Broken Souls
Chapter 20: Mom

Kay’s POV

The bed feels cold, and I open my eyes to see Aaron is not anywhere in the room. I am beginning to wonder where he is when the door opens. I see Aaron walk in with a tray of food.

“Good morning.” He smiles cheerfully, but I feel like something is up.

“Good morning.” I give him a small smile waiting to see if he is going to tell me what is going on. I slide out of bed and join him on the couch as he sets the tray on the coffee table.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” I finally question him. Aaron sighs and rubs the back of his neck.

“Yeah, Willow can’t be found, and neither can Luna Rana. Alpha Eric isn’t pleased about it either. He’s referring to Willow as a menace, and if anything happens to Luna Rana, we will be held responsible.” I let out a sigh now. It seems Grandma has a knack for annoying Alphas.

We sit and eat in silence, and I can tell Aaron is stressed, hoping Grandma hasn’t ruined the good terms he and Alpha Eric are on. A soft knock on the door has Aaron jumping up; he opens the door and lets out a long sigh.

“Where have you been? Tell me you returned Luna Rana? Alpha Eric is fuming that she’s been gone all night and blocking him from mind linking her.” Aaron is annoyed, but I can hear the relief as well.

“Oh, relax. She’s fine, and she will handle that, Alpha. I have good news. Let me in now,” Grandma says, sounding very pleased. Aaron lets her in, and I can see Grandma looks tired, but she is grinning from ear to ear. Her gray hair is out of its usual bun. I have never seen it down before, and I can’t help but be surprised how long it is and that she somehow looks younger this morning.

She walks in, still grinning, and I notice she is also missing her shoes. I can’t help the confused look on my face.

“What is going on, Grandma?” I ask, not able to contain my curiosity.

“I got Rana to listen to me, and I got her to see what I have seen. We also spent time reading ruins and stars, trying to replace the right path to take. Unfortunately, there is not one path, and all of them have some unpleasantness. I think we can manage though.” Grandma sounds very proud of herself, and while I don’t know everything she’s talking about, I do follow when she said Luna Rana listened. That must mean she believes I am their granddaughter. Now they can tell me what happened with my mother, and how she was mated to the Boss and then my dad.

Grandma sits with me on the couch and helps herself to a piece of toast.

“So, can I talk to her? Is she going to tell us what happened?” I ask Grandma hopefully.

“She went to go soothe Alpha Eric and convince him, but I expect she’ll manage. We should hear from her later this afternoon. Until then, I need you to get dressed. You two can join me in the library. I need some help replaceing some rather old text on dark magic, and I could use your young eyes.” Grandma says, sounding serious.

I look at Aaron, and he just shrugs at me.

“I guess I shouldn’t have doubted you, Willow.” I giggle at Aaron’s near-complement, and Grandma raises one eyebrow at him.

“Never doubt me, young man. Now, I’m going to get freshened up. Do you know where the library is?” She asks Aaron, still smirking at him a little. He gives her a nod, and Grandma stands to leave. I get up to, but I wrap her in a hug.

“Thank you.” I can’t help but feel relieved. I was sure we weren’t going to get any answers after last night.

“Don’t thank me yet, child. We have work to do, and I don’t think you are going to like what you learn.” Grandma says, patting my back and hugging me back anyway.

After Grandma leaves, Aaron and I get dressed and ready to meet her in the library. I can’t help but feel excited and nervous. I know Grandma warned me I might not like what they have to tell me, but I figure at this point, answers are what’s truly important.

Aaron comes into the bathroom as I finish putting my hair up in a high ponytail. Wrapping his arms around my waist and bending down to kiss my neck, he causes me to melt back into him.

“You look beautiful,” he says, nibbling my ear slightly, causing me to shiver. I turn in his arms and wrap my own arms around his neck.

“You know, Grandma is probably waiting for us.” I tease him a little, kissing him. Aaron lets out a low growl, and all I want to do is get lost with him.

When we finally pull away from our kiss, both breathless, I rest my head on his chest.

“As much as I want to keep you all to myself, we should go and see what that old woman is up to. I don’t need her causing more problems with Alpha Eric,” Aaron says, a little annoyed, and I giggle at him.

“She did get Luna Rana to listen to her like she said she would.” I point out. Aaron just lets out a huff, and I giggle at him again.

By the time we replace our way to the library, Grandma is already there and seems to have a few ancient-looking books stacked on a table near her.

“I thought I was going to be her alone after all.” She smirks at Aaron and me as we enter the library. I give her a slight smile and began looking at the books she has.

“So, what are we looking for?” I ask her, changing the subject. Aaron is also eyeing the books with a grim look on his face. With titles like Dark arts, Witches Curses, Black Magic, and History of Magic, I’m not surprised he’s looking grim.

“Just look for anything else like that, and maybe a history of wolves as well,” Grandma says, going back to the books on the shelves.

The library is gigantic; I have never seen so many books in one place. I think this could easily take all day to look through the whole library, maybe even several days. The library has high windows letting in lots of sunlight, and the large oak table Grandma has already put books on is so massive that twelve people could sit around it.

