Chapter 6

The U-shaped table is chaired by Kyle in the middle, with his wife Luna on one side and Kieran on the other. Richard and I sit opposite. He runs his hands over his face several times, leaving one hand stroking his three-day beard, as he does every time, he is speechless.

But I have too many things to say, and I don't have time for him to take the courage he needs, so I break the awkward silence.

"How did you get there first than us?" Richard looks at me in surprise, because I'm sure he didn't expect that to be my first question.

"We took a plane," he answers me, "they told me that they took you by car and it was fine, it is more difficult for them to detect you," he adds as if it were normal to use the word "detect". I deep breath. I think neither he nor I can wait to think about this for another second.

"Is everything they told me true, Richard?" I ask him.

"It depends on what they have told you, Bianca," he answers me, "the great truth is that I have lied to you about many things. Your name is not Bianca, you are not an orphan, and you are my niece. Your father is a man of great power, and your mother was my sister. She told me to take you far away and that's what I did."

I look at him carefully to see when he breaks out laughing and he tells me that everything is joking. I wait for a second, then two, but nothing happens.

Then I get it. It's true, everything Velkan said about my father. A tear runs down my cheek. I snort loudly and my brain gets cloud. I'm not seeing good old Richard, that eccentric man who was my teacher and tutor, who watched over me since I knew him. The one that took me to know the sea. In front of me was the person who caused everything that had happened in my life. Being an orphan, to begin with.

"So, it is true that I have parents, that he is a powerful man, and that you took me away from them when I was born," I claim, "why?" My voice comes out in a whisper, "what did you earn by getting me away from my parents? Money? Was it money you were going to earn, Richard?"

"You're misunderstanding everything, Bianca," he replies, "I'm not the bad guy in this story. It was your mother who asked me to take you away from your father. He wanted to hurt you and the only way to avoid it was by taking you with me."

"If you are not guilty, why do they accuse you of being a traitor?" I blurt out, my voice is shaking.

Many people have come and gone in my life, guys who came for a while and then went to live their lives, they came and went, sometimes we saw them again and many times, we did not. But the only constant in all this time has been Richard, it was always him and me and the others, who could be from a ridiculously small girl to a moody teenager. If I can't trust Richard anymore, I'm not sure about anything anymore.

"Because I disappeared, I was afraid for you, so I lost all contact with my alpha," he says looking at Kieran's father, "it was extremely dangerous for someone to inform your father where you were."

"If my mother asked you to take me away, I guess she's dead," it sounds strange saying the words out loud, but being an orphan, I long ago stopped thinking of my parents as people who were somewhere, I assumed, like many guys do, who they were already dead. Now I'm just confirming what I always believed.

"Your father made a trial, and the punishment was death, that's true," he replies with anger in his voice.

"So, my father the sociopath, sadist, and murderer killed my mother and wants to do the same with me," I make the summary almost laughing bitterly, but Kyle looks at me with some threat in his eyes, "What? Is there no one to report him to the authorities?"

My tone of voice makes Kyle rise from the table like he's going to jump on me. It seems that these people are exasperated by nothing.

Kieran gets up and places a hand on his father's shoulder to reassure him and he returns to his place from him at the table. Richard looks at him suspiciously, but he turns his face to me again.

"It's not that simple," Richard watches him, too, and when he's sure that Kyle is sitting, he responds, "We're other types of people and we don't run by the laws you're used to."

"That's clear to me," I tell him with all the anger that runs through my body since I was kidnapped, "before I thought they were a kind of cult because of the way they bow to Kieran and such, but you tell me that they are powerful people, so they must be some kind of mafia, with their little kings who think they are gods or something like that. I wouldn't be surprised if you tell me they sell drugs or human organs anyway."

"Be very careful what you say, Alanna," Kieran's father snaps at me, who now doesn't care if his son tries to reassure him, "we know you haven't been raised with us, but don't you dare insult your race."

"Race?" I blurt out, "we are all human beings, sir, no one should discriminate against anyone or say that we have races, and I don't care if you think you are a king, we are all equal and have the same rights."

"This is the last time I warn you, Alanna," he snaps, "I don't allow anyone to lack the respect to me, much less someone from my own pack."

"I don't belong to anyone and don't tell me what to do or say!" I shout at him with all the fury that I carry, "and I don't care about your threats, I also deserve respect and I have the right to give my opinion as I believe."

But far from getting him to respect me, everyone's faces are full of panic, except for Kyle, whose face is red with rage.

It is when he begins to transform. His skin is full of black fur and his bones contort to take the shape of a dog, no, a wolf.

Uncontrollable movements start from my feet to my head. The figure of the huge wolf climbs on the table and I get up from my chair to back slowly, while the wolf comes down from the table, to approach me little by little with each step that I retreat, with a mouth full of drool, growling as he goes.

But a figure stands in front of me. He's another black wolf and he's protecting me, though he's not trying to attack the wolf that is Kyle. This one takes a step back and begins to change. The wolf that comes between me and Kyle also transforms and takes me in his arms.

"You are, OK?" Kieran says when he reverts to his human form".

"Yes," I managed to say, trembling like a leaf, "you're a fucking wolf!" I yell at him trying to get away from him, "you are all fucking wolves!"

