"What did you just say to me?"

Kira’s voice was barely a whisper. She stared at Claudia, her mind spinning so fast she felt slightly dizzy.

Claudia nodded slowly, tears now gathering at the corners of her eyes.

"It’s true, my Queen." She drew a breath. "Your mother, Claire Ironfang, was the true and original heir of Moonfang. Her own father was the Alpha of Moonfang before he passed. And that father, your grandfather, gave her hand in marriage to the strongest gamma the pack had at that time."

She blinked. "That gamma was Rolf Thornclaw. He was young, he was promising, and everyone truly believed he was a good man and a good match for the Alpha’s daughter."

Kira blinked, completely stunned. The words bounced around her head, making no sense at all, yet making too much sense all at once.

Tears rushed to her eyes, blurring her vision. Needing a moment to ground herself before she completely lost her mind, she grabbed the glass of water on the table, and downed it in one long gulp.

She could not bloody well believe it. This woman was sitting here, calm as you like, telling her that the very man who had treated her like garbage her entire life was nothing but a bloody impostor.

A fake. A thief. All along, the Moonfang pack had actually belonged to her mother, Claire.

And piece by piece, it began to click into place inside her head.

Of course. That was why Rolf had gone to such extreme lengths to erase every single trace of her mother and her mother’s family.

That was why the people of Moonfang did not dare mention Claire’s name, treating it like a curse. That was why he hated Kira with such a burning passion and had wanted her dead by any means necessary.

Kira was not just an unwanted daughter; she was the last living descendant of the Ironfang family. She was the rightful bloodline. Rolf wanted them completely wiped from the face of the earth so no one could ever challenge his stolen throne.

But then, another thought popped up, bringing a fresh wave of confusion. If Rolf wanted the bloodline dead, why on earth had Lydia kept her alive?

Did Lydia know the truth? Why did that woman strive so hard to preserve the Ironfang bloodline when her own daughter, Chloe, had already been named the heir by that monster Rolf? It did not make sense. Lydia had been cruel, but this piece of the puzzle felt tangled.

Kira set the glass back down on the table. She sucked in a deep, shaky breath, refusing to look Claudia in the eyes just yet. She could not just believe every wild story told to her over a restaurant table.

"Why should I believe a single word coming out of your mouth?"

Claudia leaned forward, her expression completely earnest. "First of all, I am a werewolf, and Moonfang was originally my home pack. I was not just any worker, my queen. I was the head Omega who served your mother personally. I saw everything."

Kira swallowed the lump in her throat. She looked at Claudia.

"Did he ever love her?" she asked. "Rolf, I mean. He always claimed he loved her. Was that at least true?"

Claudia let out a heavy, miserable sigh, shaking her head. "He pretended to. Oh, he played the part beautifully while her parents were still alive.

"But after their deaths—during that awful rogue ambush—his true colours came out. He stopped hiding his nasty streak. He started bringing his whore right into the family home."

Claudia sighed again.

"When your mother dared to complain or stand up for herself, he abused her. He silenced her completely, all while playing the doting, loving husband to the public. He pushed a false narrative to the entire pack, making everyone believe that Claire was just a spoiled, ungrateful Alpha’s daughter who did not appreciate him."

"So... she cheated on him?"

Claudia leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms. "Well, if you want to look at it that way, he was cheating on her first. He broke her spirit long before anything else happened.

"Then, he finally found his true fated mate, Lydia—that girl the guards found near the borders of Moonfang, half-dead after a rogue attack. But Luna Claire found her own true mate too."

She paused. "It was Alpha Ethan, who was the Crystal Moon Alpha’s son back then. But theirs was a tragic love from the very start. A werewolf and lycan can never be together."

And it was rumoured, mind you, only rumoured that this soul bond of his was already a married woman besides.

Nana’s words suddenly rang through Kira’s head. The memory made her gasp as the final realisation hit her like a physical blow.

The strange, undeniable pull she always felt towards Alpha Braxton... it was not some random quirk. It was their bond as twins, blood calling to blood.

He had known exactly who she was all along! That was why he had suddenly started showing up to pack functions again after years of being a hermit.

Goddess, her entire life had been a lie.

The sheer weight of that betrayal and the lost years pressed down on Kira’s chest. Her emotions surged, bubbling over into pure, raw anger. She glared at Claudia, and her voice climbed.

"Then why?" she demanded. "Why did all of you leave me there? With that monster? For twenty years?"

The moment her voice cracked with distress, the restaurant doors burst open.

Connor and the guards came charging in, claws already out, eyes already scanning for the threat, and with terrifying speed Connor was at the table, his hand wrapped firmly around Claudia’s throat before she could so much as flinch.

"What have you done to the Queen?" he growled, low and deadly.

***

Far away, in the burning woods, the fire from the explosion still blazed and crackled, throwing wild light through the trees.

Somewhere in the chaos of it, Derek lay unconscious on the forest floor.

Then his fingers twitched. His eyes dragged themselves open, and he found himself staring up at the smoke-choked night sky above him. For a moment he did not know where he was, or why everything hurt.

Then it came back to him all at once. The empty tents. The blinking device on the chair leg. His own voice screaming the words it’s a trap down the link. The world swallowing itself in fire.

He tried to jerk himself upward into a defensive position, but the moment he moved, a sharp, white-hot pain shot through his left side, making his vision go black for a second.

He looked at his side, his breathing ragged, and found his left arm lying at a completely inappropriate, sickening angle. It was dislocated and broken.

Gritting his teeth, he slowly lifted his right hand, gripped the ruined arm, and forcefully shifted it back into place.

The crack of it tore a roaring howl of pure agony from his chest, the sound echoing through the burning trees, until the arm sat straight once more and the worst of the white agony began to ebb.

Panting heavily, he slowly rose to his feet, swaying slightly. His ears were ringing with a high-pitched, annoying buzz, and his head was swimming, making it hard to balance.

As his vision finally cleared, the true horror of the scene laid itself out before him. It was absolute carnage.

Everything was on fire. The smell of burning rubber and blood filled the air. And scattered across the scorched ground, in the flickering orange light, lay the bodies of his brave, loyal men. Still and silent. Some of them were so badly burned that he could barely tell who they had been.

His stomach turned to stone.

He stumbled forward in the dirt, immediately reaching out through the pack’s mind-link, and shouted desperately.

Declan! Bruce! Marcus! Report. Anyone. Answer me.

Nothing. The mind-link was completely empty. Just a hollow silence met his frantic calls. None of them answered.

He called again, harder, reaching for any of them, any single thread of life.

Still nothing answered.

Wiping blood from his forehead, Derek staggered forward blindly, one arm cradled against his side, picking his way through the bodies and the flames toward the hidden clearing where they had parked their vehicles.

He needed to get to the emergency comms. He needed to call for help and immediate backup before it was too late