The Alpha's Forgotten Daughter

The Name He Wouldn’t Say

The room disappeared.

Not literally.

It simply stopped mattering.

The walls.

The lanterns.

The steady rain tapping against the windows.

The Alpha.

Mara.

The warriors standing guard.

Everything faded behind five impossible words.

They told us you were dead.

Dead.

My heart pounded so violently it hurt.

The rogue never looked away from me.

Neither did I.

The silence stretched until it became unbearable.

Finally, the Alpha stepped forward.

"Who told you that?"

The rogue slowly turned his head.

His one open eye settled on the Alpha.

Hatred flickered there.

Old hatred.

The kind that had survived years.

"You ask the wrong questions."

His voice was little more than a rasp.

Every word sounded painful.

The Alpha's jaw tightened.

"I'll decide what questions to ask."

A faint smile touched the rogue's cracked lips.

"You always did."

The room seemed to grow colder.

I looked between them.

They weren't speaking like strangers.

There was history here.

History I didn't understand.

"What does he mean?" I asked.

No one answered.

Of course.

The rogue's eye drifted back to me.

He studied my face.

Not quickly.

Slowly.

Like someone looking through years instead of seconds.

His brow furrowed.

Then softened.

"You look like her."

The words barely reached me.

"Who?"

His lips parted.

No sound came.

A cough seized him instead.

His body shook.

Blood stained the cloth Mara pressed against his mouth.

"Enough," Mara said firmly.

"You've lost too much blood."

He caught his breath with obvious effort.

"I have to..."

"No."

Mara's voice was gentle but unyielding.

"You need to rest."

His eye found mine again.

"They never told you."

The certainty in his voice frightened me.

I took one hesitant step closer.

"What didn't they tell me?"

The rogue searched my face.

His expression slowly changed.

Confusion.

Then disbelief.

Then something that looked almost like grief.

"They never even told you her name."

The words landed harder than any blow.

My throat tightened.

"My mother's name?"

No one spoke.

I looked at Mara.

Her eyes filled with tears she refused to let fall.

I looked at the Alpha.

His gaze had dropped to the floor.

Neither of them denied it.

Neither of them answered.

The silence answered for them.

I had lived for nineteen years...

Without ever hearing my own mother's name.

The realization hollowed something inside me.

I turned back toward the rogue.

His breathing had become uneven.

Every breath looked painful.

Still...

He forced himself to speak.

"Talia."

One word.

Soft.

Broken.

Beautiful.

The room seemed to exhale.

"Talia..."

I whispered the name without thinking.

It felt unfamiliar.

Yet somehow...

It also felt like home.

The rogue nodded weakly.

"Talia Ashbourne."

My eyes burned.

Not because I remembered her.

Because I didn't.

A stranger had just given me something no one else ever had.

My mother's name.

A piece of her.

A piece of me.

I closed my eyes.

Just for a second.

Talia.

I repeated it silently.

Afraid that if I didn't, someone would take it away again.

When I opened my eyes, the rogue was still watching me.

A faint smile touched his face.

"She had your eyes."

My breath caught.

No one had ever told me that before.

Not once.

Ashley had the Alpha's eyes.

I'd heard that my entire life.

Strong eyes.

Leader's eyes.

But mine...

Mine had belonged to someone I'd never known.

Tears blurred my vision.

I blinked them away.

The rogue noticed anyway.

"She used to..."

His voice faded.

He swallowed painfully.

"She used to call you..."

He stopped.

His strength was failing.

Mara moved beside him.

"That's enough."

He ignored her.

His eye never left mine.

"My little star."

The words shattered something inside me.

The overlook.

The whisper on the wind.

The scent of lavender.

It hadn't been my imagination.

Somewhere...

Somehow...

Those words belonged to her.

My hand drifted toward my left shoulder before I stopped myself.

The hidden birthmark suddenly felt heavier than ever.

The rogue followed the movement.

Recognition flashed across his face.

Then...

Fear.

Not fear of me.

Fear for me.

The Alpha stepped forward.

"Enough."

His voice cracked through the room.

The rogue closed his eye.

His breathing became slower.

More uneven.

He had nothing left to give.

For now.

Mara adjusted the blanket over him before looking toward me.

"Aria..."

I couldn't hear her.

I couldn't hear anyone.

There was only one thought repeating inside my head.

Talia.

Not Mother.

Not a memory.

Not a ghost.

Talia Ashbourne.

For nineteen years...

Everyone had hidden even her name from me.

And suddenly...

I wasn't sure what hurt more.

The fact that she'd died.

Or the fact that no one had trusted me enough to remember her.