"Yes, we are," he replies, "and so are you."

  ~~~

"Now, try to calm yourself down," Kieran tells me, clinging me to his completely naked body, which does not help me feel calm at all. "Maddox hasn't finished telling you the whole story."

My eyes go from Richard to Kieran and back, trying not to look below his waist.

"You and I have a lot to talk about, Kieran," his father intervenes, "I'm not going to accept insubordination from anyone and that includes you."

"I'm sorry I acted like that, Dad, but I have particularly good reasons," he replies, "but first I think it's good that Alanna knows why we're trying to protect her," he adds and gestures for Richard to continue.

"I think I have to start telling you the story with all the parts censored, I suppose," says Richard. "Yes, we are werewolves, that's why we don't abide by the laws of humans," he clarifies, and I try again to get rid of Kieran and he leaves me this time, then Frans takes the opportunity to approach a piece of furniture and passes pants to father and son.

"I'll start by telling you that your mother belonged to the Scarlet Moon pack, where you are now," says Richard, and I look at him carefully, "she was the beta's daughter, Mikael. Your lineage within this pack goes back for long-standing. In fact, I was beta before I had to hide you. My brother, Maikan, is the current beta and his daughter will be next. All our descendants belong to this pack and Alpha Kyle organized your quest to bring you to this, your home. Here you belong.

"There is an old legend about your birth. It is said that the daughter of the four races would beget the she-healer of the world. Nobody was paying attention to that story, much less my siblings and me. The truth is that our mother was the daughter of a werewolf and a witch, and my father's parents were a werewolf, and she half-human, who in turn was part vampire. I, my brother Maikan and my sister Adara were born from them.

"So, the four races are humans, werewolves, vampires, and witches," I try to understand.

"That's right," answer my question, "it's not that my parents joined because they knew you would be born or anything, they were a couple, and no one planned anything for you to be born."

"But your father, the Silver pack alpha, Einar, did believe in that old legend and took it upon himself to make Adara fall in love, who was seduced by her alpha charms. Before the ceremony where she was going to be declared Luna, Adara met her mate and for us, wolves, which means we leave all our previous love commitments, to join our mates. It is something that you cannot avoid."

"So Adara would have to leave your father, unless, of course, she rejected him as her mate, but she did not want to, not even because Einar tried to tempt her with the Luna position, he offered her. She really loved her partner, regardless of your father or his alpha position."

But Einar wasn't going to let your mother leave him, because he had plans for her. The daughter born from that union was going to help him conquer other packs since his warriors could heal. So, he made up an excuse to invoke his alpha's right and challenged Azid, your mother's mate, to a duel and killed him, leaving your mother devastated.

"She resigned losing her mate and did the ceremony, becoming the Silver pack Luna. In a brief time, she became pregnant with you. For a while everything was fine until your mother found out the reasons why your father had done everything, including why he had confronted Azid through a trap that he set, so she came to seek help from Maikan And mine, and we spoke to Alpha Kyle, to protect her."

“We managed to get her out of the Silver pack by means of an excuse that your mother prefers to stay with her family until you were born, and your father reluctantly accepted. With that, we were able to stop your father for a while, until you were born.

"When your father found out that a girl had been born, he demanded from Alpha Kyle that he wanted his Luna and daughter back, but the alpha refused at the request of Einar, claiming that she could stay in the Scarlet Moon pack for the right that has her lineage."

“Einar wasn't going to sit idly by, so he summoned a council from the Luna, and they decided that Adara should return to the Silver pack. But she asked Maikan and me to take you far away, where no one could harm you and, despite the decision of the council, I spoke with my alpha to ask for his protection, again, in what he was going to do and he agreed, always to give him a report from time to time."

"So, I hid in the human world. Since neither of us is purebloods, we could hide our scent if we got together with other humans, so I decided to make a foster house for orphaned children because the children's scent is much stronger."

"But the legend was true. You began to demonstrate your healing powers from the beginning. One day Jasper, one of the children, had an accident where he broke his arm, but you were close to him, and his bone healed in a matter of hours when you touched him."

"Then I got scared. If humans found out that a person like you existed, they would start asking questions. So, I decided to hide more from others, both from my world and from humans. I also thought that not only Einar should have ambitions of how to use your powers, but other alphas could also want it and thus gain territories from other packs because their warriors would heal in your presence, while the other warriors would be wounded and even killed."

"Did you seriously Maddox think I would want to hurt Adara's daughter?" The imposing alpha intervenes with a certain pain in his voice, "your family and mine are awfully close. We grew up together, you, Maikan, Ketin, Adara, and me. I would never hurt them, we are family. My duty is to protect them."

"I know, my alpha, I also consider you to be my family," Richard or Maddox or whatever he wants to call himself, I don't know now if I know him well or if I ever got to know him, "but you have to admit, Kyle, that the risk of Alanna's existence news reaching less kind and more ambitious ears was very high."

"So, you assume there are traitors in the pack," Kyle comments, "that doesn't excuse you for what you did. You were able to communicate with me and say what you thought."

“My alpha, with all due respect, I cannot turn back the time, the decisions I made I cannot undo. I was scared for Bianca and acted to protect her. I still consider you my friend, but I know you have duties and I understand that."

"You will be judged, Maddox, there is no other way, you transgressed the pack's laws," Kyle replies, "I promise to be fair, as always, but I can't ignore this."

“I know, my alpha, I know. I would not expect anything else from you."

"Now, Kieran," says Kyle, "regarding what you were going to explain to me about Alanna, we can go to my office, you have a lot to say to Atea and me," he adds, and Kieran gives a resounding sigh.

"I guess so," he replies and asks Derrick to come over and whisper something in his ear. Then Kyle gets up from the table and we all do the same. We left the room. Kieran and his parents leave together, and the huge goons that guarded the door carry Richard down another hall, leaving Frans, Derrick, and me.

"This way," Derrick tells me, leading me upstairs to a room. As soon as I say goodbye to them, I take off my shoes and throw myself on the bed.

All the anguish that I have had during the last days suddenly attacks me and I start to cry, so much that when I finish, I fall surrender and fall asleep.