Chapter 163

Hannah

“You have a son?” I whispered in disbelief. I never imagined Raya as a mom. She smiled and nuzzled her face into his head.

“Yes,” she said in return. “Wren is an amazing cousin to him. She knows they aren’t real siblings. But she loves him just the same.”

“Has she been okay?” I asked. “Without us?”

It pained me to ask that question, but I needed to know what we were dealing with. Did she even know we existed? Or was this going to come as a complete shock to her?

“She’s a very smart child for her age,” Raya said with a fond smile. “She knows a lot and she feels a lot. She knows you exist… actually, she remembers you exist.”

“Remembers?” I asked raising my brows; I wasn’t sure how that was possible. She was an infant when we left home for the underworld. How could she remember anything? But Raya was nodding at my questions.

“She has nightmares almost every night since you left. They’ve been getting worse,” Raya explained. “She wakes up crying for you. She says he is going to get you.”

“Who is going to get me?” I urged.

“Xander…” I heard the soft voice of Liam from behind me. He was staring down at his feet and playing with the seams of his shirt.

“She’s been seeing Xander?” I asked, looking back at Raya.

“She doesn’t say who it is. I don’t think she knows. But whoever he is, he scares her. She can hardly sleep now. She keeps herself locked in her room most of the time. I’m not really sure how to help her. She’s only 5, but the world in her eyes is so bleak. “

Hearing that broke my heart. I looked over at Sebastian for the hundredth time to make sure he was hearing this and that he was still with me. I know hearing that Jack and Magnolia were in charge set him over the edge.

“I need to go to the palace,” Sebastian finally said after a long while.

“Good luck; the entire palace is on lockdown. Nobody goes in and nobody comes out, without the king’s permission or direct invitation” Raya told us.

“I was their king; they will let me enter,” Sebastian said as he stormed toward the door.

“Arnold was their beta and they still forced him to leave,” Raya called after him. He paused at the door. “They wouldn’t let us enter no matter how hard we tried. And believe me, we tried.”

“Then I’m going to make them open the gates,” Sebastian said, turning away from us and pulling the door open.

“Don’t you want to wait for Wren before we go anywhere?” I asked, following closely behind him.

He paused again and turned to me, this time his eyes showed something different. He appeared gentle and kind. He leaned down and kissed my lips gently.

“You stay here and wait for her,” he said softly. “I won’t be long.”

“What are you going to do, Sebastian?” I asked him urgently; I didn’t want to be separated.

“What I do best,” he answered, pulling away from me. “Be a king.”

He shut the door behind him, leaving me alone with Raya, her son, and Liam. They were all staring at the door as well with identical worried faces.

“I’m going to put Arnie down again. You can make yourself comfortable,” Raya said as she headed down the hallway.

I sighed and sat on the couch beside Liam. I took his hand in mine; I was glad to have my brother back after everything we’d been through. I couldn’t believe it’s been 5 years since we left for the underworld. We had missed so much; everything was different.

I grabbed the remote off the coffee table and flipped on the television. The first channel that appeared happened to be the news. I wasn’t surprised to see Jack standing at the podium while the press asked him a bunch of questions. It was a prerecorded press conference.

“Everything we do is for the greater good of our kingdom. The borders are on lockdown to keep outsiders away. We have doubled our patrol in the forests. Curfew is at sundown and hunting is illegal. You aren’t allowed to shift into your wolves without our permission and everybody will be expected to come to the palace infirmary for their monthly vaccinations performed by only our best doctors. As you know, the king’s hospital has been closed and now real emergency cases will be directed to our infirmary for treatments. The hospital will soon be turned into a lab for experimentation and research.”

“What?” I gasped, covering my mouth with my hands. Jack was running this kingdom like it was a prison. “He can’t just shut down the hospitals, can he?”

“He already did,” Raya said, coming back into the room.

“But he left Liam…”

“He was intended to be his guinea pig for when they turned the hospital into a lab. They were going to use his body to perform unnecessary treatments to see the side effects. Thankfully, you came back before they got the chance.”

I went to say something else, but I heard the door rattling and then it opened. Arnold came into the room with a young girl trailing behind him. She had long brown hair and a face that resembled mine. She was thin and gorgeous; she nearly took my breath away. She was no older than 5 years old and I couldn’t believe she was standing before me.

I stood to my feet quickly; she hasn’t noticed me yet. I could tell something was wrong as she was trying to process something. She had dark circles under her eyes like she hasn’t been sleeping. I could also see the sadness crossing her face. She was playing with the tips of her fingers, and she was mumbling something I couldn’t understand.

“It can’t be…” I heard Arnold say as he stood and stared at me.

“Can you believe it?” Raya asked with tears in her eyes. “They’ve come home.”

“She’s a shifter,” Arnold said, his voice hardening. “It’s not possible. They disappeared years ago. They died in the underworld. How could you let this monster into our home?”

I had never seen Arnold look so angry before. I staggered backward, taken aback by his harsh words.

“No,” Raya tried to defend me. “She’s not a shifter. She’s not the only one who returned.” She motioned for Liam who looked awkwardly down at his hands. “Sebastian is here too. He went to the palace to…

“Get them out. They are shifters, Raya. How could you be so stupid?!”

Raya flinched at his words. That’s when Wren looked up from her own fingers and stared directly at me. Her eyes were filled with curiosity for a moment, but then recognition flashed through them. She gasped and continued to stare around my face. Raya was right; she knew who I was. She recognized me. How was this possible?

“Mommy?” She asked in hardly a whisper.

“Stay back,” Arnold growled to me. “I don’t know why they have sent you, but you aren’t getting to my family.”

Wren pushed past him and toward me, stopping only a few feet away. I wanted to scoop her into my arms and hug her tightly, never letting go. But I worried that I would be stopped or scare her.

“It’s you…” she breathed. “It’s really you.”

Arnold narrowed his eyes at me before shifting his gaze to Wrenley.

“It’s really you,” she cried again, louder. This time she was running toward me; I knelt on the ground, allowing her to run into my arms. I hugged her tightly. She smelled of lilies and my heart was filled with love. “I saw you… I saw you…”

“I’m here,” I whispered to her. “And I’m okay. Both your father and I are okay…”

“Hannah…?” Arnold asked stepping closer to me. He no longer looked angry. He just looked confused; it was a mixture of emotions crossing his face. “It’s actually you…?”

“Yes,” I answered. “It’s me.”

He looked like there was so much more he wanted to say, but we were interrupted by the television. It seemed to have gotten louder.

“Just know that with my wife and me in charge of this kingdom, everybody will be safe,” Jack said to the camera.

I looked at the TV and saw Jack standing beside a short blond-haired woman. My heart plummeted into my stomach when I saw who it was. He wrapped an arm around her and gave the camera a wave.

“Amy…?”

Jack was married to my sister.