Chapter 52 – The Unexpected Truth
“Lies require commitment.“–Veronica Roth
Neron
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03:1
After my trip to the pack hospital, I spent the rest of my time scouring through the endless stacks of books in the Zircon Moon Library as Diana sat on top of a bookcase, preening her feathers. Wooden bookcases lined the walls, surrounding the tables, chairs, and couches glowing under the brilliant sunlight. Every open book emitted an earthy aroma wafting into the air. I’ve never cared for reading, but there were a handful of wolves who enjoy the silence and solitude of the library, lost in a world of adventure and words.
Almost every title I’ve come across contained bits and information about werewolf history I never paid attention to; lifespan development, sociology of weres, the works. Grunting with effort, I picked up a large stack of books and settled them on an adjacent table.
Taking my seat, I began the banal task of flipping through pages while Ariel’s request weighed heavy on my mind. Never in my life have I’ve heard of a wolf wishing to part from their human–it was relatively unheard of. She looked so unhappy and it crushed my heart. Our soul bond connects the humans to our wolves until the day we die; losing your woll is like losing half of your spirit.
Flashback
“I cannot remain attached to Odessa any longer, Alpha Neron. She has done shameful things throughout our life together that I’ve let slide for very long, under the pretense that she will change. Now, because of my passivity, I’ve lost my soulmate. You can try to persuade me, but I will not change my mind. I want out.”
Is there any way you can rekindle with her and try to make your relationship work?” Lasked. “This is a very extreme request, Ariel. You’re proposing for a soul separation and whilst I’ve never witnessed such an event, there is no guarantee you’d come out rninjured.”
I’m prepared to take all the risks needed to make this happen.” Ariel cast her eyes down on the ground, biting her lip. “Odessa and I never got along. I’m afraid that I was but a handicap to her. Wolves are the voice of reason to our humans, but I’ve never got the chance to make myself heard around her she always shuts me out. I cared about Odessa, a lot, but what can I do when she doesn’t care about me? What about my feelings? I’ve taken the backseat to her madness for so long and it is now do I understand I cannot change her. It’s too much for me.”
“You said you are prepared to die if it meant parting with your human.”
“I much rather be with our Moon Goddess than confined to this woman. I want…” Ariel’s breathing snagged in her throat; pain interlaced with her gasps. Looking up at me once more, her alive eyes saturated with tears; a couple of them cascading down her cheeks. “I’m not happy, Alpha Neron. I lost my sense of self, and I don’t want to continue in life if my human doesn’t even regret what she’s done!”
“I just wish to be happy again, even if the likelihood of my death are high.”
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Ariel will risk it all for the sake of her own happiness. The pain in her eyes when she spoke to me branded themselves in my mind. Her sorrow. Goddess knows that if I ever lost Onyx, I wouldn’t know what to do -3.10 myself. Hating me is one thing, but losing him forever is another.
“Come on…there has to be something here…” I murmured, flipping through the pages to find an indication of soul splitting, but came up empty. The scarcity of the process reaffirmed my intimal belief that this situation doesn’t happen often, but I cannot get Ariel’s grief out of my mind. As her Alpha, I must honor her request.
I need to help her. She deserves joy, with or without Odessa.
“This book is a complete dud. Since we can’t find anything, what are we supposed to do now?” Onyx quipped as I strode back to a bookshelf.
“We have to keep trying.” I answered, setting the book away. “The sooner we find what we’re seeking, the sooner we can get back to searching for answers about Kiya’s disappearance.
“But, will we find those answers here? Anthony has yet to call us about Miss Phoebe’s progress.”
“He will in due time. But I feel as there is something we’re missing about Osiris.” I expounded, seizing a rolling ladder. “Call it a hunch, but I feel as though he isn’t targeting our pack only for Kiya.”
“I like to hear this hunch.” Onyx chuckled amusingly. “Go on.”
A smile found its way to my face as I climbed the ladder. “Osiris could have tormented Garnet Moon, but he didn’t. Kiya has a stronger connection there, so why only bother us? He used Odessa as his pawn, but he did it for a reason. He knows something that I don’t, and I need to uncover it.”
“But, where would you find it? Could his reasoning just be from how Kiya was treated?”
“I don’t think so
Kiya could burn us to the ground whenever she wanted without his help. Why would he care so much? Maybe this is about him–1”
“Shit!” A book slid from my hands, dropping to the floor in a resounding thud. The impact dislocated a floor tile, shattering its corner. “Fantastic… Begrudgingly, I trekked down the stairs and went to nurse the book. It was a history book speaking on werewolf evolution; not something that contains the answers to either of my
dilemmas.
However, something about the removed tile caught my eye, or rather what was under it. Something black and dusty. Curiously, I eased the tile away from the hole, coughing at the dust that flew from it.
“What have we here?” I wondered, digging my hands into the hole like a pirate hunting for buried treasure. But what I pulled out was not a chestnfull of riches. It was two aged, dilapidated journals. The worn leather traps failed to keep the yellowing pages threatening in order. An opaque film of dust stained the black cover, paling its color.
“Who hides books under the floor?” Onyx asked, perplexed.
“People who have something to hide.”
I
“Well, crack those babies open and let’s see what inside!” He urged. Such an impatient patient my wolf is.
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made my way back to my table, obeying Onyx’s request. Each page had more dust than the last, but the page froze me stiff in shock. Not by the contents, but by the name of the person who the book belonged 03:0
“What the hell?”
