The Alpha’s Fated Outcast: Rise Of The Moonsinger

Chapter 279 279: Hard choices

Lyla

I followed Nathan to the back of the Alpha house down a narrow corridor I'd never explored before.

The pack house was large, with wings and passages I'd never had reason to visit. This section felt older somehow, filled with the musty scent of wood and old paper.

"How much further?" I asked in a whisper. There was something about this place that demanded reverence.

"We're here," Nathan replied, stopping before a metal door. Different symbols and ancient runes were carved on the frame. I recognized some from old pack text, while others felt completely foreign to me.

Nathan produced a heavy iron key from his pocket. It looked ancient, the metal dark with age. The lock clicked open with surprising ease, as if it had been regularly used despite its appearance.

"After you," Nathan said, gesturing for me to enter first.

I hesitated for just a moment before stepping inside.

The moment I stepped into my father's private study, what I saw made me freeze in my tracks.

The room was dimly lit, and the scent of old parchment and cedarwood lingered in the air. My eyes widened as they landed on the wall before me—covered in photographs, clippings, and detailed analysis.

It seemed as if I had just walked into an investigation room. My picture was at the center of the investigation board. In the other spaces on the walls were pictures of me at different stages of my life.

Some were from childhood, and others seemed recent. There was even a picture of me on my college graduation day. Nanny—my mother's face appeared beside mine in most pictures, but they were mostly from when I was younger.

A large idea board on a stand dominated one side of the room as if the one on the wall wasn't enough. It was filled with meticulous notes, diagrams, and calculations. The words "Moonsingers" were scrawled across the board in bold ink, underlined multiple times.

My chest tightened as I stepped closer. I reached out to touch one of the pages pinned to the board, trying to fight the nostalgia that had suddenly seized me.

"My father did all of this?" I managed to ask.

but I'm sure he must have had help. When he was still here, he would end our training early with an excuse that he wanted time alone, and then he would disappear to the back-of-the-pack house.

with embarrassment.

they couldn't do it in

I traced my hand on the other materials on the board. Most of them were information about past Moonsingers. They had detailed

shiver ran down my spine, and

announced

shrugged, completely unfazed. "I have

more, so I turned and moved to the wall. My fingers started tracing the lines connecting different names and places. There were several mentions of

caught my attention – a section detailing the Auréans. My heart stopped beating for a

Her name was circled multiple times, alongside references to other Moonsingers, I think in a comparison of

process, he traced me back to Neriah. There was even detailed documentation about my birth and the things that happened on that day, and most

a yellow paper pinned to the corner. It was a short passage of something, and it was written in faded ink. I bent

Neriah, vessel of the goddess. Neither wolf nor human but something more, she will bring either

was written, "Lyla might be the Moonsinger,

nostalgic at the same time. This side of my father – this obsessive researcher, this man who had documented my entire existence – was completely unknown to me. If I had know this part of thim, that he

to clear my thoughts and went back to scanning the other documents I saw there. A heading caught my attention, and I drew closer

flipped it open. True enough, there was only enough write-up on the first page;

that I almost forgot that Nathan was in the room with me, and I didn't notice the aura that had suddenly seeped into

recognized. He had stared at me like that during the Harvest Moon Festival, when everyone had bowed and he alone had

but I forced myself to step toward him. Something about his presence felt different—darker. His aura made the hair on my arms stand

stopped directly in front of him. He remained silent, but his eyes never left mine, as if he was searching

whispered his name. I wondered if the blackness of his pupils was because of his wolf and not

say a word to me.

jolt through me, but I maintained composure and

Nathan's expression remained the same. He kept watching me intently; if anything, the only changes I noticed were his muscles tensing and maybe his lips curling into a

in one fluid motion. Pressing me hard against the wall he had been leaning on. I shivered inwardly when my