Chapter 180

Chapter 180
{Lisa’s POV}

Yesterday had been tedious, filled with revelations that twisted even in my sleep like nightmare fuel. Despite Ronan’s warmth beside me, the words from Calista clung to me.

“Saint Crest wolves…” A cursed bloodline. 

No before all that… "I am a werewolf.”

It felt weird on so many levels. It was a mind-boggling idea through and through.

My wolf was locked inside me all these years. My parents had been wolves too… I couldn't stop myself from saying. “Wow.”

I woke up feeling as though I had been given a story to live that was not mine, and I did not know where to set it down.

By morning, I knew where I needed to go. The orphanage had been the beginning of everything I remembered, the place that shaped me before the world decided it had other plans. If there were answers to be found, they would be there.

The path felt strange beneath my steps, familiar stones and fences lining the way. Every corner held some faded echo of a girl with scraped knees and hair that never seemed to lie flat. I half expected to see her dart across the yard, chasing after boys twice her size, her laugh carrying through the air without a worry in the world.

The building looked smaller than I remembered. Even though I had been here just a couple months back when I wanted to run away from this life.

I ran my fingers along the walls. The paint had peeled in places, and the old bell above the door leaned slightly, but the heart of it was unchanged. The smell of baked bread drifted faintly from the kitchen windows. Children’s voices carried through the courtyard, loud and unburdened, chasing each other in games I once thought were everything.

I pushed open the door. The creak was the same. The scent of wood polish and faint dust rose to greet me. For a heartbeat, I was a child again, slipping inside from the cold, expecting a scolding for muddy shoes.

The woman at the front desk looked up, glasses perched low on her nose. Miss Agnes. She wasn’t here last time… she was now. In a weird way… maybe that's what the universe wanted.

‘It's been too long.’ I thought. But she wasn't who I was looking for.

Despite that. I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic. Her face, looking older now, folded into disbelief before it crumpled altogether. Tears streaked her cheeks as she stood so quickly her chair toppled.

“Lisa?” She gasped.

I barely had time to nod before she crossed the room and wrapped me in a hug so fierce it nearly undid me. Her shoulders shook against mine. “My girl,” she whispered. “It's been too long.”

The sound of her cry brought others. A few older girls peeked around the hallway, then darted off to fetch more. Within minutes I was surrounded, voices overlapping in excitement, hands tugging at my arms, children I didn’t know pressing close to see what the commotion was.

I smiled through the weight in my chest, touching small heads, greeting old faces, though my thoughts were elsewhere. I had come for answers, not to be swallowed by warmth, though the warmth was a comfort I had not known I needed.

“What’s this noise?” a firm voice cut through, and the crowd stilled. Mistress Arlena stepped into the room, her dark hair streaked with silver as always, her posture no less commanding than it had been when I was a girl..

“Lisa,” she said, almost as if she had expected this moment all along.

“Mistress,” I replied.

“You’ve caused quite the ruckus,” she said, though her lips curved faintly. Then she gestured toward her office. “Come in. You must be exhausted.”

Truly. I was… I was tired. I was overwhelmed. I needed answers.

The office smelled of roses and strawberries, same way it always did. I couldn’t place why most things were the same but still felt different.

Then it dawned on me. I was the one that changed. I'd lived an entire life between the time I left the orphanage and now I returned for answers.

I sat in the same chair I had once squirmed in, staring at the worn grooves in the wood of her desk, the ones I used to trace with nervous fingers. Wondering why my parents were killed by werewolves.

“It's ok, Lisa. You can go straight to the point.” The mistress had this uncanny ability to read emotions. I couldn't tell if she was just that skilled, or if people were that easy to read, myself included. 

Regardless, I told her everything. The coronation. Lena’s attack. The transformation… the most impossible part. The revelation of the curse. All of it.

My words spilled out in a jumble. Telling her made me realise just how crazy everything sounded.

“Gosh… everything sounds really crazy.” I sighed.

When I finished, the room was quiet except for the faint ticking of the clock. A part of me thought she would stare at me in disbelief, but she didn’t.

Mistress Arlena did not speak at once. Instead, she rose from her chair, moved to a cabinet, and withdrew a small wooden box.

She opened it slowly, as if it housed something important… It probably did.

From inside, she drew a photograph. Its edges were yellowed, its surface worn, but the image was clear. 

“Are those… Wolves?” I asked. Staring at the group of them standing proud, their bodies forming a crescent in the image. At their feet, swaddled in blankets, was a baby.

I leaned forward, the air tightening in my lungs.

“This,” she said softly, “is your pack. The Saint Crest wolves.”

My fingers brushed the edge of the photo, suddenly understanding why it was so precious… “My pack?”

She nodded. “They were cursed long before the time of your birth. A wolf among them broke a witch’s heart… She ended her life, and her coven retaliated. The war between the pack and them is what caused the decline of magic because of how many wolves and especially witches died in the war.”

She took in a deep breath and sighed. “One by one, the other wolves hunted those that were left in order to put an end to the war.”

The words pressed into me like stones.

“My parents?” I asked, my throat dry.

“They went into hiding among humans, trying to keep you safe. But hiding could only do so much.”

I shook my head. “Why didn’t you ever tell me? If all this was true, why keep it secret?”

Mistress Arlena’s gaze met mine, steady and unapologetic. “Because it did not matter. You were a child. You deserved to live free of curses, free of bloodlines and destinies. I wanted you to have a normal life, even if the world tried to write something different for you.”

Her words scraped at me, part comfort, part accusation. “And yet,” I said bitterly, “I still ended up in the middle of it all. Wolves at my throat. Wolves at my side. Wolves everywhere.”

She reached across the desk, her hand covering mine. “And you survived. More than that, Lisa. You broke the curse. And for that… I'd do it all over again.”

Her eyes glistened, though she did not shed tears. “You are proof that Saint Crest blood was never meant to fade. And for that, I thank you.”

The weight of her words settled over me, and in that moment I saw it. The faint glimmer in her gaze, the steadiness of her bearing, the familiarity that went deeper than orphanage discipline.

“You’re one of them,” I whispered. “You’re Saint Crest too.”

Her silence confirmed it. “Wow…”

I leaned back, laughter spilling from me, brittle and astonished. “I used to hate werewolves. Couldn’t stand the thought of them. And somehow I’ve always been surrounded by them. My husband, my enemies, even the woman who raised me.”

Mistress Arlena smiled faintly. “Perhaps that is your fate. Or perhaps it is simply the truth of who you are. You can fight it or you can claim it. But it will always be with you.”

The photograph lay between us, a bridge between a past I had never known and a present that refused to let me ignore it. 

I stared at the baby at the wolves’ feet, the fragile bundle that was me, and for the first time I wondered if maybe I had been living in a story all along, one that was finally catching up to me.

I pressed my hand over the image, covering the baby’s face, and whispered, “What now?”

Mistress Arlena’s smile deepened, tired but proud. “Now, you decide what to do with the truth.”

“There’s only one thing I want to do…” I replied.