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.

to face publicly is just crimes your father forced you to do, then I think we’ll be fine.”*’ That was what he had said. ‘Biggest issue’

this from me? Why bring me here at

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

and kept it from me, knowing full well that this might happen one day. That it was information

myself sink deeper inside, the last

both been keeping things from each other. Secrets that had dire consequences. Perhaps our relationship really was irreparable

a descendant of the Siren. Manipulation is in her

were. She was an orphan of war, somehow

“Now I’m starting to wonder if Sterling’s death was really as justified as you

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

I said quietly, my voice cutting through the room.

me. I killed him.”

“Rae!”

due to my past crimes, I’m no innocent, Kieran. Pick a title; Rogue or Devil. Because the same meaning still applies. I don’t belong here. I never did.

of pretending 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

to her, Kieran! She is literally admitting

interrupted. Stalked her to her room 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 abandon Ashwood, breaking

before she could

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 my own volition? With a man like my father? My leash has only ever been long enough

“What…?”

finally, Kieran

I said, swallowing 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 me, I turned the tables on him and tortured him into admission.

“Rae-.”

is a

want to take it all back. But even if

it in your face every day we were together.

making this harder. Too hard to deal with… and I suddenly cracked.

of frustration and sadness surfaced all at once, a cumulation of both the revelations today and the confliction from last night.

ME, KIERAN,” I

change my past. This isn’t something you can mend like my poisoning

a kind and genuinely good person, believing the best still exists inside

it’s not there. It never will

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

was letting my emotions seep in again,

only problem now was…

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 that I

her

“Let him decide

He looked… pissed. Probably

to the Goddess, Daniel…,” Kieran

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

about Rae’s mother? Huh? Her father? Siblings?” he argued. “Because her entire family is dead because of us. Did you think about that?”

…I hadn’t.

This went

but… but if it weren’t for Ashwood, perhaps I would have grown up normally. I might have known what