Page 36 of The Wild Moon
Adopted, perhaps, but still the man who had raised me. I ran my fingertips across the journal's cover. I’d spent many a day trying to figure out how I felt and what the truth of it must be.
Doubts larger than the Atlantic still existed inside me, and unless I could find my parents, they would always be there. Without the truth, a part of me would always wonder. But with the complete and utter lack of clue as to where my parents had gone, I had to decide for my sanity.
Did I believe the people who raised me had truly loved me?
That was the question I needed to answer for myself. I could not go through the days constantly flopping back and forth. Had they loved me and raised me as their own, simply not feeling the need to tell me because they saw themselves as my parents?
Or was there another reason, a more sinister reason, behind the lies and deception? Had they not wanted to tell me because of some other reason? It wasn’t just them keeping the truth from me either. Clearly, Johnathan had gotten the information from someone, which meant others knew I was adopted.
They’d known all along, and not one of them said a damn thing. I’ve got a lot of questions. Questions that need answering.
There was only one person who would give me those answers, and he was currently in locations unknown. I refused to believe they were dead. Not until somebody could show me their bodies. No, my parents were out there somewhere, hiding, for reasons I had yet to decipher.
When I caught up with them, though, they would explain everything, from my adoption to their disappearance.
Gonna need more money to do that. Tracking them isn’t cheap.
“Stop avoiding this,” I said, forcing myself to acknowledge out loud that my focus was wandering away from the task at hand.
My father loved me. I chose to believe that. I chose to believe they hadn’t faked it all. I had too many happy memories, too many things that felt too natural to be anything but real.
It was easier to believe that than to continue thinking I was all part of one big sham, a charade. There was nothing about me that would warrant such action. I was just a regular old she-wolf.
Okay, maybe not quite normal. Not many of the pack reject their Soulbond after searching for it for most of a year. But, otherwise, totally normal.
Nothing worth such a cover-up. Which was why I was confident my parents had cared.
“Damn,” I said, tracing circles on the cover of the journal. “Why is this so hard?”
I swallowed heavily, putting a finger under the cover, ready to flick it open.
“I miss you guys,” I whispered to the empty room. “I should have stayed and listened. Should have let you explain.”
Blinking back tears, I took another long breath. The night of my Soulshift, the same night I’d found out I was adopted, I had confronted them about it. I’d laughed and asked them if I was their real daughter. It was funny to me at the time. Because why wouldn’t I be?
To my horror, they had hesitated. That’s when it all came crashing down, and I couldn’t handle it. Between my wolf doing her best to drive me insane and the pressure of my Soulshift, finding out my life wasn’t what I thought it had been was too much.
So I’d run out of the house.
That was the last time I’d seen my parents. The last time we’d spoken. It gnawed at me that I’d left it like that. Without any closure.
This is how you start, I told myself, focusing on the journal.Fine.
My index finger nosed open the cover. The first page was blank, devoid of any writing, but that didn’t mean there was nothing there. A single white business card lay pressed firmly against the spine, trapped there until the cover was opened.
Aaron Greiss.
That was all, that and a phone number. I flicked it over, but the back was empty as well.
“Weird,” I muttered, setting the card back down.
I’d never heard that name before, but that didn’t mean much. My father must have had all sorts of contacts outside of the pack to help him with his journeys. This must be one of them.
Turning the pages, I got to the first entry. It was dated about six months before his disappearance. This was his most recent journal. I thumbed through the entries, not reading any of them yet. I had another thought on my mind.
“Interesting.”
The writing stopped a little past the halfway point of the journal. It wasn’t finished.
