Chapter 213

Chapter 63: Ayla Mina and I were leaving the cellar when we ran into Briggs.

“Luna, I need a favor,” he said, “and possibly your help.”

“What’s up?”

“We need to get to the bottom of your father’s research,” he said. “There has to be something in there that can tell us more about what is going on. The others have this handled.”

I nodded. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”

“I have an errand to run,” Mina said. “I want to stop by the lạb and check in on a couple projects.

Mine gave me a hug and Briggs a kiss before heading in the direction of her car. Briggs and I returned to my suite and hauled the trunk out of my bedroom. We pulled everything out and organized it through the living room.

“These are the books that I’ve already been through,” I said. “They’re all about my family or Onyxcrown history of the past two hundred years or so. But I didn’t find anything that appeared to connect with the Greytooth Pack.”

“We may need to go back farther,” he replied, picking up one of the file folders. “Let’s just dig in and see what we find.”

“Maybe we should call Professor Armand over?”

Briggs nodded. “I wouldn’t say no to the extra eyes.”

I sent the professor a message and he said he would be over in a few hours. I got each of us a drink and some snacks and settled in for a long session.

“I should also tell you that Kingston is coming back,” Briggs said cautiously. “He wants to see what’s in the vault downstairs.”

“Does he know what’s in there?” I asked eagerly.

Briggs shook his head. “He says no but...” He paused for a moment. “He went looking for something in the Onyxcrown tunnels when we came to rescue you. Something dangerous. I’ll let him tell you about that. It should come from him. But he does believe that whatever may be in our vault is related.

“Is that why you want to focus on my father’s research?”

He nodded.

“I just thought Theo sent you to distract me,” I replied wryly. “But I think you may be right. I’ve been wondering why my father was so sure Theo and I were mates. At first, I just thought it was hopeful thinking. He always admired Alpha Torin. He must have seen something of him in Theo. But some of these letters from him tell me he KNEW. Like he was absolutely certain we were fated.”

“Well, hopefully, that reason is in here somewhere,” Briggs said.

We spent hours pouring over everything. Professor Armand joined us in the afternoon. He was so excited about some of the texts that it didn’t take long before he was completely immersed in the work. As enthusiastic as he was, I was just getting frustrated. My morning sickness was getting worse again and, as nice as it was to learn more about my family, we hadn’t found anything useful.

“I am a little disappointed that you didn’t call me sooner,” he said, pulling me out of my moping. “Especially since I did actually write the book on ancient pack architecture. This cellar sounds like it’s right up my alley.”

I chuckled. “That’s true,” I said. “I’m sorry we didn’t think of it. I won’t let it happen again.”

“Good,” he said with a grin. “Do you have any pictures of what this mysterious door looks like? You said there were some symbols on it, perhaps I can decipher them.”

“Yeah,” Briggs said, picking up his phone and scrolling through. “We snapped some pictures while we were down there.”

He handed his phone to Armand who proceeded to examine them.

“They’re a bit worn,” he said as he grabbed a pad of paper and pencil.

He started to write the symbols out, making changes as he felt necessary. When he came to a stopping point he looked over his work.

“Hold on...” he said curiously. He shuffled through some of the books and files, muttering to himself until he found what he was looking for. “I think this is what we are hoping for.”

“Actually, that wasn’t in the box originally,” I said, taking the book of folklore from his hands. “He read it to me as a kid. I just kind of put some of those keepsakes in with this stuff to keep it all together.”

“Well, there may be a reason he picked that particular book,” Professor Armand said, flipping to a particular story. “The first families.”

It was the tale of the first group of werewolves. The first people blessed by the goddess with the ability to shift into wolves. Two families were the leaders of a village that was plagued by attacks from neighboring forces. To save their people, they plead to the moon goddess to save them. The moon goddess responded, turning all the members of the two families into werewolves.

“But this is just myth,” I said.

“Much of what we think of as myth is rooted in truth,” Briggs said. “There always has to be a first. The Dominis family is the oldest bloodline that I know of.”

“Right, but none of the others are that old,” I said.

“Actually, the Amvorov’s are pretty old as well,” Armand said. “Of the Sablemane, Pack. But if this has to do with the descendants of the first families, then Alpha Kingston would have been a better guess for your mate.”

I shook my head. “Kingston was adopted. He’s not an Amvorov by blood. That line died with his adopted parents. Hold on.”

I suddenly remembered seeing something about pack leaders. I shuffled through the papers to find a list in my father’s handwriting. Starting from the top, I read through it thoroughly. It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for.

“Here,” I laid the paper on the coffee table so we could all see. “Both the Dominis and Amvorov families kept the family in their packs. Their fated mates would always join them if they were from other packs. However, there was a daughter who left.”

“I know that name,” Briggs said.

“Every Greytooth would know that name,” Armand said.

“Exactly,” I said. “Our pack’s founding Luna was Amvorov.