Chapter 52 â The Unexpected Truth
âLies require commitment.ââVeronica Roth
Neron
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03:1
After my trip to the pack hospital, I spent the rest of my time scouring through the endless stacks of books in the Zircon Moon Library as Diana sat on top of a bookcase, preening her feathers. Wooden bookcases lined the walls, surrounding the tables, chairs, and couches glowing under the brilliant sunlight. Every open book emitted an earthy aroma wafting into the air. Iâve never cared for reading, but there were a handful of wolves who enjoy the silence and solitude of the library, lost in a world of adventure and words.
Almost every title Iâve come across contained bits and information about werewolf history I never paid attention to; lifespan development, sociology of weres, the works. Grunting with effort, I picked up a large stack of books and settled them on an adjacent table.
Taking my seat, I began the banal task of flipping through pages while Arielâs request weighed heavy on my mind. Never in my life have Iâve heard of a wolf wishing to part from their humanâit was relatively unheard of. She looked so unhappy and it crushed my heart. Our soul bond connects the humans to our wolves until the day we die; losing your woll is like losing half of your spirit.
Flashback
âI cannot remain attached to Odessa any longer, Alpha Neron. She has done shameful things throughout our life together that Iâve let slide for very long, under the pretense that she will change. Now, because of my passivity, Iâve lost my soulmate. You can try to persuade me, but I will not change my mind. I want out.â
Is there any way you can rekindle with her and try to make your relationship work?â Lasked. âThis is a very extreme request, Ariel. Youâre proposing for a soul separation and whilst Iâve never witnessed such an event, there is no guarantee youâd come out rninjured.â
Iâm prepared to take all the risks needed to make this happen.â Ariel cast her eyes down on the ground, biting her lip. âOdessa and I never got along. Iâm afraid that I was but a handicap to her. Wolves are the voice of reason to our humans, but Iâve never got the chance to make myself heard around her she always shuts me out. I cared about Odessa, a lot, but what can I do when she doesnât care about me? What about my feelings? Iâve taken the backseat to her madness for so long and it is now do I understand I cannot change her. Itâs too much for me.â
âYou said you are prepared to die if it meant parting with your human.â
âI much rather be with our Moon Goddess than confined to this woman. I wantâ¦â Arielâs breathing snagged in her throat; pain interlaced with her gasps. Looking up at me once more, her alive eyes saturated with tears; a couple of them cascading down her cheeks. âIâm not happy, Alpha Neron. I lost my sense of self, and I donât want to continue in life if my human doesnât even regret what sheâs done!â
âI just wish to be happy again, even if the likelihood of my death are high.â
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Ariel will risk it all for the sake of her own happiness. The pain in her eyes when she spoke to me branded themselves in my mind. Her sorrow. Goddess knows that if I ever lost Onyx, I wouldnât know what to do -3.10 myself. Hating me is one thing, but losing him forever is another.
âCome onâ¦there has to be something hereâ¦â I murmured, flipping through the pages to find an indication of soul splitting, but came up empty. The scarcity of the process reaffirmed my intimal belief that this situation doesnât happen often, but I cannot get Arielâs grief out of my mind. As her Alpha, I must honor her request.
I need to help her. She deserves joy, with or without Odessa.
âThis book is a complete dud. Since we canât find anything, what are we supposed to do now?â Onyx quipped as I strode back to a bookshelf.
âWe have to keep trying.â I answered, setting the book away. âThe sooner we find what weâre seeking, the sooner we can get back to searching for answers about Kiyaâs disappearance.
âBut, will we find those answers here? Anthony has yet to call us about Miss Phoebeâs progress.â
âHe will in due time. But I feel as there is something weâre missing about Osiris.â I expounded, seizing a rolling ladder. âCall it a hunch, but I feel as though he isnât targeting our pack only for Kiya.â
âI like to hear this hunch.â Onyx chuckled amusingly. âGo on.â
A smile found its way to my face as I climbed the ladder. âOsiris could have tormented Garnet Moon, but he didnât. Kiya has a stronger connection there, so why only bother us? He used Odessa as his pawn, but he did it for a reason. He knows something that I donât, and I need to uncover it.â
âBut, where would you find it? Could his reasoning just be from how Kiya was treated?â
âI donât think so
Kiya could burn us to the ground whenever she wanted without his help. Why would he care so much? Maybe this is about himâ1â
âShit!â A book slid from my hands, dropping to the floor in a resounding thud. The impact dislocated a floor tile, shattering its corner. âFantastic⦠Begrudgingly, I trekked down the stairs and went to nurse the book. It was a history book speaking on werewolf evolution; not something that contains the answers to either of my
dilemmas.
However, something about the removed tile caught my eye, or rather what was under it. Something black and dusty. Curiously, I eased the tile away from the hole, coughing at the dust that flew from it.
âWhat have we here?â I wondered, digging my hands into the hole like a pirate hunting for buried treasure. But what I pulled out was not a chestnfull of riches. It was two aged, dilapidated journals. The worn leather traps failed to keep the yellowing pages threatening in order. An opaque film of dust stained the black cover, paling its color.
âWho hides books under the floor?â Onyx asked, perplexed.
âPeople who have something to hide.â
I
âWell, crack those babies open and letâs see what inside!â He urged. Such an impatient patient my wolf is.
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made my way back to my table, obeying Onyxâs request. Each page had more dust than the last, but the page froze me stiff in shock. Not by the contents, but by the name of the person who the book belonged 03:0
âWhat the hell?â
Titan Prince. My greatâgrandfather? I reviewed the other journal and found it belonged to my grandfather, Nathaniel Prince. The words of my predecessors rested on my fingertips, waiting to be read. Iâm both eager and apprehensive for what I am about to read, but an inkling in the back of my head urges me to proceed with caution. Titan and Nathaniel Prince lived in different times and therefore might have views and beliefs conflicting mine. But both men are dead. How am I going to argue with them?
