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.

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

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’ being my past. Because

this from me? Why bring me here at all?”

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 which, there was only one other in modern history. But… I thought

me unlike anything I’d felt before. He’d known this

one day. That it was information that could likely lead to

myself sink deeper inside, the

seemed we’d both been keeping things from each other. Secrets that had dire consequences. Perhaps our relationship

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

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

death was really as justified as you claimed. She probably had you kill him as well.

you. Raven isn’t a devil like we were always told.

voice

it was me. I killed

“Rae!”

“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 Devil. Because the same meaning still applies. I don’t belong here.

wasn’t… and exhausted of now defending myself against something I couldn’t change. My body felt numb

I was done.

hearing my confession, tears starting to fall down her

literally admitting

of killed him, I would have. He overstepped a line and

before she could reply.

the coroner report, you’ll find that his finger 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 were too. A job, Kieran. You really think I was

“What…?”

Kieran

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. This shouldn’t be a shock. I already told you that I’m not who I seem. I’m… not

“Rae-.”

lie. She doesn’t exist.” His jaw tensed as he looked at me,

me, I know it. I saw it in your face every day we were together. I

was only making this harder. Too

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

FIX ME,

isn’t something you can mend like my poisoning or shifting. Stop trying to always

person, believing the best still

it’s not there. It never will be.’

voice in anger. It must have made him uncomfortable, unsure probably if I were about to perform

I sighed. I was letting my emotions seep in again, something that was a

only problem now was…

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 wanted

take her

him decide

pissed. Probably rightfully so given the

to the Goddess, Daniel…,”

who killed your mother? Our other pack members? So

Rae’s mother? Huh? Her father? Siblings?” he argued. “Because her entire family

…I hadn’t.

right. This