Chapter 42: Chapter 41

The hallway was shadowed by the doors closed on either side, only a few shafts of sunlight spearing through the occasional window.

Ariella hadn’t been here before, and it wasn’t hard to wonder why. It was on the top floor of the Alpha’s estate, through two doors that were obscured by bookcases and antique decor, and down a corridor reserved for servants.

Malachi explained that no one had used it for decades, as the information contained in the offices down the end of the hallway was pivotal to the founding family of the pack, and no one wanted to disturb the history contained there. Why it was all kept a secret, he couldn’t say exactly. He’d always been curious, but his father kept dismissing his requests to enter the offices and peruse what he would find. After all, Dennison knew all there was to being an Alpha, and didn’t need guidance from musty diaries of previous Alphas. He wanted to remove himself from anyone telling him what to do, and run DoubleEdge his own way.

His son Malachi was the complete opposite. He wanted to know the secrets of the past, and learn from what had worked for centuries. No point inventing the wheel a second time.

So now, he jumped at the chance of exploring it with his future Luna by his side. Ariella had explained briefly of her nightmares after his prodding and comforting assurances, and they didn’t sound all too dissimilar to his own. Once she got started on sharing her innermost thoughts, he watched her crumble, her strong front finally cracking to reveal how deeply she felt things. She always appeared so brave and confident, but he now realised she had been hiding her true feelings, trying to earn a good reputation of being strong and fierce no matter what others said or did around her.

When inside, perhaps she was just as scared as him.

“So according to the whispers, this office of my great-great-great-grandfather has documents and diaries that detail the founding of the pack,” he commented as he paused outside the largest, mahogany door at the end of the hall, the frame gilded in elegant scrollwork.

“Sounds interesting, but what’s this got to do with our dreams?” Ariella peered around his arm to see the door, her warm breath tingling the fine hairs on his bare skin.

“My grandmother used to tell me stories before she passed away. She said that one of the Alphas—maybe her grandpa, I’m not sure—had dreams. Dark ones, full of death and suffering. They started plaguing him a few months before trouble really began. His pack, over a number of years, then began fighting with an enemy that kept crossing his borders.”

“Another pack?”

“No. There were a lot more alliances back in those days.”

“So, rogues?’

“Not quite. Legend says the enemy would appear out of nowhere, stalking the pack members with cloaks like invisibility, then striking when the fear of them had reached its peak. They hunted the wolves for sport.”

He felt her bristle and take a quick breath before saying her next guess.

“Demons?” She entwined her fingers around his arm and hovered close.

“Maybe. My ancestor’s pack battled for years, always coming up with new ways to trap the dark intruders. It was all the more difficult when some of the pack members would actually welcome the creatures in hopes of receiving power or some other secret mysteries. Finally the fighting settled down, whether the strange creatures left, or were beaten, no one is sure. The stories were buried, only talked of in hushed whispers, and never in front of the Alphas. They wanted to forget it ever happened, my grandma said. Why, she could only guess. Blackmail and bribes were as common as alliances, so maybe everyone was just afraid of things unseen.”

“That’s not a good reason to ignore what’s going on,” Ariella commented, a tremor in her voice.

“We can say that now, but we weren’t there. These creatures had the power to steal your breath while you slept, or plague you with blindness, or turn your blood vessels to ash so you bled to death in a heartbeat,” Malachi said in a flat voice. “This is only according to my grandma, who didn’t believe the legends. I think she was just annoyed at her arrogant son and wanted him to come up here to finally satisfy her curiosity, or put to rest the ghost stories.”

“Put to rest, or awaken.”

Malachi glanced down at Ariella, at her pale lips and light sheen of sweat on her upper lip. His own hands felt clammy just thinking about the possibilities of what might be fact or fiction. “Whatever it is, are you sure you want to find out?”

She pushed back her shoulders and lifted her chin in determination, a look entering her eyes that had him admiring her all the more. This woman was going to make a magnificent Luna. “I’m willing to face anything to find the truth. Besides, what’s there to be scared of in an old, unused office?”

He nodded in agreement, more for his sake than hers. His hand trembled slightly as he inserted an old skeleton key into the locked door, praying it would work. He’d found the keys in the very bottom of one the drawers in his father’s desk, handed down from father to son for multiple generations, untouched by the females in the families. He wasn’t even sure if this was the right key, and had to try a few others on the chain before one finally slid in.