âWhy are you hesitating?â
âJust preparing myself, thatâs all.â I responded with a sigh. âIâve been told nothing but good things about these men. Itâs nice to have their own words them versus the grand stories Dad used to tell. It wonât be so bad, right?â
âNo, I donât think so. Neron, this feels strange and I donât know why.â
âYouâre probably taking on some of my anxiety. No need to worry.â
H
Onyx didnât seem sure but said little else. Regardless of the bubbling worry we both feel, I have to read the contents of the journals. What do I have to lose? Huffing in a heavy breath, I opened my GreatâGrandfatherâs book and started reading. There was nothing I couldnât handle.
But I was wrong. Very wrong.
Power. Thatâs all these men cared about. Word after word, passage after passage, all in their handwriting detailed pillages and quandaries of packs, fantastical ambitions, and scrutiny over how other Alphas ruled over their pack. They wrote every encounter to the smallest detail with names Iâm unfamiliar with. Flipping from one journal to another, it is like Iâm seeing insanity take on a novel form, mindâboggling. My grandfatherâs words were tame compared to my greatâgrandfather, but it didnât change things.
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According to his words, GreatâGrandfather Titan believed power is justice; the more prestige one had, they govern what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. Those with less power didnât have the right to resist, merely obey. His journal contradicted the figure of the righteous Alpha Dad taught me about my entire life.
It disgusted me to read about how this man had no penance for his violent destruction. Diana, sensing my discomfort, glided over and cautiously stepped toward me with her talons clicking against the wooden table. All I could do is sit there, gawk at the remarks of a psychopath, frozen. I couldnât be related to this man, right?
That wasnât the worst Iâve learned. Hidden in the ocean of lunacy was the notice of his jeweled prize,, bedazzled with power to uphold him and his lineage. Fantastical proclamations that our Moon Goddess guided him to her, alleging to be her favorite.
I read and read, even as the revulsion and nausea became too much. Insanity, fury, delusionâit all slapped me in the face the further I read. But it all suddenly ended at the death of his prize. After those last words were continuous, barren yellow pages.
âSo, you came from a whole bloodline of crazy men. No surprise there.â
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Chapter 12 â The Une pecin
ââ¦I should scream at you for your tasteless sense of humor, but youâre right.â
I had no enthusiasm in understanding my history when I was younger, but now I see that I should have. Maybe if I didnât have the attention span of a goldfish and a brattish shriek, I couldâve spared myself this hideous discovery. I slumped my hands in my palms, working to nurse my pounding headache with my trembling fingers. Not even Dianaâs comfort could soothe me down.
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03:0
I donât know what to do. Cry, scream, break shitânone of it seemed appealing now. My dad went to great lengths to inculcate these distorted images of my predecessors into my lessons, even when hungover. Anything less than what he wanted gifted me in blotches of red and blue on my skin. After a while, I believed him. I clung onto Dadâs every word and the expectations to make him and the men before him proud. It was my time and my generation, and I had to prove that I was a worthy successor.
A worthy Alpha.
Everything came crumbling down like a demolition scene even as I search my grandfatherâs journal for some hope. But, just as hope that he was a different man roared to life, it died tragically. His words were more calculated than his father, but it was still a mess. For a moment, I wanted to save myself from the heartache;
close the journal and pretend nothing happened.
Until I read something that united all the missing pieces together. Nathaniel Prince recounted an encounter with an oracle in Greece during his travels in the early 20th century, and this oracle spoke of the next child of the moon to be born in the upcoming generation of his pack.
The avatar.
Kiyaâs words a couple weeks back came to haunt me. About the speculations she and Miss Phoebe had about her birth and how she didnât trust my dad. Oracles help predict the future, so they had to have predicted her birth and told my grandfather what he wanted to hear! It all made sense, notably with Dadâs unrelenting pressure for me to mate with Kiya and assume her power for myself, despite her objections. Too many connections are being made at the immediate revelations; left and right they bound and sparked together.
Now I understood everything. The truth about my family history consisting of plunder, theft, gluttony, and violence were glossed over, masquerading these men as virtuous and benevolent Alphas with love for their pack when truly, it was a love for power.
Everything Iâve been taught was a lie; made a fool about my own fucking history. And I had one person blame: the man who taught me.
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And I have no doubt that the prize my greatâgrandfather spoke about was the avatar before Kiya. The prey he
took for his own.
Iâm sickened and disgusted. These are the type of men I came from. Their blood is within me, with life! I carry on their legacy shielded behind a wall of blissful ignorance.
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I saw red, my chest burning at the betrayal of all the men before me, including my father. My hands clutched at the corners of these forbidden diaries, my fury bleeding into the aged pages. I was deceived and taught that if I didnât rule with an iron fist, Iâd bring shame to my ancestors. That no one would respect me if I was too tolerant. That if I didnât become the Alpha my dad wanted me to be, I was a failure.
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Chapter 12. The then
A failure. A fucking failure!
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03:01
The chair flew back when I rose abruptly, slamming the journals closed. Diana flailed, hopping back from me as I marched out the libraryâs double doors. My beast was hunting for my father, squirming in pain from his trickery. Onyx tried his best to calm my anger, but nothing helped.
He needed to answer to for what heâs done! I needed to hear from his mouth his reasoning behind everything.
Above all, I wanted to know why he lied to me.
1 needed to know.