I was too distracted by their smell to enjoy Silas’s reaction. The bloody bandages had been taken care of but the smell still lingered, or maybe I was the only one smelling it. I wasn’t hungry, I just. . .wanted a taste. I knew that Ariana’s blood tasted just as sweet as it smelt.
Swallowing, I forced my mind away from the thoughts of sinking my teeth into her slim neck and focused on what was happening.
“His mother is Avery,” Ethan repeated as he entered the room and pushed the door closed behind him.
“Jesus Ethan,” Silas growled after blinking a few times. “What the hell are you doing h-here?”
“No one saw me.”
“You don’t fucking know that!”
Ethan glanced at Silas, the twins and then finally his eyes locked on me. For a moment his eyes darted over me from head to toe before his eyes locked with mine.
Are you okay? they questioned.
My lips parted but one glance at the twin’s pale cheeks made me change my mind. I gave him a nod instead and remained silent. Seemingly satisfied with my answer, he walked over to the desk and placed the folder down in front of Silas.
“Will they be staying?” Ethan asked as he tilted his head towards the twins.
“They’re staying,” I said before Silas could answer. “They have a right to know.”
He growled. “You don’t—”
“I agree,” Ethan interrupted him. “They’re old enough to know the truth.”
“Ethan—”
“Check the file, Silas.” He ran a hand through his hair. “That’s everything I could find. You’ll have to ask Wrin to dig deeper. She made sure to cover all her tracks.”
Walking over to the couch, Ethan took a seat between the twins. I straightened, intent on sitting with them, but Ariana glanced up, making me freeze.
Fuck, I wanted to show her how much I had missed her, but I couldn’t. Not yet.
“They found the pictures taken on Ottawa Island,” Silas said softly. “They know that we. . .had the same mate.”
“You were both mated to Mom,” Eva whispered. “Was it a mutual decision or—”
“They’re brothers,” I interrupted her. “None identical twins.”
“Uncle Ethan?” they questioned simultaneously with something that sounded close to excitement.
I blinked. Their reaction was not what I expected and based on the expression on Ethan’s face, he hadn’t been expecting it either. There was some disbelieve with a hint of excitement.
Before I knew it, I was smiling as I listened to their animated chatter as they questioned him. Ethan answered them as best as he could but it was easy to tell that he was a bit reluctant to answer some.
My skin prickled, making me aware of the pair of eyes watching me. The smile slipped away and my brows dipped into a frown as I turned my head to look at Silas.
I was taken aback by the look in his eyes because he wasn’t staring at me with the hatred l had grown accustomed too.
“Luca.”
The room fell silent.
“I can’t believe it.” A laugh fell from his lips. “You’ve been under my nose the whole time. You’re alive.”
My frown deepened. A glance at the other revealed that they were staring at Silas in confusion. Well, not Ethan. He was looking at me with a small smile playing around his lips.
“Dad?” Eva questioned.
Instead of answering, Silas held the file out to her. Eva leaned across the desk and stared down at it. I wished that I could see her face so I knew what she was thinking. Eva knew about Luca. . .well about me, but I had no idea how much.
“Who’s Luca?” Ariana asked.
“Silas?” Ethan waited until he looked at him. “Let’s start from the beginning. It’ll make more sense to them.”
Nodding, Silas hesitated before he ordered Eva to take a seat again. They remained silent until she took a seat but still Silas hesitated a moment more before he stood and walked around the desk to lean back against the front of it.
“I left the pack when I was around seventeen. Ethan and I didn’t have the best relationship then.”
“We used to be close, but things changed as we grew older,” Ethan continued.
Silas cleared his throat. “Anyway, I left home; travelled around a bit before I started a business with a friend. I met your mother on one of my trips.”
“Where does my mother come into this?” I asked when he fell silent again.
Their eyes darted over to me and lingered for a few seconds before they looked at each other.
“We used to date,” Silas said softly. “She played both of us against each other and used blackmail to get Ethan to agree to take her as his mate when he took over as Alpha.”
“Blackmail?”
It was Silas who answered. “I did something stupid and Ethan helped me cover it up. We didn’t know that anybody else saw us until she told Ethan about it.”
“Avery wanted the power that came with being Alpha female and I wanted to protect my brother,” Ethan said. “However, things got complicated when Mom asked Silas to return to the pack for my Mating Ceremony.”
“You didn’t want to mate her anymore,” I stated to which he nodded.