Titan Prince. My great–grandfather? I reviewed the other journal and found it belonged to my grandfather, Nathaniel Prince. The words of my predecessors rested on my fingertips, waiting to be read. I’m both eager and apprehensive for what I am about to read, but an inkling in the back of my head urges me to proceed with caution. Titan and Nathaniel Prince lived in different times and therefore might have views and beliefs conflicting mine. But both men are dead. How am I going to argue with them?
“Why are you hesitating?”
“Just preparing myself, that’s all.” I responded with a sigh. “I’ve been told nothing but good things about these men. It’s nice to have their own words them versus the grand stories Dad used to tell. It won’t be so bad, right?”
“No, I don’t think so. Neron, this feels strange and I don’t know why.”
“You’re probably taking on some of my anxiety. No need to worry.”
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Onyx didn’t seem sure but said little else. Regardless of the bubbling worry we both feel, I have to read the contents of the journals. What do I have to lose? Huffing in a heavy breath, I opened my Great–Grandfather’s book and started reading. There was nothing I couldn’t handle.
But I was wrong. Very wrong.
Power. That’s all these men cared about. Word after word, passage after passage, all in their handwriting detailed pillages and quandaries of packs, fantastical ambitions, and scrutiny over how other Alphas ruled over their pack. They wrote every encounter to the smallest detail with names I’m unfamiliar with. Flipping from one journal to another, it is like I’m seeing insanity take on a novel form, mind–boggling. My grandfather’s words were tame compared to my great–grandfather, but it didn’t change things.
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According to his words, Great–Grandfather Titan believed power is justice; the more prestige one had, they govern what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. Those with less power didn’t have the right to resist, merely obey. His journal contradicted the figure of the righteous Alpha Dad taught me about my entire life.
It disgusted me to read about how this man had no penance for his violent destruction. Diana, sensing my discomfort, glided over and cautiously stepped toward me with her talons clicking against the wooden table. All I could do is sit there, gawk at the remarks of a psychopath, frozen. I couldn’t be related to this man, right?
That wasn’t the worst I’ve learned. Hidden in the ocean of lunacy was the notice of his jeweled prize,, bedazzled with power to uphold him and his lineage. Fantastical proclamations that our Moon Goddess guided him to her, alleging to be her favorite.
I read and read, even as the revulsion and nausea became too much. Insanity, fury, delusion–it all slapped me in the face the further I read. But it all suddenly ended at the death of his prize. After those last words were continuous, barren yellow pages.
“So, you came from a whole bloodline of crazy men. No surprise there.”
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Chapter 12 – The Une pecin
“…I should scream at you for your tasteless sense of humor, but you’re right.”
I had no enthusiasm in understanding my history when I was younger, but now I see that I should have. Maybe if I didn’t have the attention span of a goldfish and a brattish shriek, I could’ve spared myself this hideous discovery. I slumped my hands in my palms, working to nurse my pounding headache with my trembling fingers. Not even Diana’s comfort could soothe me down.
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I don’t know what to do. Cry, scream, break shit–none of it seemed appealing now. My dad went to great lengths to inculcate these distorted images of my predecessors into my lessons, even when hungover. Anything less than what he wanted gifted me in blotches of red and blue on my skin. After a while, I believed him. I clung onto Dad’s every word and the expectations to make him and the men before him proud. It was my time and my generation, and I had to prove that I was a worthy successor.
A worthy Alpha.
Everything came crumbling down like a demolition scene even as I search my grandfather’s journal for some hope. But, just as hope that he was a different man roared to life, it died tragically. His words were more calculated than his father, but it was still a mess. For a moment, I wanted to save myself from the heartache;
close the journal and pretend nothing happened.
Until I read something that united all the missing pieces together. Nathaniel Prince recounted an encounter with an oracle in Greece during his travels in the early 20th century, and this oracle spoke of the next child of the moon to be born in the upcoming generation of his pack.
The avatar.
Kiya’s words a couple weeks back came to haunt me. About the speculations she and Miss Phoebe had about her birth and how she didn’t trust my dad. Oracles help predict the future, so they had to have predicted her birth and told my grandfather what he wanted to hear! It all made sense, notably with Dad’s unrelenting pressure for me to mate with Kiya and assume her power for myself, despite her objections. Too many connections are being made at the immediate revelations; left and right they bound and sparked together.
Now I understood everything. The truth about my family history consisting of plunder, theft, gluttony, and violence were glossed over, masquerading these men as virtuous and benevolent Alphas with love for their pack when truly, it was a love for power.
Everything I’ve been taught was a lie; made a fool about my own fucking history. And I had one person blame: the man who taught me.
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And I have no doubt that the prize my great–grandfather spoke about was the avatar before Kiya. The prey he
took for his own.
I’m sickened and disgusted. These are the type of men I came from. Their blood is within me, with life! I carry on their legacy shielded behind a wall of blissful ignorance.
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I saw red, my chest burning at the betrayal of all the men before me, including my father. My hands clutched at the corners of these forbidden diaries, my fury bleeding into the aged pages. I was deceived and taught that if I didn’t rule with an iron fist, I’d bring shame to my ancestors. That no one would respect me if I was too tolerant. That if I didn’t become the Alpha my dad wanted me to be, I was a failure.
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Chapter 12. The then
A failure. A fucking failure!
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The chair flew back when I rose abruptly, slamming the journals closed. Diana flailed, hopping back from me as I marched out the library’s double doors. My beast was hunting for my father, squirming in pain from his trickery. Onyx tried his best to calm my anger, but nothing helped.
He needed to answer to for what he’s done! I needed to hear from his mouth his reasoning behind everything.
Above all, I wanted to know why he lied to me.
1 needed to know.