Chapter 30

Raphael.

I made a vow to a snake, a vile woman. Simply because I let myself foolishly get blinded by the mate bond. After years of searching for my mate, the woman that was chosen for me by the moon goddess, I got a deceiver and a killer. My thoughts were in a tangled painful bundle that I could not seem to untangle.

I walked into my father's quarters. It was a sparsely decorated space for the man that used to be the Alpha. It was what the healers had recommended so that he would not be overwhelmed by a crowded interior.

I could hear my father's breathing even before I got close to him.

"Son," he greeted before he met my eye. He felt my presence as well. It had always been that way. I was the only family that he had left.

"Father," I returned the greeting.

I sat by his bedside. His skin had the same sickly pallor that it had taken on for decades. His eyes always seemed bloodshot, since all he did was sleep until I arrived. There had been a time when he stood strong, a kind but powerful Alpha. The man that I looked up to. But things had changed a long time ago. Since that day... The day that blood painted the walls of the castle. The day he had lost his Luna and four children, including his newborn, he had never been the same. He had turned into a hollow shell. It was not an easy ordeal to watch him as a child as he deteriorated slowly until he could no longer get up from his bed. Then he could no longer breathe on his own. Then he could barely hear, and then his grief attacked his eyes.

As a fifteen-year-old, I watched it all happen. I watched my father die slowly after losing everyone else. But he held on, and I knew that he opened his eyes every day for me, instead of conveniently, letting death take him. He tried his best to make sure he watched me grow up as I fought the demons that had tormented me since that fateful day.

We played board games. He told me stories until he was too weak to do so. But by then, I had grown into a man and become the Alpha that his pack needed.

Sometimes, I wondered how it felt for him to lose this power after the wolfbane had been forced down his throat. How it felt to lose his family and his wolf. How it felt when he lost his wolf and never found it. How it felt never to hear his children's laughter again or see the face of his Luna. How it felt slowly dwindling to nothing as the world continued to exist and rotate like it moved on from the day he had lost it all.

I could not imagine it, it felt like a noose around the neck, it felt like death. And all the suffering just because he had made a vow to a man that he believed he could trust, his half-brother.

I pondered on how my father would react to the fact that history had once again repeated itself. His son had made a vow to his mate who had facilitated the family of his half-brother. Fate was truly a cold-hearted bitch.

"You are perplexed," my father said slowly. He was not asking, he knew me too well and he was sure.

"It's just some pack issues," I lied.

"This is deeper than that..." He took a breath. "I can feel your soul's distress." His voice grew fainter with each word. Then he laughed or at least tried to, he wheezed. "I am kidding...you look like someone stole your favorite sword,"

I could not help but smile sadly. Despite all the years he had been bedridden, despite all that he had lost, he never lost himself. He still maintained his sense of humor and lightheartedness.

"It is truly nothing serious," I lied again.

"When will you learn?" My father asked. "That you cannot hide from me. I might be almost blind, almost deaf, and almost dead. But you cannot hide from me."

I chuckled. "Father..." Sometimes I could not stop myself from feeling lighter when I was in his presence. Maybe that was why I always came back, no matter how hard it was to watch him in his state. I just wanted to be in his presence.

"What?" He asked like he had not succeeded in his plan to make me open up. "So...tell me what's wrong?"

I truly could not hide from him. But how was I going to tell him that my mate had ties to the son of his half-brother? And even helped him. Even if she did not know, she kept me in the dark and watched me make a vow to her even when she knew. It was deception and she was guilty. And then what she did to Aurora. Aurora was still breathing but the fact that she could attempt something so atrocious in the name of revenge showed me exactly who she was.

"It's my mate," calling her my mate left a bitter taste in my mouth. "She is not who I thought she was." I knew I was not being clear, but I could not bring myself to tell him the whole truth. I did not know what effect it would have on his horrible health.

"She was a man in disguise?" My father asked. "That isn't too bad."

I could not help but chuckle again. "I wish it was that," I murmured.

My father's voice became serious but still soft. "You had a disagreement."

"You could say that," I replied.

"She was not honest with you?"

When I remained silent, he took it as an affirmation.

"In all my life in this world, I have learned that not all is always as it seems. There are so many details that get lost in translation. Or they get lost simply because we refuse to do something so simple."

"What's that?"

"We refuse to listen. I know you, son. You refused to listen to her."