Ronnie.
I fled the garden, breathing heavily as I ran through tall plants and weeds, not caring which flowers I trampled.
She was lying. She had to be. But she'd said something. If this was a lie spewed from the depths of hell then why had they called out my mate bond and it'd been Lucan?
She had a picture of my mother. She looked just like me, just like her.
Dad wouldn't lie to me about having other relatives. He wouldn't lie about my mother. Right?
I sucked in breaths that left me gasping for more air, as I rushed up the stairs and hit the foyer. My brain racked as I wondered where I'd find my father.
I couldn't go through the lounge. Too many eyes. I turned back and made my way to the back yard.
The pointed heels of my shoes sank in the soft earth and it was hard to pull back out. I slipped my feet out of the pair and left it there, my mind only on one person.
Father.
I pushed open the back door and walked into the hallway that connected the huge pack house rooms.
Ignoring everything and everyone, I made my way to my dad's study. If he had even a minute to himself, he always went in there for a shot.
I went up the stairs to the first floor, walking until the very end of the long hallway. The high brown doors were unlocked.
I pushed my way in and shut the door behind me. When I looked up to his desk, my eyes met my dad's.
"Ronnie! I was worried. Why did you run off like that?" He stood in front of the desk, the swivel chair there kicked to the side.
I rushed to him, hugging him tightly.
His hands came around me and he hugged me back.
She was lying.
"Ronnie, if it's about the…the announcement, don't be upset."
I pulled my face away from his chest to look up at him. "How can I not be? How can I possibly be mated to my own brother?"
His eyes slid away from mine in an unusual guilty look. He cleared his throat and pulled back from me.
My chest hurt. "Dad?"
"Ronnie, I promised I'd explain to you when the time came, when the time was right. But I…I just never found it. You're just a little girl. My little girl." His hands ran through his graying hair.
"Am I?" My lips trembled and I let out a shaky breath.
"Are you what?"
"Am I really your little girl?"
His hands came to my shoulders. "Of course you are, Ronnie. Why would you even ask that?"
"So who's this?" I brought the picture up to his face.
His brows wrinkled as he took the picture from me and held it up for a closer look.
I watched as his face paled. He turned away from me, moving to the drawer close to his window.
"Dad, say something!"
"I don't know, Ronnie! I don't know who that is!"
"What?" I breathed, stunned. How could he lie to me? Tell me such a stupid lie.
"Am I your daughter, Dad? Am I really Ronnie Dane? Am I Lucan's baby sister? Cause if I am, then I wouldn't ever be mated to him!"
His stark white face turned back to me. "You're right, Ronnie. You're not my biological daughter."
It hit me like a brick to the head and I stumbled, my hand snapping out to find a support, before I fell to the ground.
He rushed to me. "Sit, Ronnie. Sit."
He brought me to one of the sofa's against the wall, sitting me and taking the one opposite me.
How could he?
"You've been lying to me."
"No, sweetheart. I was going to tell you. I just didn't know how. I didn't want to hurt you."
"And you really think hearing Lucan's name get called out as my mate was any help?!" I'd never been this angry at my dad before. Never been this angry at anyone ever.
My hands shook with the emotions I struggled to keep in check, at least until I heard everything, got all the answers.
"Don't look at me with those eyes, sweetheart. I know I've hurt you."
"No," I cried, tearing up and not doing anything to hold back anymore. "You don't know anything. You don't know what it feels like to hear what I just have!"
His head bent in an aggravated way, and then he glanced over at me. "Where did you get this picture, Ronnie?"
I shook my head. "You don't get to ask any questions dad, until you've answered all of mine."
"Can I even call you dad?"
He looked pained. "Yes, of course you can."
I braced myself before asking the next question. There was no reason for this to be true just because what she'd said about me was true.
"Dad, how did you get me?"
He looked weary. "From an orphanage. I had just lost Lucan's mother, my mate, and I knew I wanted a little girl of my own."
I willed it to be true, but I watched, as if frozen, as his right hand came up, and he pinched the bridge of his nose.
"If you don't tell me the truth now, you'll lose me forever, Dad."
He wouldn't speak. His lips thinned and I knew I would have to force it out of him.
I rushed to his desk drawer and grabbed the decorative silver knife piece in it.
"Ronnie, what are you doing?! Put that away!"
Decorative or not, it'd killed me anyway. I raised the knife above my head and it glinted fiercely as I narrowed my gaze at him.
"You either tell me the truth or I hurt myself and you can't stop me!" I yelled like a lunatic.
He took a step forward, hands outstretched in a plea. "Don't do anything stupid, Ronnie. You'll hurt yourself."
I went to bring it down and dad yelled. "Stop! It was a pack war. I got you from a pack war!"
My hands faltered and the back of my legs hit his chair as I collapsed into it.
He didn't look anything like the proud, upright dad I'd always known. "It was a pack war, Ronnie. And we won the war. I couldn't leave the two years old daughter of their Alpha. Even though he'd been my enemy."
"I raised you as my own, Ronnie. And I love you as my own. The mate bond to Lucan is not so bad if you look at it. You'll be my daughter for real."
My eyes clouded over. "So you agree. I haven't been your actual daughter. I'm still the daughter of the man you'd despised enough to kill!"
He took another step forward. "No, sweetheart. That's not what I meant in the least."
"I have never thought about you as anything other than my little girl. I meant we'd become an actual family. Bound together. Nothing can ever separate us now."
I whimpered in the chair, eyes closing to the pain, to the truth I'd asked for.
Dad rushed for the knife in my hands. I jerked up and made a run from it.
My hand was outstretched and he'd decided last minute to take the same corner of his desk that I'd turned.
He ran right into it.
I heard the squelch as it stabbed into his chest and I cried out.
He fell to the floor, too heavy for me to support and I fell with him. "Dad?" I cried, shaking him.
I gripped the hilt of the knife with trembling hands and pulled it out of him.
He wasn't breathing. I wasn't breathing.
"Dad, wake up! I swear, I didn't mean to!" My tears dropped on him, wetting the white of his shirt but he didn't stir. Didn't open his eyes and tell me to stop crying.
I wiped at the blood pouring from the hole in his chest. Begging the moon goddess for it to close up.
It wasn't even a big one, but he wouldn't stop bleeding.
"Please, please, don't do this, Dad. Don't do this to me." My eyes and nose were weeping earnestly and I couldn't do anything to help him.
I started wailing as the door was flung open and Lucan walked in.
One look at the situation and he rushed for us. He pushed me away and I fell back.
He held dad in his arms, shaking him. "Father? Father, wake up." Dad wasn't moving at all.
Furious eyes cut at me. "What have you done!?"
I shuddered at the hate in his eyes. He didn't mean it. "Lucan…I didn't mean to…"
His eyes dropped to my hands and my eyes followed his gaze.
Bloody.
Bloody hands.
I didn't mean to but I'd done it. I'd killed my dad.
Red eyes burned me with a fury that scorched me. I froze, my head knowing what I'd done, my heart refusing to accept it.
"Run, Ronnie. You'd better run as fast and as far away as you can, and never let me catch you, because when I do, dear Goddess help me. I will kill you for what you've done."