

Inside, Cassian was speaking with an elderly man whose long silver hair fell over his shoulders, his voice carrying the weight of many years. "The girl has awakened," Cassian said.

"I know," the old man answered. "The Ledger predicted this."

My heart skipped. The Ledger. I leaned closer, straining to hear.

"What about the second bond?" Cassian asked. The old man was quiet for a long moment. "It should not exist."

"It does."

My stomach tightened. What bond?

"If the prophecy is correct," the old man said, "one of the two mates must die."

My heart stopped completely. Two mates. My mind went straight to Kael, his hand steady around mine in the hallway, the warmth I could not stop noticing even in the middle of chaos. Then, unbidden, another face rose behind my eyes.

Cassian.

I pressed a hand over my mouth, hating how quickly that thought had come, hating that some part of me had wanted it to. I shifted my weight without thinking, and my foot landed on a loose floorboard. It creaked, loud in the silence.

The voices inside went still.

"Who is there?" Cassian's voice, sharp now.

I ran. I did not know where I was going, only that I needed to be away from that door. I turned one corner, then another, until I reached the end of a forgotten hallway, where a large wooden door stood before me, dust thick along its frame as though no one had touched it in years.

I should have turned around. Instead, I walked toward it. Something pulled me closer, strange and almost familiar, as though some buried part of me already knew this room.

The moment my fingers touched the wood, pain shot through my neck. I gasped, pressing a hand to the old bite mark, which burned hotter than it had all night. Then I heard a soft click, and the lock released on its own.

I had not touched it.

Slowly, I pushed the door open. Darkness greeted me, thick with dust, until moonlight spilled through a broken window above and landed across a large portrait draped in white cloth. I walked toward it, my heart pounding harder with every step, and the cloth slipped free, falling to the floor at my feet.

I froze. A woman stared back at me from the frame. Same eyes. Same mouth. Even the slight tilt of her chin matched mine exactly.

"No," I whispered, stumbling backward. "Who are you?"

Then a cold whisper drifted through the darkness, coming from everywhere at once, from no direction I could name.

"Welcome home."

My whole body went still as the voice wrapped around my name.

"Raye."