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.

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

this from me? Why bring

taking them, Rae. It meant you had to be from a powerful pack, one stronger than even Ashwood by a

anything I’d felt before. He’d known this entire time and kept it from me, knowing full well that this might happen one day. That it was information that could likely lead to

felt myself sink deeper inside,

things from each other. Secrets that

Kieran!” Allison chimed in. “She’s a descendant of the Siren. Manipulation is in her blood.”

She was an orphan of war, somehow surviving long enough to still be tortured by our pack despite her situation. Sterling was selling silver suppressors,

covering up her tracks, believing her fabrications,” she said. “Now I’m starting to wonder if Sterling’s death was really as justified as you claimed.

I’m trying to tell you. Raven isn’t a devil like we were always told. She’s just a girl, an

Sterling,” I said quietly, my voice cutting through the room. “It wasn’t

me.

“Rae!”

or Devil. Because the same meaning still

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

I was done.

my confession, tears starting

her, Kieran! She is literally admitting that she’s

she hadn’t of killed him, I would have. He overstepped a line and was trying to abandon Ashwood, breaking our rules in the process. He was a bad person, Allison.”

I interjected before she could

joints were repeatedly broken prior to his death,” I added. “I tortured him before I finished the job. Because that’s what he was. What you

“What…?”

Kieran looked

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

“Rae-.”

a lie.

looked at me, making me want to take it

not true,” he said. “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

him away was only making this harder. Too hard to deal with… and I suddenly cracked.

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

ME,

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

believing the best still exists inside me,’

it’s not there. It never will

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

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 as possible

now was…

for me to safely utilise a window escape. I was trapped unless I intended

to take her

him decide

that. He looked… pissed. Probably rightfully so

I swear to the Goddess, Daniel…,” Kieran

the monsters who killed your mother? Our other pack members? So

“Because her entire family is dead because

…I hadn’t.

was right. This

about it before but… but if it weren’t for Ashwood, perhaps I would have