Chapter 0127

Ethan startles me as I enter the packhouse.

He's seated right outside the office door.

He stands immediately when our eyes meet.

His dark grey gaze drops to my blood-stained hand.

“You finished him?” His voice is flat, devoid of emotion.

Yet he watches me with that same intense stare from our first meeting.

This man irritates me just by breathing the same air.

“Yes. He's dead.” My tone is sharp.

I don't understand why he gets under my skin so easily.

“That leaves you as the last one. Well, you and Sophia.”

His eyes linger on my stomach in a way that makes me uncomfortable.

“Do we understand what they are?”

“Alexander's heirs.” I mutter the words.

“You know that's not my question.”

“And yet that's what they are!” My voice rises.

“Unborn members of this pack. Let me ask you something.”

“Go ahead.”

“The bitten ones. The changed. However you label them. How did they reach your city?”

“Same way they reached every other city nearby.”

“How long have you known about Lycans existing?”

He stares silently, pressing his lips together.

“You knew. You knew before they appeared in your streets. When you were informed, you showed no surprise. How long?”

He merely shrugs.

He's a complete asshole! Nyx growls internally.

“You didn't come just for the contract, did you?”

“Partly, yes. I honor my commitments. Though I was intrigued to hear the great Alpha Alexander had finally settled down. My curiosity peaked when I learned your name. Athena Harrison. It's not a name one forgets.” He rises from the chair.

I step back, frowning. “We've never met.”

“But we have. Long ago. You were just an infant, mere months old. I was ten, perhaps eleven. Your parents visited my family's city. They abandoned you there.”

“No. That's a lie.” A growl rumbles deep within me.

“It's truth. I watched them leave you in a basket down some alley. Wrapped tightly in a blanket. Fools made the mistake of stitching your name onto it.” He rolls his eyes and turns away with a sigh.

“I brought you home to my parents. By then, you'd already shifted. Multiple times.” He smirks, checking his reflection. “A strange little monster, but I couldn't leave you there.”

I shake my head. It can't be true. I was bound. I couldn't shift.

“My parents spent a week tracking your family down.”

“You're inventing this.”

His dark grey eyes lock onto mine.

“Silver Creek sits in the middle of nowhere. Isolated from any other civilization. So remote other packs struggle to find it. The house is large, but not like most packhouses. Gardens spread out back.” He describes my childhood home in perfect detail.

My heart hammers against my ribs.

“Your parents claimed you were kidnapped, but you carried no foreign scents. Only theirs. Honestly, they didn't even seem pleased to have you returned. I begged my parents to keep you. They refused. Said you were a powerful being.”

“My parents loved me!”

“Are you certain? Wasn't Dominic raised as your older brother to become the next Alpha? Weren't they the ones who bound you twice before he did it again?” He rubs his jaw. “The impression I got was that no matter what they did, you kept surviving. As if you were meant to. Perhaps to lead you to this exact moment.” He points at my stomach.

“You intended to kill Dominic and Victoria?” I whisper.

“Not until recent years, when the bitten started appearing in my city. Initially we suspected Vampires, but then they began shifting. I recognized what they were. I'd seen it before. And it had to connect to that pack you came from.”

“Two years?”

“Perhaps longer. Their plan was long in motion, Athena. It intensified after you met Alexander. They likely planned to breed you until you died.”

“All the bitten are dead now, aren't they!” I snap.

“Not entirely!”

I notice the unusual quietness of the house. My heart plummets. “Where's Sophia?”

He smiles coldly.

“What the hell have you done to her?”

“She's safe. For now.”