Chapter 175

Kayla

I stared at my father, unable to fully comprehend what he was saying.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, confused. “Nicholas saved you. He’s the reason you’re awake right now.”

My father’s grip on my hands tightened. “No, Kayla. I believe he’s the reason I was poisoned in the first place.”

I pulled my hands away, a cold feeling spreading through my chest. “That’s not true. Vanessa poisoned you.”

“At whose behest?” My father leaned forward in his wheelchair. “Think about it, Kayla. Who stood to gain the most from my absence? Who has been manipulating you since the moment I fell into that coma?”

“Luporath…” The word escaped my lips before I could stop it.

My father’s eyes widened, a flash of recognition almost seeming to cross his face. He composed himself quickly, but not before I caught it.

“You know something about the relic, don’t you?” I whispered, the pieces suddenly clicking into place. “Is that why Vanessa poisoned you? Because you knew something about Luporath?”

He scoffed, waving his hand dismissively. “You mean the story about that ancient city? Don’t fall victim to childhood myths, Kayla.”

I sat back, my brows knitting together. If Luporath was just a myth, why had Nicholas been so determined to find it? Why had my father reacted so strongly to the mere mention of its name?

“But Nicholas—”

“Is using you,” my father cut in. “Whatever he has told you, whatever promises he has made, they’re lies. All of them.”

I shook my head, unable to accept what he was saying despite the numbness seeping into my bones. “You don’t know him like I do,” I choked out, even as Grace’s warning flitted through my mind.

“I know him better than you think.” My father’s expression softened, and he reached for my hands again. “Kayla, I need you to listen to me carefully. You need to forgive Liam.”

“Liam?” I nearly choked.

“He is the one you should trust, not Nicholas,” my father insisted. “We need to help Liam escape from Nicholas’s clutches before it’s too late.”

I pulled away from him again, standing up. The room suddenly felt too small suddenly, too confining. “This is insane. You’ve been in a coma for two years. You don’t know what’s been happening.”

“I know enough,” my father said firmly. “Nicholas Reynolds cannot remain Alpha of Bluemoon. I’ll resume my role as Alpha as soon as I’m strong enough.” He paused, his gaze going to my belly. “As for that…”

My hand instinctively moved to my belly, resting there protectively. I wasn’t even sure why I felt the urge to cover it, but I did.

“A wolfless woman carrying an Alpha’s child, no less a loathsome Alpha like Nicholas, is a recipe for disaster,” he then said gently, but his words cut like knives.

I flinched, taking a step back. “What are you saying?”

He sighed, running a hand over his face. “I’m saying that perhaps it would be best to… terminate the pregnancy.”

The words hit me far harder than my father could know. Of course, he wasn’t the first one to suggest such a thing.

“Terminate the pregnancy, Kayla, otherwise it might kill you. I know it’s hard, but you cannot carry his child without a wolf of your own. If he doesn’t break you first, then the birth itself will rip you to shreds.”

My throat bobbed.

“Afterwards, I’ll try my best to help your wolf emerge, no matter what it takes,” he continued. “We will ensure that you can have a happy, loving, faithful family someday, Kayla. But not with Nicholas—never with Nicholas. He has no intentions of providing that for you.”

I backed away further, shaking my head. “You’re wrong. Nicholas loves me. He wants this baby—our baby.”

“He wants your connection to Bluemoon,” my father insisted. “That’s all he’s ever wanted from you.”

The room was spinning. I couldn’t breathe. Everything that had felt so certain once was now being called into question by the one person I had always trusted most in this world. And what hurt even more was that he wasn’t the first one to warn me of Nicholas’s intentions.

“I need to think,” I mumbled, turning toward the doorway. “I can’t… I need time to process all of this.”

Before he could say anything else, I fled from the room, taking the stairs two at a time until I reached my childhood bedroom. I closed the door behind me and sank onto the edge of the bed, my mind racing.

Nicholas had been cold, distant since the incident with Liam. But that didn’t mean he didn’t love me, did it? He had been hurt, scared for me and our baby. That wasn’t the reaction of someone who was just using me, was it?

And my father… he had just woken up from a two-year coma. He was confused, disoriented. He didn’t understand what Nicholas and I had been through together, the bond we shared.

But why did he react that way when I mentioned Luporath? And why was he so insistent that I should be with Liam instead?

I lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling as questions swirled through my mind. Nicholas. My father. Luporath. Liam. My baby. I didn’t know what to think anymore, who to trust.

Sleep came fitfully that night. By the time morning light filtered through the curtains, I was exhausted and no closer to answers than I had been the night before.

I dragged myself out of bed, splashing cold water on my face in a futile attempt to clear my head. I needed coffee. Strong coffee.

As I made my way down the stairs, I heard my father’s voice drifting from his study.

“…Maddie… No, she doesn’t know…”

Maddie… My mother. I froze on the staircase, straining to hear.

“We must not let the true nature of her death get out,” my father continued, seemingly on the phone. “Bar him from the guild archives, if you haven’t already. There’s a possibility that he has already snooped and found more information than he should. Burn anything that may still exist in the archives.”

My heart hammered against my ribs as I pressed my back against the wall, hardly daring to breathe. What was he talking about? What did he mean by ‘the true nature’ of my mother’s death? Burn what?

A moment later, I heard the sound of the phone clicking back on the receiver, then the squeak of my father’s wheelchair moving toward the door. In that moment, I made a snap decision—I wasn’t entirely sure why, but I knew I needed to—and slipped through the basement door across the hall.

I heard my father’s wheelchair roll past. “Kayla?” his muffled voice called. “Was that you I heard?”

Without thinking, I clamped my hand over my mouth and leaned against the wall of the basement stairwell.

My mother’s death. Burning documents. The archives…

Something was wrong here. Seriously wrong.

As I heard my father move to the kitchen, I glanced down the stairwell, then took a deep breath and made my way down—more to take some time to think in the dark, cool recesses of the basement than anything.

The basement was cold and dimly lit, filled with boxes of holiday decorations, old furniture, and forgotten mementos. In the far corner, partially hidden behind a stack of old gardening tools, sat a wooden trunk. My mother’s trunk.

I hadn’t looked through it in years—it had been too painful after she died. But now, with questions burning in my mind, I moved across the room and knelt, lifting the lid.

The scent of cedar and old perfume wafted up from inside. I sifted through the contents—a silk scarf, a few old paperback novels, a tarnished silver hand mirror. Nothing that gave any clues about her death or anything of the sort.

Hell, I didn’t even know why I was rummaging through her things. As if her old mementos might hold answers. As if she might materialize and tell me what to do and who to believe.

But as I moved to close the trunk, something caught my eye. The bottom didn’t seem quite right—it was higher than it should have been, given the trunk’s dimensions.

I removed everything from the trunk, running my fingers along the edges of the bottom panel. There, in the right corner, I felt a slight indentation. I pressed down, and the panel shifted slightly.

My breath caught in my throat as I pried open the false bottom, revealing a hidden compartment beneath. Inside lay a leather-bound journal, its pages yellowed.

With trembling fingers, I lifted it out, opening to the first page. There, written in handwriting that I recognized immediately, were four words that sent a chill down my spine:

“Property of Madeline Sterling.”