Page 65 of Wild Wolf

“Why would you agree to that?” I hissed, my mind reeling with the fact that I had a brother, born in blood and kept from me just as every piece of my bloodline had been kept from me until now.

“It wasn’t an easy choice, but I wanted my child to be an Heir, not some scandalous secret. Power is everything to the Fae and I wanted my baby to claim their birthright more than I cared about stepping out of the shadows myself. Behind closed doors, I would have my family. What did I care if Linda pretended they were hers in the open when I could have that?”

I wrinkled my nose at her assessment of the choice she made, but I supposed I would have given anything to be able to claim a family for myself once too.

Serenity went on, still speaking through Rosalie’s lips, my love’s body a vessel for this communion through The Veil. “But after Max’s birth…Linda grew more desperate, not giving up on her lust for power or her desire to place her own, legitimate child on the throne in place of mine. She tried to tempt Tiberius away from me, but our love was too deep for him to ever be swayed, and eventually she saw the only way was to…remove me from the picture.”

“No,” I gasped, seeing where this was heading all too clearly. Like I was standing in oncoming traffic, chained to the ground, knowing my fate before it collided with me.

More tears slipped down Rosalie’s cheeks as Serenity continued. “After Max’s birth, it wasn’t long before I became sick. So sick that there seemed to be no cure. Tiberius did everything he could, had healers from all across the kingdom and beyond come to me to try to save me from the plague in my bones. But…it was not to be. Linda had poisoned me so carefully, so cunningly that no one ever suspected it, and finally, she got her wish and I was taken out of the equation altogether. She managed to provide a potential Heir herself; Ellis, who she threw all of her efforts into in the hopes that she might one day challenge Max for his position and steal his title of Heir.”

“Where is this Linda bitch right now?” I hissed. “Is she in this house? Tell me her location and I will bring a world of vengeance upon her,” I spat, my grip tightening on the knife as emotion sliced through to my core. I didn’t know how to handle it without the outlet of killing. I needed the screams of the woman who had stolen so much from me singing in my ears before dawn came. I would travel any distance, go to any lengths to find her tonight.

“She has been punished well,” Serenity said, a bite to her tone. My mother reached for me again with Rosalie’s hand. “I cannot stay much longer. Please. Let me embrace you, just once. Let me show you how much you are loved.”

I remained still for several seconds before nodding stiffly and she moved forward, her arms winding around me, her hand coming to the back of my head and pulling me into the crook of her neck. I melted, nothing but a boy in the arms of a mother who I had been so sure despised me that it was almost impossible to accept that she adored me after all.

“Tiberius must know the truth,” she whispered.

“He does,” a deep voice cut through the air, and Rosalie pulled back, her eyes blinking and the moonlight evaporating from them at once.

Tiberius stood in the doorway in a red dressing robe, his eyes wide with shock as he stared from Rosalie to me. “I heard it all,” he breathed.

My heart thumped once, twice, three times and then I ran at him, arms wide for a hug, but before I made it, I slammed into a wall of ice he cast to stop me and staggered back.

“You’re Sin Wilder,” he gritted out, a note of fear to his voice that said he truly knew me. Well, at least what the press said about me. And they tended to paint me as one bastard of a criminal.

He looked down at the knife in my hand and I quickly hid it behind my back. “Just a little misunderstanding, Daddykins,” I said, a smile lifting my lips.

“Don’t call me that,” he said warily, his eyes tracking over me. “Is this some trick?”

“You heard her voice,” Rosalie said. “I don’t go channelling dead people every day. So what she said was important enough for the moon to allow it.”

“The moon…” Tiberius tracked a hand down the back of his neck. “Why have you come here?”

“Well, it’s a funny story actually,” I started, but Rosalie cut over me.

“The moon guided us here. Serenity clearly wanted this message unveiled. You know the truth now.” She looked to me, wonder lighting her expression. “Sin is your son.”

“Fuck, full body shivers right there,” I said, looking at my arm as the hairs raised along it. “Do you feel it too?” I looked to Tibsy, but he didn’t seem so excited. He seemed afraid, wary, like a goose about to lay an egg.

“No,” he grunted, stepping back and eyeing me with caution. “You’re not…you can’t be…”

A boat sunk in my chest, holes punctured in its hull while screaming sailors threw themselves overboard in a bid to be saved. But there was no surviving the stormy sea in my heart as I watched this man shrink from me. My so-called father didn’t want me. Of course he didn’t want me. One look and he saw a dangerous felon, a madman, the type of Fae the rest of the world wanted nothing to do with.

“Serenity confirmed it. She and the moon bent the space between life and death to offer you this truth,” Rosalie growled, stepping toward Tiberius in anger. “Your son stands before you and you dare deny he’s yours?”

Tiberius’s throat rose and fell, his gaze moving from Rosalie to fix on me. My face. Taking it in with a scrutiny that left me raw. Yeah, there were similarities alright. But I didn’t need those to know the truth, my girl had already confirmed it. I was an orphan no more. But if he didn’t want me-

He stepped forward, his hand rising to grip my jaw and I froze as he inspected me, looking into my eyes and studying every corner of my face. Something shifted in my chest as the weight of the stars fell upon us, their whispers tickling my ears.

“I guess I found my way home, Dad,” I said, my smile growing, my most mischievous side on show.

I waited for him to reply, my smile not slipping on the outside, but inside it crumpled as I awaited his rejection. Me and all my inner monsters would be too much for old Tibs to accept. But I ached for him to know the true me. This man with his tidy hair and smile lines, I could tuck right into one of those smile lines just fine. Easy peasy. He’d let me though, right? Right??

“I’ve seen so much of life that I thought it impossible for the stars to surprise me any more,” he muttered to himself.

I loved talking to myself too. We had loads in common already.

---