Chapter 184 THE WEAPON

Chapter 184 THE WEAPON
MALIA’S POV:

I stare at Viktor in disbelief with my breath hitching in my throat and my mind spins so wildly that the room seems to tilt around me. 
She is already here? What the hell does he mean?!
He couldn’t be referring to me… Right?
But before the full weight of those words can even fully settle in my brain, the door suddenly bursts open, banging hard against the wall.
"Malia?!!!”
My father, Alpha Monroe rushes into the room! His eyes are wide with worry and his face is lined with dark circles and exhaustion but the moment his gaze lands on me standing by Lucien's bedside, a massive wave of visible relief washes over his features.
"Thank the Goddess, I heard you were here and came over right away! I had to see for myself you were okay…“ he breathes, striding across the floor with his arms open. He reaches out to pull me into a tight embrace. “I was so worried… Are you hurt anywhere?!“
As always, his familiar presence soothes me almost immediately but I force myself to pull back forcefully before his arms can fully lock around me, shoving against his chest with trembling hands. My heart is pounding against my ribs now like a trapped bird, and I am reeling too hard to even process his worry or his waiting fatherly embrace.
Everything seems to be messing with my head!!! I am so tired of all these puzzles!! I need solid answers and who better to ask than the source of the whole confusion… My Father.
"Stop!" I choke out and my voice cracks slightly. "Dad, stop! Don't... don't act like everything is fucking normal right now!"
My father blinks in surprise, startled by my harsh reaction and his hands hover awkwardly in the air. "Malia? What is the matter?“
I round on him with my eyes wide and frantic as tears spill over my lashes. “You know damn well what I mean!“
My gaze sweeps furiously across the entire room… from Viktor’s solemn face, to Laena’s sorrowful posture, to Maddox standing grimly by the corner, and finally back to my father.
"Somebody tell me what is going on! Seriously!!! Anyone?!!” I scream and my voice echoes off the wooden rafters as my hands start to shake uncontrollably. "Just tell me the damn truth for once in my life! What the hell is going on!!!“
My father’s face falls and his mouth opens, but no sound comes out…
Oh now he decides to turn mute?!
I point a shaking finger directly at his chest and the bitterness and agony that had been festering in me for days finally explodes out of me!!
"You knew!" I sob bitterly. "You knew all along that I was a Lycan! Dad… You let me live my entire life believing I was a weak, broken werewolf without a wolf! You watched me get mocked, insulted, and treated like some pathetic stray by our own pack for years!"
"Malia..." I watch his face contort into a pained expression.
"Do you have any idea what it feels like to not know who you are? Or what is wrong with you despite knowing in your heart something is wrong with you!” Tears are blinding my vision now as I clutch at my chest. "To feel like a stranger in your own skin?! To think your own wolf abandoned you because you were defective?! But you knew all along… Who am I, Dad?! Who am I really?! Did Malia Monroe even exist?!!”
A heavy, suffocating silence descends upon the room and my father’s shoulders slump. He slowly lowers his head, closing his eyes as a sorrowful sigh escapes his lips.
"I am so sorry, Malia..." he murmurs, his voice is barely louder than a whisper. "All I ever wanted... all I ever tried to do was… protect you."
"Then tell me!" I plead, wiping my cheeks furiously with the back of my hand. "No more lies! Dad… Tell me the truth!"
He opens his eyes again, looking at me with a profound, crushing sadness. Then he takes a deep breath…
"When I was a young boy… Long before I took over as Alpha of the Crescent Pack, my father told me many stories about the Great Massacre… The war where the Werewolves wiped out the female Lycans and slaughtered their families to secure our survival. But even as a boy, I found it repulsive… I thought it was monstrous that little children and innocent women were slaughtered in cold blood just for the 'future and safekeeping of our own race.' But my father told me... he told me that when I became Alpha, I would have to make unpleasant decisions for the pack, and then I would understand why it was necessary…”
I stand frozen, listening to him as his tone grows more grave… His eyes are staring off into the distance now as if reliving a nightmare. 
"When I finally came of age, I heard rumors among the pack’s elders. Whispers of a ‘secret weapon’ that our pack had acquired… A deadly, infinite weapon that would be indispensable in future wars… It was a closely guarded secret. When my father eventually died and I officially inherited the title of Alpha, the pack elders brought me here… To this very mountain."
