Page 133 of Moon Kissed

“Okay, okay,” he breathed, pacing back and forth. “Let’s say all of this is true and I believe you. How does brutally killing him in public save any of us?”

“Because he was going to die, and I’d be all alone. All because of the final and seventh person on my list—the shadow. Castor never figured out who it was. He couldn’t finish the fight, and he hated that he was leaving me to fight them alone. I was the only one left who knew about Destiny and actually wanted to stop it, but because of who I was, I didn’t have any friends,” I cried, throwing up my hands.

“I’ve been isolated and under guard my entire life. I had no friends, no allies, and no family other than my father. Who was going to help me after he was gone? Answer—no one. That’s why Castor came up with a plan. I had to go to the people who had the most to lose, people who were enemies of Wolf Nation, people who wanted to tear the alpha council down and build a new empire on their ashes,” I told him. “You’re not going to want to believe this, but it wasCastorwho found Lucia and bought me a place in her safe haven.

“It was Castor who searched the council records on every wolf that’s had their ear cut and were thrown out of Wolf Nation. He gave me the leads I needed to track down the lost packs and get their help. It was Castor who transferred the remains of his trust fund into an offshore account that only I had access to.

“And it was Castor who said I had to kill him during the ceremony. They were going to kidnap us allthat night. Waiting wasn’t an option. Plus, it was the only way to make the epsilons, omegas, and lost packs trust me. With one horrible act, I made myself an outcast, fugitive, and enemy of the alpha council. Castor said they wouldn’t doubt me when I told them I wantedevery single member of the council dead, and he was right—they didn’t. They joined me immediately. I honestly didn’t have to do that much convincing.”

“But why like this?” Badr burst out. “Why all this undercover revolution shit? Why didn’t he just tell me? Why didn’t you both tell everyone! Blast the truth on Loop-Garou for all of Wolf Nation to see.”

I was shaking my head before he finished. “Because knowing about it didn’t stop it, Badr. I just told you that in the vision everyone finds out. Everyone knows! And what happens? It becomes law.

“No.” I sliced the air. “The only way to make sure the war never happens is take away all the shadow’s puppets, and then crush the shadow.”

“And you don’t think Edric, Nyx, Paxton, Orion, and I would’ve helped you?” he flung. “If you’d been honest about all of this from the beginning, we would’ve been right by your side making everyone on your list pay, but no.” Accusation hung heavy in his words. “Instead, you made us your enemies. You made everyone except for your little allies your enemies!”

“You are my enemies!” I screamed. “Everyone who’d stand in my way is my enemy.”

“Why would we stand in your way!”

“Because I’m not following Castor’s plan anymore,” I hissed. “I’ve got my fucking own now. You see around the fifth time I played the vision of my dying boyfriend begging me to kill him—it hit me. Wolf Nation is over. Now it’s nothing but a diseased, cancerous boil that should’ve been sliced off centuries ago. How else do you explain our society becoming so cancerous and rotten they actually make rape and murder legal?

“How dare they?” I pushed through clenched teeth. “How dare they think they can breed me like a fucking dog? How dare they plot and plan to takemybabies away from me? How darethey sit upon a throne made of the corpses of everyone I love and call themselves heroes.

“No, Badr. No,” I whispered, slowly shaking my head. “Anyone that twisted and evil doesn’t deserve to lead my people. They don’t deserve to live. All Castor wanted was for Lucia to hide us, and for the lost packs to welcome fleeing omegas when the time came—”

“Us?”

“But I had a better idea.” I closed the distance. Even though Badr was up and out of my reach, he backed away from me and the look in my eyes. “If the council wants a throne of corpses, I’d fashion it out of their fucking bones and sit on it myself. If they want a war, they’ll get that too.”

“Volana, who is us?”

“I’ll raise an army that they’ll never see coming. An army of the lost, underestimated, and betrayed. We’ll slaughter the unlucky where they stand, and silence the ones on their knees.”

“Volana!”

“I will kill everyone—everyone!—who’s a threat to her. Everyone who dares to look at her and only see what they can take,” I shrieked. “Anyone who dares to make this world unsafe for her, they’re going to fucking die, Tahan, because it’s only after they do that I can look his daughter in the eyes and tell her that her father died for a reason.”

“Whose daughter?!”

“Castor’s daughter!” I punched the dirt. “My daughter! The one I was carrying the night we all met on that rock. The baby that was born six months ago with all the powers that named my vision as horribly, terribly true. And the reason that I only have three more months before the other babies of the new generation start being born... and Project Destiny begins.”

“No,” Badr cried, clutching his head and pacing up and down. “No! Now I know you’re lying because that’s not possible. There’s no way we have a daughter. There’s no way!”

Even though the dislike between me and Badr was very mutual, I could admit it did funny things to my chest to hear him say “we” and claim my baby as his own. “Why do you think I had to stay away for so long? The strongest weapon I have against the council right now is that they believe they still need me to complete the bonds for their plans to go ahead.”

Badr was dazed. I left him way behind in the conversation. “Where?” he whispered. “Where’s the baby?”

“She’s safe with Lucia.”

That snapped him out of it. “Lucia? The fucking vampire! You left our daughter with a leech?”

“I left her in the safest place in the world for her right now. Lucia will protect Hope with her life.”

“But you— No. No!” he sliced, cutting himself off. “I’m not buying into this. It doesn’t make sense that you could have a baby out there with all of our powers when most of our bonds are incomplete. This is just more lies.”

“No, it’s not, Badr, because it makes sense when you consider how strange it is that it’s been a year but our bonds haven’t degraded a fraction,” I said. “It’s because I did something even more important than boinking my fates on a rock. I gave birth to one of their babies.” I shook my head. “We’ve done the ceremony the same way for thousands of years. No one knew there were other ways to consummate the bond.

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