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.

"I think to a greater extent, 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

colored with embarrassment. "Don't say

the pack like rabbit because of course they couldn't do it in the pack house.

a ready reply, but I decided ignoring him was better. I traced my hand on the other materials on the board. Most of them were information about past Moonsingers. They had detailed notes on their powers, limitations, and fates, including how they died. Coincidentally, my

down my spine,

I was officially announced as a

unfazed.

turned and moved to the wall. My fingers started tracing the lines connecting different names

a section detailing the Auréans. My heart stopped beating for

lines connecting them to Neriah, the first recorded Moonsinger. Her name was circled multiple times, alongside references to

was also surprising was that, at the beginning of the wall, my father had been researching pheromones, looking for a solution, and in the process, he traced me back to Neriah. There was even

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

moon bleeds red and wolves bow to none, she will rise – the last of her kind, blood of Neriah, vessel of the goddess. Neither wolf nor human but something more, she will bring either salvation or destruction. The choice will be hers

written, "Lyla might be the Moonsinger, the other prophecy, and this prophecy speaks of it.

existence – was completely unknown to me. If I had know this part of thim, that he had tried so hard to be present, maybe…Maybe I would have loved him more and wouldn't

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

was only enough write-up on the first page; the rest were blank. This must have been

lost in everything that I almost forgot that Nathan was in the room with me,

had stared at me like that

my spine, but I forced myself to step toward him. Something about his presence felt different—darker. His aura made

eyes never left mine, as if he was

if the blackness of his pupils was because of his

a word to me. He just kept

I maintained composure and began humming a healing tone I'd learned recently.

if anything, the only changes I noticed were his muscles tensing and

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