Twisting with a loud screech, the tarnished brass handle rattled and unclicked. Malachi pushed it open and his eyes couldn’t take in the scene fast enough, so eager was he to see the relics of his ancestors, hidden away for so long by pride and ignorance.

A thick layer of dust covered everything, from the floating bookshelves on the walls, to the massive globe on a corner table, to the leather upholstery on the armchairs that surrounded the sturdy oak desk. Gold and brass shone from every other surface, their metallic lustre dimmed by years of neglect.

Ariella tentatively stepped in and immediately headed towards the large bookcase that stood proudly against one wall. Pulling out the largest looking book, she trailed her fingers reverently over the gold-lettered title.

Malachi was more interested in the desk, and the personal artefacts he might find. Using the keys again, he managed to open the drawers and find a file of papers, a few scrolls, and a leather bound book wrapped close with thin twine. He almost felt like he was desecrating the sacred property of his forefathers by opening it, but he needed to know. What had his grandfathers fought all those years ago? Could the secrets of the past help him unlock his own problems in the present? What if he found an answer he didn’t want to accept? What if he revealed some fact that confirmed Ariella’s theory, that demons were hiding among them, tearing his pack members apart and poisoning the rest with fear?

What if the evidence all pointed to the prophetic nature of their dreams, that one or both were bound to death and nothing could save them?

“Well, this is interesting.” Ariella’s hushed whisper mercifully cut off the disturbing questions that kept going round in his head. “I think this is an encyclopedia of the animal kingdom?” she was flipping through a large tome that had gold binding.

He crossed the room to stand by her and pushed air out from is nose, trying not to let the millions of displaced dust particles crawl up and irritate him. Drawings and descriptions or hundreds of animals and insects filled the pages.

“Looks like you’re right.” He couldn’t see the significance until she began finding pages on extinct or supposed creatures. The fanciful drawings dismissed by most as fiction.

“Maybe someone drew a picture of the elusive enemy all those years ago.”

“You might find better information in a journal like this,” he left Ariella to her book and instead began to flip through his ancestor’s diary. The handwriting of Alpha Darius was beautiful and scholarly, but in another language. Perhaps his mother could help him translate.

“Bother! I think this book is volume two in the collection. It’s missing the first half of the index. Just where I thought I’d find demons and ghosts,” Ariella sighed, drawing his attention.

Looking at the book more closely, he wondered why it looked familiar.

“You know, maybe I have volume one in my office. Don’t ask me how it got there or who wanted to read it, but I think it’s there.”

“Can we go check it out?” Ariella looked at him with bright, expectant eyes.

He couldn’t say no. After picking up a few more scrolls and documents, he flipped off the antique light switch and closed the door behind them both. It didn’t take long to navigate the large Alpha mansion and reach his office on the lower floor, and he immediately went to the bookcase to find the book his eyes had always grazed over and never really noticed.

“Aah, yes, here we go,” he found what he was looking for and slid it out.

“Perfect,” Ariella smiled and laid the book on his desk along with the other ones she’d brought from the upper office. While he sat and looked through the scrolls, she flipped through the yellowed pages until she exclaimed in a frustrated voice. “Well! This keeps things interesting.”

He hurried over and peered around her shoulder. On the page, under the heading of demons/dark spirits, were numerous drawings. All different depictions of what people saw in dreams, glimpsed in the shadows, or described on their deathbed. Some had heads like reptiles and bodies of various predatory mammals. Others had snapping teeth as large as daggers and a serpentine body with wings. Still another was made to look like a harmless sheep, but under the soft wool was the outline of a ravenous wolf.

What really disturbed Malachi was the way the entire page had been scribbled over, pictures crossed out, and words written in the margins.

People are so stupid! one such annotation read.

“Who would write this in an encyclopedia? Did they happen to know what demons really look like, to be laughing at these sketches?” Ariella mused aloud, echoing the thoughts in Malachi’s head.

He had no answer, and instead had other thoughts spinning around, inciting more questions than answers. With a racing heart, he swallowed nervously and didn’t dare tell her that the handwriting looked like his mother’s. Why would Seneca comment about demons like this? What else did she know? Thoroughly disturbed, he once more picked up the journals and tried to focus on the words that didn’t make any sense. Ariella slid a bookmark on the page, then went back to perusing his own bookcase, sliding out books and replacing whatever didn’t interest her. He was unsure exactly what she was looking for, but he didn’t mind letting her look.

