Chapter 15 15

Chapter 15 15

Eudora’s POV

The dinner was finally over. The visiting Alphas had retired to their guest quarters for the night, still discussing the rescue mission and borders security. Yamal and Marjah had left with the strike team, still giving each other the stink eye. Oberon had excused himself to coordinate the additional security measures. And I was left alone in the study with Esmeralda.

I had demanded this no matter what. Had insisted on it in front of everyone as a statement of my power, a reminder that I was queen and would not be bullied into submission. Sitting across the table from Oberon’s ex-lover, however, with maps and a set of documents spread between us, I could only regret every word.

The last thing I wanted was to be alone with the woman. But there was no chance of that, either. My voice was light and detached as Esmeralda explained Ruminant patterns to me. She was methodical and knowledgeable and elaborate, explaining their patterns and tactics, the way they hunted and moved in the shadows to strike without warning.

But she kept looking at me the entire time. Observed me with her cold, hooded eyes, trying to see through me, perhaps.

“You aren’t at all like what I expected,” she told me finally, setting the report she was referencing aside.

I looked up from the maps I’d been studying. “What did you expect?” I replied.

“Somebody harder. I suppose. You are Agni’s daughter, after all. I thought you’d walk around with his mutation.” The words bit, but I didn’t flinch.

“I’m not my father,” I told her flatly.

Esmeralda leaned back in her chair again, studying me with those emerald eyes of hers. “But that is what makes this so interesting. You really did not know what he was, did you? What he did?”

It made my stomach clench with a wave of unease. “I know he commited crimes. I know he betrayed Oberon’s family.”

“Ah, but do you?” She tilted her head like a mockingbird eyeing a worm. “Do you really know the details? Because Oberon destroyed your family because of what your father did to his. And if you are to be his wife, his queen, I think you should understand what stand between the two of you.”

I felt cold dread pool in my stomach. A part of me wanted to refuse, rise from my chair and ise and walk away, tell her that I could not do it, that I would rather remain blissfully ignorant and distant. It was easier to hold on to my anger that way. Easier when I did not know specific details. Easier to act from a distance whenever I tried to learn about the ways of these people. But I could no longer stay ignorant. No longer pretend that my understanding of him was enough.

“Tell me,” I told her. Esmeralda smiled then, seemingly delighted to know something I did not. To have the upper hand in this conversation.

“Your father and Oberon’s were friends once. Close allies. They trusted each other completly, fought battles side by side. Their packs were united.”

“I know,” I said then. “I knew of their alliance.”

“Then your father found out that Oberon’s mother was descendant from a powerful which line. Direct bloodline, going back centuires.” She paused, waiting for my reaction. “He fixated on the idea of joining their bloodlones, of creating children who would inherently possess the abilities of both a wolf and a witch. Super creatures that might dominate all the other back.”

I felt my hands clench in my lap. “What did he do?”

“He orchestrated an attack on Oberon’s family. Made it look like an enemy raid.” Esmeralda’s voice was cold and clinical, detached. “Killed Oberon’s father first. Made his mother watch as the man she loved died. Then he took her prisoner.”

I tasted bile in my throat, but I stubbornly forced myself to keep listening, although this had already been far too much for me to bear.

“He kept her as his prisoner for months. In the dungeons of your family’s castle. He kept raping her and attempting to impregnate her. Tried to get her pregnant by him. He wanted that hybrid baby. The best possible combination of our species’ powers.”

“No”, I whispered, my voice barely above audible.

“Oberon was ten years old when it happened.” Esmeralda’s eyes never left my face, and I knew she was soaking in my horror. “He watched his father die. And for months, each night, he had to listen to his mother’s screams. He knew exactly what was happening to her. He couldn’t help her. He wasn’t allowed to. Not even once.”

Tears poured down my cheeks, but I couldn’t turn away. Couldn’t force myself to stop listening even though every word felt like a dagger in my heart.

“She died from the abuse eventually. The torture. Not before your father killed Oberon’s two little sisters,” Esmeralda leaned forward, and my blood froze. “They were eight and six, darling. Little girls. Killed just to taunt their mother, to drive her mad.”

I couldn’t breathe. The world swirled crazily around me, and I clutched the armrests of my chair with desperate fingers. My father had done that. He’d been that kind of monster. He had tortured an innocent woman and butchered children. Oberon had lived through that. Had those memories seared in him. For fifteen years. Would remember them for the rest of his life.

“Why?” I gasped, my voice barely a whimper. “Why are you telling me this? ” Esmeralda stood up and smoothed her red dress. She made her way to her door, but hesitated, turning to me.

“Because you need to understand what stands between you and Oberon. Darling, it’s not just about politics or the mate bond or convenient contract marriages. You are bound with blood with him. Blood and pain and a legacy that will never go away. He may desire you. He might even come to care for you. But every time he sees you, he sees your father. He sees the male who obliterated his family. Tortured his mother. Butchered his baby sisters. He opened the door. You cannot compete with that. No connection, no bond, no matter how unnaturally strong it is” and then she was gone and I was by myself. And I was alone. And that lone reality smashed down on me like a heavy boulder.

I don’t even know how long I sat there crying silently. I understood everything now – why he had been so cruel, so cold – why he had hesitated to touch me, to allow himself to feel. Everything tender between us had been a betrayal of his dead family. Every time he wanted me, he was choosing the daughter of their murderer over the memory of their existence. How could it be different, how could I have been angry that he kept it at an arm’s length? I should leave. Walk away and tell him to find peace without me.

Except I couldn’t – the mate bond would never allow it. And some stupid, stubborn part of me kept believing that we could work through this. Next thing I knew, I was wandering through the palace halls, my feet carrying me without conscious thought – to the library. The enormous room was empty at this late hour, bathed in shadow and the scent of old books. I needed to know everything. I needed the harsh, icy slap of the full truth. I pored over records and reports, references to Oberon’s family’s attack. Witness accounts that made me physically ill. Evidence of my father’s crimes described in cool, dispassionate terms. Each page was worse than the last, but I forced myself to review every word. I needed to know, to understand what lay behind it. Then, I found the archives. Old documents stored in the darkest corners of the library. And there, amongst centuries-old balance sheets and correspondence, were journals in the Commander’s own hand.

I think my hands shook as I opened the first one, but I forced myself to read. He wrote about Oberon’s mother with clinical detachment. She was an experiment. A breeding project. He described every assault, every torture, with the same disinterest he used to make a record of managing pack finances. I was going to be sick. I continued to read, needing to understand the depth of his depravity. Then, I found an entry that made my blood run cold. The boy watched again today.

Young Oberon had fire in his eyes, such hatred. I should kill him, but something doesn’t let me. Maybe because I see myself in that rage. One day, he’ll come for revenge, and I will be ready. I’ve already made my contingency. If he kills me, my secret will activate. The girl does not know what she carries, what purpose she will serve. Through her blood, I will have my vengeance from the beyond.

My heart pounded so hard that I could hear it in my ears. What secret did I carry? Reaching up, I grabbed the moonstone pendant at my throat, feeling its warmth against my palm. Did he mean my witch blood? The power I’d only just touched? I didn’t know. Before I could panic about it, I heard Oberon’s footfalls in the doorway. I looked up to see him still in his dinner fineries, blue eyes shadowed, tired. When he saw the journal open in my hands, saw what I was reading, pain crossed his face so raw that it nearly broke my heart.

“So now you know”, he whispered, voice gruff. “Now you understand why I can never truly love you, no matter what the mate bond commands.”