Chapter 72 The real Truth

Chapter 72 The real Truth
Zoe's POV

She looked at me for a moment. Like she was deciding where to begin. Like the story was so large she needed to find the right door into it.

Then she started.

"Your father's name was Damson Aaron." She said. "Alpha of a strong and beautiful pack. Chosen by the moon goddess herself. He was not the biggest. Neither was he the strongest." Her voice was soft but firm. "But he loved the pack. Genuinely loved the pack. The kind of man the moon goddess waits a long time to find."

I held the locket through my dress without thinking. My fingers pressing against it like it could anchor me to what I was about to hear.

"He had an older brother." She continued. "Luther."

The name landed in the room like a stone dropped into still water.

I said nothing.

"Luther was everything your father was not." She said. "Louder. Harder. More powerful physically. He had trained his whole life believing the Alpha position was his by right. By size. By strength. Even by age." She paused. Let that sit. "And then the moon goddess chose Damson. His younger brother. Quieter. Softer. Chosen not for his fists but for his heart."

"Then what happened." I asked quietly.

"Luther couldn't accept it." She replied. Her voice was steady but her eyes were carrying something heavy. "The jealousy ate him. For years it ate him alive. He smiled at your father's table. Ate with your father. Ruled beside your father. Anyone who hadn't been in the pack long enough would have thought Luther was the Alpha." Her jaw tightened. "And all that time. He was planning."

She paused. Drew a slow breath.

"Luther was very close to your father's Beta. Vincent. That's Jeremy's father." She continued. "Also jealous. Also bitter. Two men sitting on either side of a good man. Eating his kindness. Resenting every bite of it." She shook her head. "They planned the attack together. Luther provided the armies. Vincent provided the inside knowledge. The routes. The timing. The weak points. Everything." She looked at me. "Your father never saw it coming. Why would he? His brother. His Beta. The two men he trusted most in the world."

I stopped looking at her.

I was staring at the cold fireplace now. My body had started shivering without my permission. Not from cold. From something much deeper than cold. Hearing the full details of what happened to my parents for the first time. Not fragments. Not whispers. Not things I had pieced together from a locket and a dead man's reputation.

The whole truth. Out loud. In a small warm room with a lamp burning on the table.

My body couldn't take it quietly.

"You and your twin were only two years old when it happened." Natasha said softly. She paused and something warm crossed her face for just a moment. "Ahhh. Seraphina." She said it like a name she had not spoken in a long time and had missed the sound of. "She was a fighter. Trained from a war family. When the attack came she left you and your twin with your nanny and she went out to fight beside her husband." Her voice filled with something that sounded like pride and grief twisted together. "She fought. Seraphina really did. But there were too many of them."

She stopped.

Pressed her lips together hard.

Her husband. The quiet man who had been standing in the corner since I arrived. He moved closer. Said nothing. Just rested his hand gently on her back. One steady pat.

She swallowed.

"Right there at the place now called the forbidden forest." She said. Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. "That is where your mother and your father were slain."

She choked on the last word.

I didn't ask anything else.

I didn't need to.

What I had just heard was enough to make everything inside me burn at once. Anger. Grief. A sadness so old it felt like it had always been there waiting for a name.

I pressed my hand flat against my stomach. The baby shifted. Gentle. Like he felt it too.

Then just when I thought she was done. She continued.

"That was the last I heard of you and your sister as your nanny fled with you both." She reached forward and took my hands in hers. Her fingers were shaking slightly. Old and thin but warm. "From there I didn't know what happened to any of you." She squeezed my hands. "I am sorry child. I am so sorry that I failed you and your sister. I looked for you. I travelled to five different packs looking." Her eyes were wet now. "I know it may sound unbelievable. But I did look. Because I knew your mother would have wanted it. I am sorry I failed."

I looked down at her hands holding mine.

At these old shaking hands that had travelled five packs looking for two little girls they had never met. Just because of love for a woman who was already gone.

"It's fine." I said. My voice came out softer than I expected. I squeezed her hands back. "I am sure my mother saw your efforts. I am sure she is not angry with you." I paused. "You tried your best."

She nodded slowly. Once.

Wiped her face with the edge of her shawl.

Then she straightened up.

"There is something else." Her voice shifted. Something new and sharp coming into it. "About Mia."

I looked up.

"The pregnancy." She said. "It is a lie."

I stared at her.

"The pack head doctor." She continued. "He has a secret he had hidden for too long. Something that could ruin his reputation. Mia somehow found out about the secret." She released my hands and folded her own back in her lap. "She used it against him. Threatened to expose everything if he didn't stand before the pack and announce that she was carrying Jeremy's child."

"She is not pregnant." I said.

"She is not pregnant." Natasha said. Flat. Certain. Like she had been waiting a long time to say those exact words to the right person.

"And if you are wondering how I know." She said. "My husband is also one of the pack doctors. He has all the details."

I sat back.

All this time.

All this time I had been watching Jeremy look at Mia's stomach with something complicated moving through his eyes. Watching him try to do right by a child that did not even exist. Carrying guilt for something that was never real.

A small voice in the back of my head asked why I even cared.

His father was an accomplice in my father's death.

I pushed the thought aside before it could settle.

"There is one more person." Natasha said. Pulling me back from wherever my mind had gone. She leaned forward slightly. Those sharp eyes finding mine and holding them. "Someone whose details you need to know before you leave tonight." She paused. "Someone connected to everything. To Luther. To Vincent. To your family. To this whole rotten web."

She looked at me.