The Rejected Bloodline

Chapter Two:The truth

Rowan did not remember much of the walk back to the house. His mind kept slipping in and out of the moment, replaying the sound of his own bones cracking, the sight of fur pushing through his skin, the calm voice of the girl who somehow was not afraid of any of it. By the time he reached the back door of his house the sky had gone fully dark, and the porch light his mother always left on for him glowed weak and yellow against the night.

He pushed the door open with a shaking hand, still holding the torn remains of his shirt against his chest, dirt smeared across his arms and along one side of his face. His mother Elena was sitting at the kitchen table when he walked in, a cup of tea gone cold in front of her, like she had been sitting there a long while already. The moment she looked up and saw him standing in the doorway, the color drained from her face completely.

She did not ask about his clothes. She did not ask why there was dirt streaked down his arms. She simply stood up slow, the way someone moves when they have been waiting a long time for something they were dreading, and pointed to the chair across from her.

Sit down, she said quietly.

Rowan sat. His hands would not stop shaking, no matter how hard he tried to still them in his lap.

Mom, something happened to me tonight, he said. My body changed into something. I do not even know how to explain what I saw happen to myself out there.

Elena closed her eyes for a long second. When she opened them again there were tears sitting right on the edge, tears she seemed determined not to let fall in front of him.

I know, she said. I always knew this day would come eventually. I just hoped I had more time before it did.

Knew what, Rowan said. Mom, what is going on. What happened to me out there tonight.

She reached across the table and folded her hands together tightly, the way she used to when he was small and something scared him, though back then she had always been the one comforting him, not the other way around.

You are a werewolf, Rowan, she said. Just like your father was.

He almost laughed at that, the word sounding so strange out loud inside their small kitchen, but nothing about the look on her face resembled a joke in any way.

My father is dead, he said. You told me that my entire life. You told me he died before I was even born.

I lied, Elena said, and her voice cracked hard on the words. I am sorry. I lied to keep you safe. I thought it was the only way to protect you from what I ran from all those years ago.

Protect me from what, exactly, he said, his voice rising now despite every effort to keep it steady.

Your father is not dead, she said. His name is Dorian Voss. He is the Alpha of a pack called Nightfall, a place far from here, a place I left behind long before you were even born. She paused, pressing her lips together tight, like the next part cost her something physical to say out loud. Years ago I was accused of betraying that pack. It was never true, Rowan. I swear to you on everything I have, it was never true. But no one believed me. They cast me out before I could even defend myself, and by then I was already carrying you inside me.

Rowan sat frozen across from her, trying to absorb everything all at once, his mind still half stuck back in the woods with the fur and the pain and the strange calm girl who had somehow known exactly what was happening to him before he did.

So this whole time, he said slowly, I had a father out there somewhere who does not even know that I exist.

Yes, Elena said, barely above a whisper.

And you never once tried to tell him. Not in twenty two years of my life.

I could not go back there, she said. Not after what they did to me. I was terrified that if they ever found out about you, they would come after you too, to finish what they had already started with me.

Rowan pushed back from the table so fast the chair scraped hard against the floor beneath him. His head felt like it was spinning with everything all at once, the pain of the change, the calm voice of the girl in the woods, and now this, his entire life built on top of a lie he never had any say in choosing.

I need to see him, Rowan said. I need to see this pack for myself. I need to know if any of what you are telling me tonight is even true.

Rowan, please, Elena said, standing as well, reaching for his arm even as he stepped back out of her reach. It is not safe out there. You do not understand what you would be walking into if you go.

I do not care anymore, he said. I have spent my whole life feeling like something inside me was missing, and this entire time you knew exactly what it was and you never once told me the truth.

Elena did not have an answer for that. She only stood there watching him with the kind of fear that belongs only to a mother, the fear of losing the one thing she had spent twenty two years of her life trying to keep safe from a world she never wanted him to know even existed.

Rowan barely slept that night, staring up at his ceiling long after the house had gone quiet around him, his mind circling the same questions over and over again with no rest waiting anywhere in between them. By the time morning light finally came through his window, his decision had already been made, sitting heavy and certain in his chest like something he could not talk himself out of even if he tried.

He was going to find Nightfall, no matter what it ended up costing him to get there.