Chapter 186 CHAPTER 186

Chapter 186 CHAPTER 186
Lilia's POV 

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I smelled was the strong scent of incense. It hung in the air, thick enough that it made my nose sting. I blinked repeatedly, trying to adjust my vision to the darkness of the room.

Where was I?

Then everything came rushing back. The street. The van. The hand covering my mouth. The sudden darkness.

I pushed myself into a sitting position, my head throbbing as I looked around. The room was dimly lit, with only a small bulb somewhere in the corner.

Then I saw her. She was sitting a short distance away, watching me. I recognized her immediately. She was the woman I had met at the bar—the same woman who had held my hand that night.

"You?" I whispered. My heart began pounding. "Why do you have me here?"

I looked around the room, searching for an exit. A door stood behind her. There was a window on the opposite wall, but it appeared to be too high to reach easily. My eyes moved over everything within my surroundings, instinctively cataloguing anything I could use as a weapon. A heavy candle holder. A glass bottle. Even the wooden chair beside her.

My body seemed to be assessing the room before my mind had fully caught up.

The woman noticed. She smiled.

"My name is Sahel," she said calmly.

"I don't care what your name is." My voice trembled, but I forced myself to keep it steady. "You can't just take me whenever you wish and put me here."

"I can't?"

There was something almost playful in the way she repeated my words. Then she laughed softly.

It wasn't a mocking laugh. If anything, it sounded as though she found my outrage strangely endearing.

"You are very special, Lilia. Do you know?"

I stared at her. She leaned forward slightly.

"You were born by a moon priestess."

I frowned.

"Wolves like you are very rare."

I almost laughed. Moon priestess? Wolf? Special? The words sounded like something from a children's fantasy book, not something a grown woman should be telling a feverish stranger she'd kidnapped off the street.

I glanced toward the door again. Maybe she was insane. That seemed far more reasonable than anything she was saying.

I pushed myself to my feet, though my legs immediately felt unsteady beneath me.

"I think you are mistaken," I said.

I took a cautious step backward.

"My mother was not a moon priestess, and there's nothing special about me."

Her smile disappeared. She studied me in silence, her eyes lingering on my face as though she could see something I couldn't. Then her gaze dropped to my hands.

“You are one of us,” she whispered.

A strange sensation crawled across my skin. I looked down. The fever must have been playing tricks on me.

Sahel rose slowly from her chair.

"You've spent your entire life believing a lie, Lilia."

I backed away.

"What lie?"

"The lie that you are ordinary. I'm not mistaken," she said.

The confidence in her voice made my heart pound wildly.

There was no hesitation in her words. She didn't seem unsure. She spoke as though she knew something about me that I had spent my entire life trying to understand.

And suddenly, I remembered my dream. The wolf. The strange familiarity I had felt when I looked into its eyes.

My mother's words came back to me too—how she had always insisted that I had no wolf, even though she had never given me a proper explanation. She had also refused to tell me much about my father.

My stomach tightened. Was it possible?
Could this strange woman actually be telling the truth? Could my mother really have been a moon priestess? Could she also know about my father?

I looked at her, trying to find some sign that she was lying or playing a prank on me. There was none.

"I hear you're here to look for your father," she said.

My eyes widened. She knew.

"Here's the deal. I will help you find your father, and you work for me. Do we have a deal?"

I stared at her.

"How do I know you mean it when you say you'll help me find my father?"

I took another cautious step back.

"And how do you even know I'm looking for my father?"

She chuckled again. "I know a lot of things, Lilia."

She walked slowly around me, never quite getting close enough for me to feel trapped, yet somehow making me aware of every movement she made.

"And I am not wrong."

I remained silent. She stopped in front of me.

"So, I want to harness this special gift of yours in exchange for helping you find your father."

"Gift?"

"Yes. Whatever is inside you has been dormant for a very long time. But it is beginning to wake up."

The fever, the strange sensitivity, the sounds I had been hearing, and even the fleeting image of claws seemed to connect in a way I didn't want to acknowledge. I folded my arms across my chest, trying to hide how unsettled I was.

"What exactly would I have to do for you?"

"That depends on what you are capable of."

Her answer did nothing to reassure me. I looked toward the door. I didn't know whether I could trust her. In fact, every instinct I had told me that making a deal with someone who had kidnapped me was probably the worst decision I could make.

But then I thought about my father. All my life, he had been a blank space in my story. I only knew his name. I didn't know where he was. I didn't even know why my mother had kept him from me.

I took a slow breath. I didn't know if I could take her deal. But deep down, I felt that this might be my only chance to get closer to finding out who my father was. And perhaps, in the process, I would finally discover what my mother had been hiding from me all these years.

—-
Weeks later, I had discovered a thousand things about myself. Or at least, it felt that way.

Sahel had helped me understand abilities I never knew I possessed—things that would have sounded impossible if I hadn't experienced them myself. I had learned how to control my heightened senses, how to move with a speed that didn't feel entirely human, and, most astonishingly, how to shift my appearance.

There was only one thing we still hadn't discovered. My father.

Every time I brought him up, Sahel somehow managed to steer the conversation elsewhere. I had begun to wonder if she was deliberately keeping that information from me.

One afternoon, I was lying on the bed in my room when she walked in.

"I have a job for you," she announced.

I sat up and looked at her. "What job?"

It was going to be the first assignment she was actually recruiting me for.

A part of me wanted to ask when she intended to keep her side of our agreement and help me find my father. But I stopped myself. I hadn't done anything for her yet. Perhaps after completing this job, I would have earned the right to demand that she fulfill her part of the deal.

She walked over and handed me a photograph. I took it and looked down. The moment I saw the face, I recognized her.

"This is Luna Alexa," I said.

"Yes."

I raised a brow.

"I'm aware that you know her, which is a good thing. Because you're going to act like her for the next few days."

I looked up, amused. "What do you mean by that?"

She gestured toward the photograph.

"What I mean is that you're going to use one of your abilities."

She paused, watching my reaction.

"You have the ability to shift into the face and form of anyone."

I stared at her.

"You are going to use that ability to take the face and image of Luna Alexa and pretend to be her for a few days."

I immediately shook my head.

"I can't."

She stopped me before I could say anything more.

"This request isn't coming from me. It is coming from Alpha Rodrick, and you cannot say no."

"Alpha Rodrick?" I repeated.

She nodded.

I had heard of Alpha Rodrick. The invincible Alpha of Eclipse Park.

I looked back down at Alexa's photograph. I saw an opportunity.  If I could complete this assignment for Alpha Rodrick, perhaps I could put myself in his debt. And if he owed me a favor, maybe he would be willing to help me uncover the truth about my father.

I slowly raised my eyes to Sahel.

"What exactly does he want me to do?"

"That's what you're about to find out,” she replied.