He was engrossed in a map of old boundary lines when he heard her gasp. Watching her bend down and pick up something that had slipped out of a book, he felt her heart rate pick up and her temperature spike. She held the piece of paper between her fingers for a moment, her throat bobbing as she swallowed. When her eyes flicked nervously to his, he knew she’d come across something sensitive.

“Violet,” she murmured, causing Malachi to leap from his chair and snatch the paper from her hands. It was a photograph of a young Violet on her fifth birthday, wrapped in her mother Krystal’s arms. Their blue eyes had matching sparkle as they reflected candlelight from a cake, their blonde hair sunkissed with streaks of gold.

The smiles on their faces sent an ache into Malachi’s heart. Though he’d never known Krystal, Violet had always spoken of her with the best kind of love. The day she’d died had been the darkest the pack had experienced.

“Who is she?”

Ariella’s question brought him back to the moment, and he concealed the photo in his pocket. After a moment of steadying his voice, he spoke, “You’re asking with an accusation in your question. What is it you’re expecting me to say?” He instantly grew defensive when he saw the frown between her eyes, and could only guess what she was thinking. How did she even know of Violet? Why was he sensing subtle tones of anger in her posture?

“That she means something to you.” She pinned him in place with her eyes, her glance daring him to deny it.

“She does,” he breathed into the air between them, his lungs deflating with the admission.

Watching the way her jaw tightened, he wasn’t anticipating a good response.

“In what way?” One of her eyebrows rose delicately. He could almost feel a simmering undercurrent of jealousy, the kind he felt when watching Hendrik or Hamilton get too close to her.

Loosely shrugging, he hesitated to find a good answer. He didn’t want to talk about this now. He wasn’t ready to share this part of his past with Ariella, though she had made it clear she wanted to know everything about him. But even the messy family history? Didn’t she know enough about Dennison and his injurious ways to despise his family and want to keep far away?

Yet still she remained. The more he told her of his father and the mistakes that had hurt his pack, the closer she would creep into his heart and mend the cracks with her care and kindness.

It wasn’t fair, when she barely knew the truth about him.

“We were close. We grew up here together,” he eventually said, holding her gaze carefully, watching her every movement and subtle sign that she was listening. “Violet loved me and I loved her. That’s why it nearly broke me when she went missing about five years ago,” his breath hitched at the memory of emptiness that had engulfed him. “We later found out she had been murdered.”

Ariella’s entire demeanor changed. Shoulders deflated, brows creased up with compassion, and her hand reached out to take his own. “Malachi, that’s horrible! I’m so sorry. It must have been so hard for you.”

Her touch sent a warmth so comforting seeping into his skin, he had to look at their hand to make sure a fire hadn’t sparked between them. “It was. It was hard on the entire pack. Losing her mom all those years ago, and then Violet…” he blinked back the tears that dared form in his eyes, and cursed himself for still feeling the loss so deeply. “It also completely altered the course of my life. With her being the firstborn, all the responsibility then fell to me—“

“Wait. Responsibility? Firstborn?” Her grip on his hand tightened as she echoed his words as though lost in confusion.

“Oh, did I not mention? She was my sister.”

Ariella’s face couldn’t have gone more blank if she had been knocked unconscious. Then it screwed up in question, and almost a hint of relief. “H-how?”

By looking at her bewildered expression, he realised none of this fragmented story must make any sense for her. He decided to start from the start seeing as so much of it had already been laid out for her to know. Taking her hand, he sat down with her on the love seat by the western window, morning sunshine spilling all around them.

“Luna Krystal was Dennison’s soulmate. They ruled this pack together for many years before Violet was born. I think the story goes, they had trouble having pups at first so were overjoyed with a daughter. But then, Krystal got cancer and died a while later. Violet was only five years old, heartbroken, and lost. Dennison had no time for grief, or he just didn’t know how to process it. It wasn’t long after that he met and married my mother. I think a lot of the pack despised him for moving on and forgetting their wonderful Luna so soon. I was born soon after, and Violet spoiled me as her little brother. Me, Hamilton, and Vi had the best of times once us boys were old enough to follow her around everywhere. She loved teasing us, having picnics with us, and making up games and toys for us. She called us her pet pups, and we adored her for the spunky angel she was.”

He watched Ariella process this information, her head slowly nodding as if what he was telling her made sense. He wondered just what she already knew about his older half-sister.