“No.” Ethan rubbed his beard. “Like I said, things got complicated. Lara was my true mate and I didn’t want anybody else but her. Avery had the evidence and I knew that if I found it and destroy it that she would have nothing against Silas or me.”
“Did you find it?” Ariana questioned.
“No.” Silas straightened. “Lara wanted to go home but we got kidnapped. In order to save your mother, I had to change her and the only way for her to survive the change was to have both her mates at her side.”
Ethan cleared his throat. “I went to the island. . .” he trailed off.
“Avery called to tell him that she was pregnant,” Silas said what he couldn’t.
“Yes, but I didn’t really believe her.” Ethan looked at me. “I’ve always been careful to avoid an accidental pregnancy but when I found out about Lara I took extra precautions just to be sure.”
“Was she really pregnant?” I asked him. “From everything you found on her it was clear that she was a Lycan and so are you.” I paused briefly. “There’s no way that you’re my biological father and there might be a possibility that she wasn’t my real mother.”
“There were rumours going round the pack about her being unfaithful but I couldn’t prove it.” He looked at Ethan. “He was there for the birth and the duration of the pregnancy.”
Ethan cleared his throat. “I was there for the duration of the. . .pregnancy but not for the birth. By the time they informed me, you had already been. . .born. Since the doctor and the nurses were there and it all seemed real I never thought anything of it.”
There was no prove of it, not yet anyway but I was positive that Avery wasn’t my mother and clearly Ethan wasn’t my father like she had told me.
I shifted from foot to foot. “Why did you fake your death?”
They glanced at each other. Silas cleared his throat but remained silent for a few more seconds before he spoke. “There are some things that you don’t need to know. Avery. . .she had it out for Lara and there wasn’t really anything we could do to protect her. She was pregnant with you”—he nodded at the twins—“and after already having lost a baby before I wanted to do as much as possible to prevent that from happening again.”
“She had her sight set on the end price and that was to be Alpha female so if something happened to me she wouldn’t get what she wanted. Silas had already been exposed by then and the council had already decided on a punishment.”
“Did you start the fire?” Ariana asked Ethan.
“No.” His eyes darted over to me. “Avery did. I was at home and I had just laid you down to sleep when I smelt the smoke. There was a small fire and I thought that I would be able to put it out before it got worse but. . .but the back of the house caught fire too and it spread quickly.”
“Ethan was trapped with only one way out but he didn’t want to leave because you were still inside the house.” Silas sighed. “I—”
“He rescued you,” Ethan interrupted. “Silas got to you just in time but you got burned.”
A nod from Silas made me frown. I had so many scars on my body that I couldn’t really tell which was which. It didn’t really matter though.
“I thought that Avery might have been in the house too since I couldn’t remember her leaving but Silas was more set on getting me out but one of the beams fell and he got stuck.” He paused. “Some men managed to get him out but unfortunately one of them didn’t make it out. I’m ashamed to say that I used it to my advantage. I got out and hid.”
“So who knows that you’re still alive?” Eva asked.
“Wrin and a few of the doctors who helped. We’ve managed to keep it that way all these years and we would still like it if it stayed like that. Nobody needs to know that Ethan didn’t die in that fire.”
The twins nodded. I tensed when Silas looked at me. His eyes narrowed when I remained silent but in the end I gave him a nod. I had no more plans of ruining the family so I wasn’t planning on telling anyone but it could come in handy if I needed something in the future.
“What happened to Avery?”
“I started an investigation and learned that she was the one that started the fire. She disappeared before we could lock her up but then she came back and she kidnapped you.” Silas walked around the desk and pulled a drawer open. “We’ve been searching for you for years.”
He straightened and walked over to me with papers gripped tightly in his hand. Stopping a few feet away, he held it out to me. I stared at him for a moment before I took the papers. The moment he walked back over to the desk, I glanced down at it.
The first thing that caught my attention was the photo of a baby—the same photo that was in Eva’s locket. I sucked in a shocked breath and squeezed my eyes closed.
“He looks nothing like Ethan.” My eyes snapped open at Ariana’s soft statement.
I smiled at her. “What makes you think that I don’t look like my mother?”
“You don’t,” Ethan and Silas growled at the same time.
My eyes darted from one to the other. “Avery isn’t my biological mother, we all know it. I might look like my real mother but we won’t know for sure until we figure out who she is.