Chapter 414: Chapter 414

Chapter 414

Lanie

didat physically st agger back, but everythme made me tweeted and turned white Lity howled Red consumed my vision as my vampire and wolf selvs fought for control, and there was more inside me too parts of me I never felt before Didn’t know how to

New elements of myself were trvale to rise and take ves

Stella raised a hand toward me. She didn’t say anything, but instantly, I felt the relief of being settled back inside myself. Me, Lanie, Luna and mate to Xander, Mason, and Zane Mother to Stella, Alaina, and baac

Granddaughter to Malachi S ervant to the Moon Goddess,

“Thank you,” I said to my daughter

She nodded. ‘It’s shocking news, I know”

“Gabriela,” Malachi said with a snarl. She will have to be killed of course”

“No,” Stella replied in her same calm voice. She has h o idea that she is the one providing the High

Council with their information.”

I couldn’t stay sitting. I had to move. I paced the floor at half double speed and for my muscles

responding with a groan. Not at the effort of moving that much faster than normal, but with the restraint of

stopping myself from buzzing around the room like an angry wasp.

“If she’s a spy, how can she not know that about herself?” Lasked, spinning to a stop on one heel to face

Stella.

“She’s not a spy, exactly. But they are using her.”

Stella touched her fingertips to her temple again, this time only for a second or so.

“She hasn’t been around as much. She’s been suspicious of me. Things have been different with bec

said to Malachi. “I should have known something like this!”

Stella shook her head. “How could you have? All you’ve been told since we got here was boW SONID Brightsky is.”

Malachi’s expression twisted. “And it is. Or at least, it has been at least until you all arrived. Stingiga

spy, no less!”

“I told you, she’s not a spy. She’s a victim of the High Council’s intrigues as much as anyone they le eve used for their own gain. Perhaps more, because, unlike her husband, Gabriela did not choose “Stolia looked at Malachi, then at me. No Fiora joy came out of her this time. Only a calm and steady tooling of truth. ‘Gabriela has found friends and a life here in the enclave. That’s a good thing for her.

Something she

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Chapter 414

and frankly, deserved.”

I paused before answering. “How much do you know about your grandfather, Orion, and what he did?”

Stella smiled gently. “I know everything I need to know about everything, Mother.”

“So you’ve pointed out,” Malachi said. “But what your mother wants to know is, exactly what do you know,

so she doesn’t have to find a way to be nice about telling you that your father’s father was a villain.”

“I know of his betrayal,” Stella told me. “I also know what you have not yet learned, and that’s about his

deal with the High Council.”

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“I know about him and his plans for the hybrids,” I began, but Stella shook her head.

“Orion Constantine worked toward his own interests for a long time before any of what you know about

him came to pass. He offered what did not belong to him in his pursuit of power,” she said. “He gave them his

wife.”

I paced again, more slowly this time. I wracked my brain trying to recall anything Xander’s mother had

ever told me about the High Council, its plans, Orion’s part in them, and also her own. It all felt as though it

had happened to me so long ago. I was having a hard time recalling even how long we’d been at Brightsky.

Weeks? Months? Surely, we could not even have been here for a year yet.

“Time passes differently here,” my daughter said aloud, although she had to be reacting to the onslaught

of my increasingly louder thoughts.

Malachi whipped his head to stare at her. “What are you telling her that for?”

“Because she deserves to understand everything, and I’m doing my best to put it all together,” Stella

retorted in a harsh tone unlike her previous cool calm.

To me, she said, “I don’t mean it’s like time travel or anything like that. It’s just that here in the enclave,

separated from the outside world, it’s easy to drift along without a solid knowledge of the passing of time. You shouldn’t feel badly about it, Mother. It’s the same for everyone here, but for us in particular.”

“No bills to pay, no real responsibilities, every need of desire catered to,” I said with a look at my grandfather. “The privilege of being the king’s granddaughter, right? Keep us content but stu pid?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Malachi said. “If anything, all I’ve done since you got here was try to help you become better. And how am I repaid? You brought a snake into my henhouse! What choice have you given me, Lanie, but to throw you all out at once?”

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