“So your father wasn’t even Luna Seneca’s true mate. And she had to deal with him all those years without even the bond to draw them together.”

He couldn’t believe she was feeling sorry for his mom after hearing the story. Considering the crisp cold shoulder Seneca had shown Ariella, he was surprised she felt only kindness towards his mom. With a trembling hand, Ariella placed it over her heart and rubbed the spot as if it ached. “I feel so bad for them all. It’s so tragic.”

He saw her eyes glisten as they filled with tears. “And you,” she looked up at him, the depths of her brown eyes unfathomable. He felt himself slipping in an ocean of molten honey, smothered, drowning in the silken understanding only a mate could give. “No wonder it’s so hard for you,” she nodded her head again, pieces clicking into place. “The position you’re in, being the son of the woman who wasn’t truly the pack’s Luna. I guess because of what they’ve been through, what they’ve lost, the pack doesn’t seem to want to accept you as their Alpha.”

He knew it to be true, but it still hurt hearing her say it. Would he ever be worthy to lead them? Would he ever be good and true enough to be accepted by them? Or would he only turn out to be as bad as—or even worse than—his father? With odds all against him, he had Dennison’s DNA as well as his foreign mother’s, inherited in possibly a terrible combination.

“I’ll figure it out. I didn’t tell you all this to earn your pity. You wanted to know about Violet, so there’s the story.” He said gruffly, standing quickly and running a hand through his unruly hair. He couldn’t stand one more ounce of compassion from Ariella when he’d done nothing to deserve it. He hadn’t been there to save Violet from the hands of her abuser and murderer. He hadn’t hunted him down and removed him from the face of the planet, though God knew how many times he wanted to avenge her death. He hadn’t done anything heroic and sacrificial to prove to his pack that he was worthy to be their leader. He was just the offspring of his father’s arrogant passions, not even of true love between mates.

“Did they ever catch whoever killed Violet?”

Ariella’s soft voice dragged him from the dark abyss of fears he was too often slipping into.

“No. But I will. Hamilton and I swore to avenge her. We’ve each lost too many people in our lives, and day after day we work towards bringing justice for their deaths. I ache to make those responsible feel a fraction of the pain they’ve caused us. To feel their warm blood turn to ice as I tear apart their body and scatter their ashes in the ground where such monsters belon—“

“Malachi.” Ariella was looking at him with wide eyes, an emotion he hadn’t seen on her before—fear. She was afraid of him, and rightly so. He knew his blood was boiling, his eyes likely reflecting the darkness in his heart, and she had little idea of the potential to destroy he now held in his clenched fists. Relaxing them, he forced himself to take a deep breath and calm his pounding heart.

With such murderous thoughts swirling in his head, was he any better than the killers he sought to kill? Would their blood on his hands be atoning, or condemning like the innocent blood they’d spilled?

“I’m sorry. I try to control it, but having Alpha DNA makes me want to protect everyone I care about no matter what it takes. My wolf is thirsty for blood.” He often wondered if that was the only reason he wanted to tear things apart. It was getting harder to maintain control, to keep the darkness from spilling over. To hold on to sanity.

“I understand.”

Looking at her pale face, Malachi wasn’t so sure she did. He opened his mouth and hated the lie before it was even fully formed. “Ari, it isn’t like I’m seeking to kil—“

Mal, I really need to talk to you.

Hamilton’s voice invaded his mind, and Malachi was grateful for the interruption.

Where have you been all morning? the Beta continued. We have a major problem on the eastern border.

Sunset Falls. Rogue Zander. Immediately, hypotheses of the problems and possible solutions began forming in Malachi’s head. “I need to go. Hamilton informed me—“

“It’s okay. You need to do your job,” Ariella seemed to read the conflict in his expression no matter how much he tried to hide it all behind a face like granite. Before he could walk out the door, she place her small hand on his arm, arresting him in place.

“Thank you for telling me the stories, Malachi. I know it was painful, but I needed to hear them. I want to understand you better. I want to know what we’re dealing with.”

“I know,” he grunted, then all he could do further was nod around the constriction in his chest that made it hard to breathe.

She was so patient, so understanding. He knew those traits could only stretch so far, and he also knew in his heart she was bound to break soon.

Delaying the inevitable heartbreak, he left.

Left her to look through the ancient books and perhaps work out the truth on her own.