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.

think we’ll be fine.”*’ That was what he had said. ‘Biggest issue’ being my past. Because he knew that my birth family would cause a reaction like this, far greater than any other uproar I could

could you know? Let alone keep this from me? Why

to be from a powerful pack, one stronger than even Ashwood by a considerable margin. Of which, there was only one other in modern history. But…

knowing

felt myself sink deeper inside, the last shred of hope

both been keeping things from each other. Secrets that had dire

“She’s a descendant of the Siren. Manipulation is

“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 long enough to still

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

I’m trying to tell you. Raven isn’t a devil like we were always

killed Sterling,” I said quietly, my voice cutting

was me. I killed

“Rae!”

right,” I said. “Whether it’s because I’m a so-called ‘Devil’ or due to my past crimes, I’m no innocent, Kieran. Pick a title; Rogue or

to be someone I wasn’t… and exhausted of now defending myself against something I couldn’t change.

I was done.

over hearing my confession, tears starting to

Kieran! She is literally admitting that she’s evil. She-.”

If she hadn’t of killed him, I would have. He overstepped a line and was trying to abandon Ashwood, breaking our rules

interjected before she

broken prior to his death,” I added. “I tortured him before I finished the job. Because that’s what he was. What you were too. A job, Kieran. You really think I was allowed to come here of

“What…?”

finally, Kieran

back my emotions. “You always were, even from the very beginning when we first met. I was sent 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

“Rae-.”

a

me, making me want to take it

“You wanted to stay here with me, I know it. I saw it in your face every day we were together. I promised to protect you, and I still intend to do that. You’re still my-.”

was only making this harder. Too hard to

all at once, a cumulation of

CAN’T FIX ME,

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

person, believing the best still exists inside me,’ I

It never will

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

me, taking an aggressive stance to suggest a fight, and I sighed. I was letting my emotions seep in again, something that was a snowball that would probably end badly. Right now, me leaving as soon

only problem now was…

stairs, yet we were too many floors up for me to safely utilise a window escape. I was trapped unless I intended to fight my way out. Something

her to

him decide what

that. He looked… pissed. Probably rightfully so

to the

what? You really want to defend her? A child of the monsters who killed your mother? Our other pack members? So many died in that war because of

argued. “Because her entire family is dead

…I hadn’t.

This went

but if it weren’t for Ashwood, perhaps I would have grown up