A Gift from the Goddess

Book Two – Ch.# 36

“Rae… What’s happened?” he asked.

I opened my mouth to reply but the words wouldn’t come out. My body was running on pure adrenaline for survival now and I was doing my best to push through the overwhelming urge to cave into my emotions.

“I… I’m…,” I fumbled.

My eyes were trying to water but I gritted my teeth against it.

I didn’t want to fight Kieran… I didn’t know if I could live myself if I were to see the look of hatred in his eyes. Anything but that.

“Rae?”

“I… Kieran, someth-.”

But before I could finish speaking, I was suddenly cut off.

“RAVEN!” Allison’s voice shrilly screamed.

And I cursed. She was here. Probably at the staircase looking for me.

This was game over.

Kieran frowned but turned around to investigate, walking towards my only available exit. One now manned by his insane little sister.

“Kieran! W-wait… don’t….”

However, as I futilely trailed behind him, I was further stressed by seeing that Allison had recruited help. Help in the form of Daniel, the Beta heir.

“Hand yourself over, Raven,” Daniel said, stepping cautiously forward. “Let’s not drag this out any longer than we have to.”

“What the hell is going on?” Kieran demanded.

“I’m sorry, man, but she’s been lying to you,” he said. “Allison said that she admitted to being one of them. Called herself by a name that belonged to The Council of the Silver Mist. She’s a Knight. Rheyna Knight.”

But as Daniel enlightened him to the situation, it was Kieran’s reaction that was the most unsettling.

Or, lack of, to be precise.

Because there was no shock or surprise that crossed his features at all. Just… remaining completely silent as he held Daniel’s gaze.

Almost as if…

Almost as if he knew.

“…Kieran?” I whispered. “Why aren’t you….”

And his face then confirmed it, closing his eyes in guilt for a moment.

Everything made sense now. Why he kept our training sessions private, why I was never allowed to talk about my health problems publicly, why he’d said those words to me last night. They’d struck me as odd, but I’d had more important things to worry about at the time. But his phrasing had been weird.

That was what he had said. ‘Biggest issue’ being my past. Because he knew that my birth family would cause a reaction like

you know? Let alone keep this from me?

kept up with me during a fight whilst taking them, Rae. It meant you had to be from a powerful pack, one stronger than even Ashwood by a considerable margin. Of

anything I’d felt before. He’d known this entire time and kept it from me, knowing full

I felt myself sink deeper inside, the

keeping things from each other. Secrets that had dire consequences.

chimed in. “She’s a descendant of the

snapped angrily. “She couldn’t even shift before I brought her here. She didn’t even know what werewolves were. She was an orphan of war, somehow surviving

tracks, believing her fabrications,” she said. “Now I’m starting to wonder if Sterling’s death was really as justified as you claimed. She probably had you kill him as well. Swaying your mind to do her bidding.”

listen to what I’m trying to tell you. Raven isn’t a devil like we

I said quietly, my voice cutting through

was me. I

“Rae!”

innocent, Kieran. Pick a title; Rogue or Devil. Because the same meaning still applies. I don’t belong here. I never did. There is nothing I can do to suddenly change

I wasn’t… and exhausted of now defending myself against something I couldn’t

I was done.

tears starting to fall down her face.

literally admitting that

and tried to force his mark on her. If she hadn’t of killed him, I would have. He overstepped a line and was trying to

interjected before she could reply.

what he was. What you were too. A job, Kieran. You really think I was allowed to come here of my own volition? With a man

“What…?”

finally, Kieran looked

to retrieve documents once in possession of a smuggler I’d killed, believed to be handed over to Victor Lycroft. Documents that I then discovered Sterling knew the whereabouts of. After he attacked me, I turned the tables on him and tortured him into admission. This shouldn’t be a shock. I already told you that I’m not who I seem.

“Rae-.”

a lie. She doesn’t

jaw tensed as he looked at me, making me want to take it all back.

your face every day we were together. I promised to protect

letting me push him away was only making this harder. Too hard to deal with… and I

sadness surfaced all at once, a cumulation of both the revelations today and

ME,

can’t change my birth family nor change my past. This isn’t something you can

a kind and genuinely good person, believing the best still exists inside me,’ I added in my

it’s not there. It never will be.’

It must have made him uncomfortable, unsure probably if I were about to perform some other devil magic. Whatever the hell

was letting my emotions seep in again, something that was a snowball that would probably end badly. Right now, me leaving as soon as possible was the best- case

only problem now was… how.

and Allison were still guarding the stairs, yet we were too many floors up for me to safely utilise a window escape. I was

to take her to your

him decide what

wasn’t having that. He looked… pissed. Probably

swear to the Goddess, Daniel…,” Kieran warned.

want to defend her? A child of the monsters who killed your mother?

Siblings?” he argued. “Because her entire family is dead because of

…I hadn’t.

This

had been moving too quickly for me to think about it before but… but if it weren’t for Ashwood, perhaps I would have grown up normally. I might have known what it was like to have