MARKED TO BURN, BORN TO RULE

CHAPTER 4: THE ALPHA WHO RAN

NADIA'S POV

Nobody makes me wait long at least.

Somebody brought actual food at some point, bread and something warm in a cup, just sitting untouched on the floor next to me because I still don't trust any of it.

The old woman sits down across from me anyway, close enough that I could grab her if I wanted to, except I don't have the energy left to want much of anything besides actual answers at this point.

"My name is Mila." She says it simple, like that's supposed to just explain everything. It doesn't. "I was your mother's closest friend.”

"Prove it."

She doesn't even blink at that. Just reaches for the pendant around her neck and holds it out, right next to the half still sitting in my hand, and they fit together perfectly, like they were never really two separate pieces to begin with, if that makes sense.

"Your mother gave me this half the day I left the pack. We were seventeen." Something in her voice cracks a little, just for a second. "I've worn it every single day since."

I don't know what to do with that honestly, so I just say the first true thing I've got. "She's dead."

"I know."

"How?”

"I felt it." Says it so simple it takes me a second to actually get what she means. "I'm a shaman, Nadia. Or I was, before your Alpha's family decided shamans were the enemy and hunted most of us down for it."

That word alone should be enough to make me want to run, honestly. Shamans are supposed to be the whole reason wolves lost their freedom generations back, the ones who tried to e*****e the wolf lines before the packs rose up and wiped them all out. Literally every kid in Mooncrest grows up hearing that exact story.

"That's not true," I say anyway, because something about how she says it makes me doubt basically everything I've ever been taught. "Is it?”

"No." Her voice goes flat. "It's the story his family and people like them needed people to believe."

"Whose family?"

"Reid's."

And that's when she tells me the rest, and none of it makes any sense, and somehow all of it makes way too much sense at the exact same time.

Reid's family was never actually supposed to rule Mooncrest. They weren't even the first family, not even close. They came after, the ones who slaughtered the real ruling bloodline in the middle of the night and called it a natural transition of power, and they almost got away with killing literally every person who could ever challenge that story.

"I was there," Mila says, quiet now. "I watched them burn the old Alpha's hall down with most of his family still inside it. Your mother and I got out through the kitchens with whoever we could grab on the way out."

Almost.

"There was a kid," Mila says. "Barely old enough to walk yet. Your mother and I got him out that same night, hid him somewhere Reid's family never even thought to look."

"Why does any of this matter to me right now?"

She doesn't answer with words. Just looks past me, toward the door, toward Nikolai standing there like he's been listening this whole time and really hoping he wouldn't have to be part of this conversation.

"No." I actually laugh, this short ugly sound with nothing funny behind it at all. "No way."

"Nadia-"

"He's the actual rightful Alpha of Mooncrest?" I'm on my feet somehow, even though two minutes ago I literally couldn't stand up on my own. "And he's just been hiding out here in the mountains this whole time, while people like me got burned for something we can't even control?"

"It's not that simple."

"Then explain it to me." My voice cracks and I hate that it cracks, but I keep going anyway because I can't not. "Because from where I'm standing it looks pretty simple actually. You had the right to take it all back. You had the right this entire time. And you just, what, decided to hide instead?"

Nikolai doesn't even defend himself. That somehow makes it worse.

"You don't know what it cost to survive that night," he says finally, quiet. "You don't know what it's still costing, even now."

"Then tell me."

"I was two years old, Nadia. I don't even remember any of it firsthand, just whatever Mila's told me over the years, which basically means I've spent my whole life carrying around a blood grudge." His voice stays level but his hands don't, not really. "I grew up in hiding, waiting for some day that might genuinely never come, watching people I love get older and more tired of waiting right alongside me. That's not nothing. Maybe it's not what you went through, but it's not nothing either."

"Neither do you though. Not really. You got to run. My parents are dead because they helped me do that exact same thing, and you've had years to actually fix this and you just didn't."

Nobody says anything for a really long time after that.

I don't take it back. I don't apologize. I just stand there in a room full of complete strangers, furious at some man I met an hour ago for a crime that isn't even technically his fault, because honestly it's just easier than being furious at the people who actually deserve it and having literally no way to reach them.

Mila watches both of us like she already knew exactly how this whole thing was going to go.

Maybe she did. She's had years to get used to watching people she loves circle each other instead of actually talking, and something tells me this isn't even close to the first time she's sat quietly in the middle of it, waiting to see who breaks first.

Nikolai leaves the room without another word. Nobody stops him.

I sit back down against the wall, pendant still clenched in my fist, and just let myself feel how tired I actually am for the first time since this whole nightmare started.

Tomorrow I guess I can figure out what I'm supposed to do with any of this. Tonight I honestly don't have anything left in me.