We gather a couple more books and sit at the table. We begin looking through the books. Grandma tells us to look for anything having to do with a dark wizard named Hadeon or the hidden darkness; the sound of the name gave me chills. When I ask her about him, Grandma only says she has a feeling that she needs to know everything she can.

I am busy taking a few notes on the hidden darkness and the collector of souls when a cough from the doorway has us all looking up. Luna Rana is standing in the door holding a tray of sandwiches. Alpha Eric is with her looking at me kind of strangely. It isn’t a cold look. It is sad, regretful even.

“We thought you might be hungry.” Luna Rana says, looking a little tired and sad as well. I smile at her as they walk to the table, putting down the sandwiches and pitcher of lemonade. Luna Rana looks at the book, and then Grandma, and a silent conversation seems to pass between them.

“Why don’t you two join us? I’m sure you have questions for Kay, and I know she has questions for the two of you,” Grandma says in her typical no-nonsense manner.

Luna Rana quickly sits down while Alpha Eric hesitates a moment. He finally sits by his Luna.

“You look so much like her. You look just the way she did right before we lost her.” Luna Rana says, looking sad. She takes the gold locket off her neck and opens it, looking at it fondly before passing it to me. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought for a moment it was me, but it was my mother. This is probably the last picture they had of her. I can’t help the tears that form in my eyes as I look at her warm face and smile. I still miss her so much, and I know she would have loved Aaron.

“I miss her so much,” I whisper, not completely trusting my voice.

I look up at Luna Rana, and she has tears as well. Aaron leans over, and I show him the picture.

“You do look just like her. She was very beautiful, and so are you,” Aaron says, kissing my temple, and making me smile at him.

“You do look like her when you first arrived, and we saw you. We almost couldn’t believe you weren’t somehow her. Can you tell us what happened? I know what happened to her and that monster that found her…” Luna Rana doesn’t finish as more tears slip from her eyes, and Alpha Eric takes her hadn’t squeezing it gently.

I tell them the story of my mother and father meeting and them living together, and my happy childhood filled with love. They seem a little happy to hear about it, but the look of regret isn’t hard to see.

“Now, can you tell me how my father isn’t really my father and how my mom ended up with a man like the Boss? I really need to understand, please.” I finally ask them, looking at their sad faces. I feel bad that this is going to be a hard conversation, but I really need to know.

“It’s my fault,” Alpha Eric says, looking me in the eyes, and I can see some much regret there.

“No, it is our fault,” Luna Rana says, giving his hand a squeeze. A sad look passes between them. “You have to know Kay. We messed up in the worst way. We should have listened to her. She knew what he was, but all we saw was power and our own gain.”

Alpha Eric takes a deep breath, “The man you call Boss is Alpha Seth, of the Blood Moon Pack.” Aaron has a funny look on his face, but he doesn’t say anything. He isvwaiting for them to continue.

“Twenty years ago, he was a very prominent young Alpha. He was quickly becoming a dominant force, and his pack and lands were expanding quickly. He was coming very close to the size of our own pack at the time. He hadn’t found his mate yet, and when he met Mira and saw how beautiful she was, he was quick to come to us with a proposition. We saw a way to keep him from being a threat to our power. He would give us alliances and bow to our pack if we gave him Mira as his mate. We only saw a way to keep our rank, and that was a mistake. We were afraid to lose what we had as the dominant pack.”

Alpha Eric takes a shaky breath, and Luna Rana is looking at me, trying to read my face. They traded their child to him to stay the most powerful pack. I know my face must be showing my shock because Luna Rana quickly continues.

“After everything had been arranged, Mira wasn’t happy. We thought it was just that she wanted to replace her fated mate, but Alpha Seth was so charming and seemed to dote on her so much we didn’t see anything to make us worry. If we had, we would have stopped it. When she left with him and moved to his pack, we would hear from her all the time. But within a few months, it became less and less, and soon we didn’t hear from her at all.

When we would try and talk to her, he would just say we had missed her or make up excess; we were getting ready to go there and see for ourselves when he suddenly attacked our pack. He was seething, saying we were keeping her from him, and that he was going to get back what was his. We were able to defeat him but just barely. We lost a lot of good wolves that day. He was captured and stripped of all titles. He was set to be killed for his crimes, and we searched his pack for our Mira. We then started hearing rumors of what he had been doing to her. He truly was a monster to her, and we didn’t know.” Luna Rana has tears running from her eyes, and I feel Aaron wrap his arm around my shoulder just to realize I’m crying too.

Alpha Eric picks up where Luna Rana stops, unable to continue. “We looked for her and searched, but no one knew how she escaped him or where she would have gone. She didn’t come to us, and it broke our hearts to know that she didn’t trust us to keep her safe. We had Alpha Seth, and we were prepared to execute him when his Beta John managed to break him out of the dungeon and escape with him. We couldn’t replace him or our daughter, and we knew how we had failed. We did absorb most of Seth’s pack, and we thought a few times that we might have a lead on Mira, but it never came to anything. Now, all we can do is ask you, Kay, to please forgive us.”