Page 59 of Moonlit Choosing Ritual

She bit her lip. “It’s okay. You were too young when Ayla took you away.” She blushed a little. “Ayla was your nanny, and she—she was a fucking bitch!”

I jerked my head back as a chuckle worked its way out of my throat.

Hira grinned. “I’ll leave you to it. Have your food, and please sleep. Tomorrow, Luna Thyra will see you.”

Hira closed the door behind me, leaving her warmth behind. I don’t know why, but I was ravenous. It was like I could eat every morsel in the Viking pack. After devouring my food greedily, I went to the window and noticed that the lights of Jackie’s room were still on. Stifling an urge to go to her, I went to my bed and slipped beneath the sheets. When I drifted off to sleep, Talon visited me. He promised that he was coming for me. That he would fight everyone in the world to take me back. And then someone stabbed him from behind.

My eyes jerked open, my heart racing as if I were in real danger. Cold sweat broke out as my breath turned fast and shallow, almost as if I was panicking. “Talon…” I muttered his name, hugging myself to stop shaking.

The subtle, familiar sensation, like a deep, restless hum, vibrated beneath my skin. My body felt too small to contain whatever was lurking inside me. Heat spread from my core, a searing energy, as though my bones were trying to stretch. My pulse quickened. I tossed the sheet covering me and got up to find Thyra sitting at the edge of the bed, staring at me, her eyes full of tears.

I gasped, scrambling away. My back slammed against the backrest as the feeling settled slowly. “Wh—what are you doing here?” I asked.

“Ylva, I’ve come to say I’m sorry…” she murmured, lowering her head. “I wasn’t—” She shook her head. “You were—” She choked again. Then she looked at me. “Please, will you hear me out just once? After that, I’ll accept whatever you decide.”

I didn’t know if I wanted to hear about a family that had betrayed me, that couldn’t protect me, but inside I knew I needed to know why. “Sure,” I said, picking up a pillow and hugging it tightly, hoping it wouldn’t let my heart break.

Thyra smiled through her tears. “Thank you,” she said. She picked up a small box, opened it, and took out some pictures. Giving them to me, she said, “These are pictures of you.”

I took them from her and studied them closely. A cute, adorable baby looked at me. She had pale blonde untamed hair. Most of the photos were of me with Thyra and Frode, but some were with young teenage boys. I guessed they were my brothers. It was the last picture that caught my attention. In it, Ayla was braiding my hair, and I was crying, looking at Alpha Frode. Shock plummeted in my stomach, its weight so heavy that my mind went numb.

“That’s Ayla,” Thyra pointed. “She was your nanny, and she hated me.”

“Why?” I found myself asking as I stared at the only proof connecting me to them.

“Ayla was crazy about your father,” Thyra said. “She’d worked in our mansion ever since she was fourteen, quietly tending to the family’s every need, but all the while, bitterness festered in her heart. Frode’s mother loved her like her own pup. Ayla was fixated on Frode and dreamed of marrying him one day, but Frode met me and we smelled each other as mates. According to Ayla, she once lived a life of promise, a life ruined by the very man she now served. It goes without saying that she hated serving me.

“She hated me and tried to seduce your father in many ways. Frode never understood her advances, and she was always tame in front of me. When she couldn’t get his attention, she would take it out on you. She would lock you up in the bathroom or take you out to play outdoors and leave you unattended for hours. She would blame others for it, and I’d believe her blindly. I was so busy building the pack with Frode that I neglected my children. But that’s what the Alpha and Luna of the pack are expected to do.” She shook her head. “Ayla took advantage ofit. She couldn’t do anything to your brothers because they were older and could speak, but you—”

More tears came out. “You were less than two. One day, I caught her putting drugs in Frode’s wine. When I confronted her, she said she didn’t know they were drugs. She cried and said Hira’s mother had asked her to do it. All my attention was focused on Hira’s mother. Furious, I called her to my house for further investigation. However, Ayla took advantage of the situation. She knew that when the truth came out, she’d be executed. In the commotion that followed, she picked you up in revenge and ran away. The rest you know…”

“Ylva, please forgive me,” she said, clasping her hands in front of me. “I should’ve been more careful, but—”

I watched her breaking in front of me, hating it. Slowly, I crawled to her and wrapped her in my arms.

“Ylva…” she whimpered. “I’m sorry, baby. I failed you. Please forgive me…”

Should I forgive her?

Chapter 34

Kimble

Thyra sat with me for a long time and cried until she couldn’t. As for me—I didn’t know what to do. Finding people who belonged to you was strange. It was surreal and frustrating at the same time. I wanted to lash out at them for not protecting me, for being missing from my life when I wanted them the most, for Ayla giving me nightmares at every turn, and for not finding me earlier. But a feeling of belonging to someone, belonging to a family, bloomed like a flower in my chest.

An intimate but weak thread of love sprang to life, like something inside me was acknowledging the bond.

Thyra went to her room and showed me other photographs, toys, and tiny clothes that I used to wear. She had kept them safely tucked in her room. “Whenever I missed you, I used to embrace them,” she said with a fond smile. I was so moved that I couldn’t help crying silently. Alpha Frode came in, and I don’t know when, but the conversation turned casual and jovial. Except for Vandil, all my brothers came to my room in the morning with enough food for a picnic, and ended up making me eat lots of it.

“Can you call me mom?” Thyra asked, as everyone looked at me expectantly.

I nodded. “Yes…”

Thyra hugged me tightly as Alpha Frode came and wrapped his arms around both of us. To my surprise, my brothers also came over and piled on, crushing me in the middle. Goddess. Was this how siblings behaved?

My brothers left my room promising that they would take me out in the evening to meet some other pack members. But I was afraid. I didn’t have a wolf. I was an abomination.

‘No you’re not,’ a voice hissed inside me, making me squeak in fear. The voice subsided as soon as it came. It was probably my imagination.

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