My brows furrow in confusion. "A weapon? What are you talking about?! Dad, I asked you who I am, why are you talking about some stupid weapon?!"
My father looks up and his eyes look almost haunted now as he continues.
"They led me deep into an underground bunker in these woods to show me the weapon that would guarantee our survival and the extinction of all Lycans," he says slowly. “But when I stepped inside... I was horrified to find that the 'weapon' wasn't a sword or a dagger. It was… a little baby."
What?!…
"A Lycan pureblood…” my father whispers. "The very last female Lycan pureblood in existence… You, Malia."
I stumble back a half-step and my mind goes completely blank. 
No... No, no, no...
"My grandfather stole you as an infant from the Dark Valley during the massacre," My father continues, his voice is thick with sorrow now. “Though, most of the women and children were slaughtered to ensure the Lycans would go extinct... He seized the opportunity and kept you alive… He left the charred remains of another infant's body in the burning cradle as a decoy... to make sure the surviving Lycans believed you had been killed in the fires like the rest.”
My hands fly to my mouth as a strangled cry escapes my throat.
"Then they brought you up here to the secret camp in this mountain… Hidden from the world.” my father says bitterly. "When I saw you for the first time... you were so small. So frail. They had kept you locked in an iron crib, sedating you over and over again with dark silver toxins and suppressant poisons. The poisons stunted your physical growth for years... keeping your body perpetually weak, keeping you as a helpless, perpetual infant so they could harvest your blood without fear of you shifting or fighting back."
He stops, swallowing hard, unable to look me in the eye.
"They used your blood... to forge blessed silver weapons," he whispers and my blood runs cold. ”They made large amounts of blessed silver weapons over the years but they couldn’t risk other packs finding out so they hid it away to be used whenever our pack was threatened…” 
My stomach violently turns as a wave of sickening horror rushes through my entire body. I can barely breathe…
They had made weapons… From my own infant body, strapped down and drained like an animal?!!!
I can’t believe it… 
"They saw you an infinite weapon source…” my father says sorrowfully, reaching out a helpless hand toward me. "An endless supply of blood to keep us powerful. But when I looked at you... I didn't see a weapon. I only saw an innocent baby girl who had been subjected to unimaginable cruelty… You were almost dying, Malia. The poisons had ruined your tiny body, and you were going to die within weeks. I knew I had to put an end to it so with my authority as the new Alpha, I shut down the harvest operation… I ordered the weapons made to be destroyed and I declared that I was taking you home to adopt you as my daughter."
He wipes his face and I finally notice the tears in his eyes. “Naturally, the elders fought against it… They protested, asking how I could possibly adopt and hide a Lycan child among a pack of werewolves. But I showed them that the poisons had already destroyed most of your innate Lycan strength. To keep you safe and hide your identity from the world, we formulated the red poison… It was a mixture of diluted silver and werewolf blood. Your little body was already so accustomed to toxins that we had to keep increasing the dosage each time. But It suppressed whatever Lycan blood was left active inside you, masking your smell and preventing you from ever shifting, making everyone believe you were just a wolf-less girl."
He pauses and a painful look flashes across his features. "My wife... your mother... I tried to make her understand but she hated the idea from the very beginning. She knew what you were and she was terrified of you. She couldn't bear to look at you without seeing the monster that could destroy us all... that was why she treated you with such bitter hatred every single day of your life."
Mother… She’d called me a curse…
The memory hits me like a freight train… My mother's cold, disgusted eyes. The way she spat at me, the way she hit me, the way she screamed that I was a curse brought upon her family.
It wasn't because I was weak like I thought. It was because she knew I was a Lycan! A cursed Lycan!!
Tears stream down my face in a hot, endless torrent. No wonder...
No wonder I felt so terribly disconnected from her… And Whore! I thought my wolf had abandoned me all those years! But I didn't have a wolf to begin with… I had a Lycan!
And the Entity... the wild, vengeful spirit sleeping deep inside my soul... No wonder she was so furious, so monstrous, so desperate to burn the world to ash! She remembered… A part of her locked inside my subconscious must remember the iron crib, the needles and the agonizing pain of being drained and poisoned day after day while I was a baby! Even if I forgot.
