Page 34 of A University of Betrayal

The memories hurt, tore me apart, and began to bubble up inside me again. But I suppressed them with all my strength. This time, successfully.

“Tell me!”

Not even her own sister intervened. Amara looked at Margot as if she was... disappointed? Hurt? But why?

“Didn’t that question answer itself?” Margot sighed, strangely self-assured, and avoided my gaze. “It’s a wonder it took you so long to find out that Alaister has a child.”

“Don’tput his name in your filthy mouth!”

“Gloria! Calm down!” Amara ordered, pulling on her shoulder, but Gloria shook her off.

“You tell me to calm down?! I can’t believe it!”

And I no longer understood what was going on. Too many things at once, too little time to process it all.

“She even looks like him.” Margot laughed, which made Gloria turn to me in a rage.

Her gaze was full of lashing emotions that completely overwhelmed me. Whatever she saw in me, she seemed tohateit.

Amara was walking in circles, clutching her head, and I noticed in the corner of my eye Bayla’s mother running her hands over her arms. Diana looked tense, but not like my aunt, who was now also talking to Margot as if all her questions were about to burst out of her.

“I thought this Jonathon was her biological father and not...” She touched her head.“Oh God,how could I have been so blind back then. So blind to so many things…”

Diana and Amanda looked abruptly at Amara, but she didn’t even notice.

I wondered what exactly she was implying. That Jonathon hadn’t been my father? But that made no sense. I remembered him clearly. Far too clearly…

My hands started shaking again.

“Did you know anything about this?” Gloria now asked her daughter, Amanda, which surprised me the most. And at that moment, I noticed her watching me.

Amanda quickly looked away again, this time at Margot, and her face was expressionless, as if she was reminiscing.

“You will bitterly regret keeping my own granddaughter from me!”

Gloria’s words burned so deeply into my head that I staggered back and bumped into a glass vase, which immediately slipped off the dresser and shattered on the wooden floor.

Everyone looked at me. But I could only look at Gloria.Gloria Westcode...

“You would have taken her away from me,” Margot was now blurting out, and I wondered if she actually cared. I would never believe her.

“She would have gotten a better training! Right from the start!” Gloria argued angrily, as if it were a matter of life and death. And I was right in the middle of it, the victim of her power, a projection screen for her anger.

Her...granddaughter.

A chill went down my spine.

“No... Amanda, tell them that Alaister couldn’t control his powersanybetter.”

But Amanda just stared at Margot, earning a death glare from Gloria.

“You all...” Margot now looked at the older Circle members. “You were all there when he destroyed everything!”

I looked at each of them, noticing Bayla’s confused look. I was sure she was wondering what she was doing here... just like me.

To learn that my own mother had lied for years about my father, who was now supposed to be Gloria’s unknown son? Confusion and anger flooded through me. Why had I never known about a son?A male Quatura.Male… Probably with the same powers as me. Someone I had never met.

Inevitably, images popped back into my head. Images of the man who had slept with my mother and who...

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