Amelia listened to the soft patter of her mother's feet as she passed by her room. She was supposed to be sleeping, she knew this but how could she sleep with everything that had happened?
She could vividly recall the broken look on Callan’s face. He had tried to suppress it, held it in until he was in the shelter of his bedroom, where he finally broke down, and she watched him cry as she had never seen him.
Callan, ever so strong, so tough, and confident.
But alas, he was only a boy after all, just as she was only a girl, and so watching him cry at the loss of his mother had set loose her own tears she had been managing to suppress because of him all day.
The Luna of the Black Tide Pack was gone.
It should be a relief to her. Amelia thought in her childlike mind, Luna must finally be at peace now. They had arrived at the Black Tide Pack a year ago, and the woman had been in the same condition they'd met her, never improving, not even in the slightest. She had been bedridden for the last five years with an undiagnosed ailment.
Amelia had found her interesting at first, and as the relationship between Luna and her mother progressed, she had begun to see her as family. Her father had encouraged it, too, Luna was to become her mother-in-law one day when Callan ascended his position as Alpha, and they became mated. It was best that she improved her relationship with Luna, and she did as she’d been told.
Amelia was only seven, but she was sharp-minded, intelligent, and quite perceptive. She understood everything that was happening well enough.
A year ago, their pack, Shadow Pack, had been merged into the Black Tide’s. To placate her father, she had been promised to Callan, and she was now to become Luna one day.
It had been enough for her father… Hopefully, it continues to be.
Her mind pricked at her, curiosity to know what her mother was up to. The Luna had been her mother’s only friend in this pack, how would she mourn? So with the question in mind, Amelia crept out of her bed and stepped out of her room.
In the far distance, she could see her mother entering her father's bedroom, and noiselessly, Amelia sprinted toward it.
The door was slightly left parted open, and through the opening, she caught her parent's figure. The room was dimly lit so she watched their silhouette and saw her mother’s form collapse on the floor with tears.
“There is something you must know, Vaughn,” she cried. “Something that is so horrible I had no idea how to tell you.”
“You don't have to get all dramatic, Margaret. Speak at once, it's my bedtime now, and you are encroaching on it.”
“I killed her,” she let out. Her voice was so quiet, her words so soft they almost escaped Amelia’s hearing.
Terror gripped her as soon as the severity of her mother’s admittance sank in. Surely, she couldn't be talking about who Amelia had in mind.
“Killed who?” her father asked, a hint of impatience in his tone.
“Cecily, I killed her. She’s dead because of me.”
And that confirmed it. Her mother was indeed talking about Callan’s mother, Amelia swallowed nervously, aware of her trembling hands.
Slowly, her father’s form turned to her mother, and he asked in a careful voice as though making sure he was saying the right words. “You killed Cecily?”
“I didn't mean to, Vaughn. I… I was stupid and foolish, and I wasn't thinking. I should have guessed she would not be able to handle it and….” She cried even harder. “I didn't know what to do, I didn't know who to tell….”
“What are you talking about?” her father barked. “Speak in plain language, woman!”
Amelia flinched at his tone, the anger behind it. She was scared for her mother. Would her father yet again hit her?
“Two weeks ago,” her mother began in a trembling voice mixed with apprehension and regret, “before now, the Alpha has been making obscene passes at me, but I had ignored it until one night, he had me ordered to his wing and… And he….”
“Say it!” her father yelled.
“He forced himself on me,” her mother sobbed. “He forced himself on me, Vaughn, and now I am carrying his child. I didn't want to say anything to anyone at first. I thought it would ruin things, ruin the union between our Amelia and Callan, and I decided to keep it to myself, but now I'm with child, and I had no idea what to do, and so I had confided in Cecily, but I had not taken into account the severity of her health, and her condition deteriorated….”
“You are lying to me,” her father whispered.
Amelia watched her parents, unaware of when a lone tear had run down her eyes. This couldn't be real.
She couldn't properly comprehend her mother’s words, but she knew the Alpha had done something terrible to her mother, and it had been shocking enough to cause Cecily’s death.
Amelia could still feel the woman’s cold hands on her cheeks right before life had left her. She had gently stroked her cheeks with love in her eyes.
For now, she had no idea what some of her mother’s words meant, but in the years to come, Amelia was to realize that on this night, her mother had confessed to her father about being raped by Demetrius, and she was now carrying her rapist’s child and that her father instead of challenging the Alpha for the filthy act he had done to his wife’s friend while she was in her bedridden state, Vaughn had instead sent her mother away the next day.
In the coming years, she had grown nothing but contempt toward Demetrius. He had ruined everything, drove her father to become this monster, and destroyed their pack and her family, but most of all, he had killed the two most important women in her life.
A month after Cecily had died, Alpha Demetrius married Isla. He’d not been bothered enough to properly mourn his mate, who had died because of his disgusting and vile ways.
And three months after her mother had been sent away, news reached her father that Margaret had died during childbirth alongside the child she had been carrying.
“Remember these feelings,” her father had said to her as they stood side by side, torch in hand with her mother and half-sister’s body piled on a log of wood, ready to be set ablaze. “Hold onto them and harness them, we’ll manage this rage until the day when we can properly have our revenge. You and I, Amelia, we’ll make Demetrius and his offspring pay for what he has done to the Thurlow line. Promise me you will one day become Luna.”
And she looked up at her father with wide eyes filled with unshed tears. “I promise.”
He nodded at her before turning back to her mother and sister.
Vaughn threw his torch on their bodies, and Amelia did the same, watching the angry way the fire flared up, mirroring her own emotions.