That's why these mountains felt familiar… The eerie wave of déjà vu I had felt suddenly makes sense. I had been here before… I had spent years of a stolen, tortured childhood locked in a dark room beneath these very pine trees.
"All this time..." I whisper with my voice cracking and my hands shaking uncontrollably as I stare at my father in horror. "All this time... Not only did you lie to me about the fact that I was a Lycan all along. But I was... I was also used as some twisted weapon-making lab rat???… As a baby?!!!”
"Malia, please..." My father takes a step forward. “I’ve always loved you! From the moment I brought you home, I loved you as my own flesh and blood! I tried every day to make up for the horrors they inflicted on you…”
"I didn't know," Maddox cuts in suddenly, stepping up beside me, his hazel eyes are wide and glistening with raw emotion and shock as he tries to put a hand on my shoulder. "Malia, I swear to you, I didn't know about any of the dark stuff. I knew dad brought you home and adopted you, but I never knew you were a Lycan! Still, It changes nothing for me, Malia. You are my little sister. I told you… You will always be my little sister…”
"DON'T TOUCH HER!!!!!!”
A loud guttural roar erupts from the side of the room and before Maddox or my father can lay a single finger on me, Viktor explodes forward!
Black, razor-sharp claws unsheathe from Viktor’s fingertips and he places himself directly between me and the two advancing werewolves, his eyes are blazing with pure, unadulterated fury.
"I will rip your fucking arms off if you lay another hand on her!" Viktor growls and his voice drops into an inhuman animalistic tone that shakes the cabin walls. "You sick, depraved bastards!! How could anyone do that to a baby?!”
Viktor glares at my father and his fangs start to lengthen. "And you call us Lycans the monsters?! You slaughtered her family! You abducted a baby from her cradle, shoved poison into her blood, and tortured her for years just to forge your fucking weapons?!!!”
I’m still frozen with shock behind Viktor, clutching my head as his furious words echo in my skull…
‘Slaughtered her family…’
The words jolt something deep inside my soul and a new wave of agony rips through my heart.
"My... my family..." I choke out, staring at the back of my father's head through a blur of tears. "My real family... Were they... were they all murdered by the werewolves?”
Alpha Monroe’s face completely collapses. "Malia... I have never taken pride in the acts of my predecessors. What my grandfather and the rest of the Werewolf council did was evil... it was wrong—"
"ANSWER ME!!!!” I scream at the top of my lungs. "Answer the question, Dad?!"
Alpha Monroe closes his eyes, a single. “I do not know Malia, all I have are stories…” he whispers sorrowfully. “But they said your mother... she fought like a demon to protect you. They... they killed her when they took you from her."
A sob tears from my throat and I drop to my knees, clutching my chest as grief for a mother I never even got to know, a mother who died trying to save me, crushes my lungs.
"Malia, I am so sorry..." my father stammers out, stepping around Viktor and reaching a hand out to try and comfort me. "Please, I only ever wanted the best for you… I tried to...”
"I SAID BACK THE FUCK OFF!!!!”
Viktor snarls angrily and then he completely snaps!!!
Bones crack and shift audibly beneath his skin as he suddenly half-shifts and lunges forward with a vicious roar!!
His massive clawed hand slams against my father's chest and shoves my father backward so hard he crashes into the wall!!
My father gasps for air, scrambling to his feet and I'm about to tell at Viktor to stop but my breath catches completely in my throat and I freeze, staring at Viktor’s face in utter shock.
Viktor’s eyes are glowing!... Vibrant, breathtaking purple flames burn brilliantly in Viktor’s eyes!!!
My mind halts and my heart leaps into my throat.
Purple eyes... Of course...
The memory of my own transformation flashes before my eyes... the white fur, the towering obsidian horns, and the reflection I saw in the stained-glass windows... My Lycan form has purple eyes!!
Wait a minute...
My mind spins wildly as an impossible realization tugs at the edge of my consciousness... Wait... It couldn't be!!...
Then I watch as Viktor bares his deadly fangs at my father and Maddox, as he snarls out the final threat...
"I will kill any werewolf who lays a hand on my sister ever again!!!!"