Chapter 28 #2
“Split between those who think you could be trained to be a useful weapon in wartime and those who want to send you straight to the battlefield to test your abilities.” Lucian’s eyes flash with protective fury. “They’re talking about you like you’re a tool instead of a person.”
“What about Lord Vance?” I ask, thinking about Zari’s father. “Surely he has opinions after what happened to his daughter.”
Zari’s screams are still fresh in my memory. When Lucian told me she’d lost her mind completely, just like every other shifter whose wolf I’d destroyed, I felt...nothing. No guilt, no satisfaction. Just empty recognition that some prices can’t remain unpaid.
Lucian’s expression grows darker. “Mysteriously absent from all proceedings. Claims he is too grief-stricken over Zari’s condition to participate in court business.”
I lean back against the headboard, anger simmering in my chest. “He’s lying.”
“Of course he’s lying.” Lucian sits on the edge of the bed, his hand finding mine. “But we can’t prove he knew what Zari was planning. He covered his tracks well.”
“We can’t win every fight,” I murmur, echoing something that feels like wisdom learned too young.
“No,” he agrees quietly. “We can’t. But the Council has lost some of its power now, so they’re merely posturing. They can’t touch you, and they know it.”
“What about Harper and Gareth?” I ask, changing the subject to something more immediate. “They’re alive?”
“Alive and back in the dungeons.” Lucian confirms. “Although we nearly lost them completely. It turns out Zari bribed a guard to find and bring Harper to her after I had set her free. Harper then helped Gareth escape from his cell—that’s how they both ended up in that chamber with you.”
I nod as the chronology lines up in my head. “So, Harper wasn’t a victim who was dragged into this. She was part of it from the beginning.”
“Exactly. The guard who took Zari’s bribe has been executed,” Lucian says grimly, “and Harper and Gareth are in the deepest cells, under constant watch.”
“Good.” The satisfaction in my voice surprises even me.
Lucian’s thumb strokes the back of my hand. “You know what we learned about your mother’s death. About how your pack betrayed her.”
The memories feel distant, like looking at someone else’s life through thick glass. “I don’t remember much from my childhood,” I admit. “Bits and pieces, but nothing clear about what happened.”
“Your wolf is protecting you,” Lucian explains gently. “Trauma can make shifters’ wolves suppress memories that are too painful to process. It’s a survival mechanism.” He looks at me with concern. “Don’t try to remember, Astra. Please. Some things are better left buried.”
A smile tugs at my lips—the first genuine one I’ve felt since finding out I’m Eclipse Born. “You’re right. My mother protected me to her last breath. She wouldn’t have wanted me to remember the horrible things that happened. She’d want me to live a happy life.”
“And you will,” Lucian says fiercely. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“I will,” I agree. “But before I do that, there’s something I need.”
The temperature in the room seems to drop several degrees as a cold and final tone takes over in my voice. Lucian goes very still, recognizing the shift in my mood.
“Revenge.”
The word hangs between us like a blade waiting to fall.
“I want Harper to suffer. I want Gareth to suffer.” My voice grows harder with each word. “I want every packmate who took part in my mother’s murder to suffer.”
Lucian studies my face cautiously. “That’s not who you are, Astra.”
“Maybe not,” I say softly. “But it’s the one vindictive thing I want. The one darkness I need to satisfy before I can let go and be happy. They killed my mother, Lucian. They destroyed my childhood, my sense of safety, my ability to trust. They deserve consequences.”
Through our bond, I feel his internal struggle—his protective instincts warring with his understanding that some wounds require retribution in order to heal.
“They do deserve consequences,” he says finally. “And they’ll have them.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.” His cobalt blue eyes burn with shared fury. “Harper, Gareth, and every other packmate who betrayed your mother—they’ll all pay. You have my word.”
The cold satisfaction I feel should probably worry me. But as I look at my mate, at the man who’s willing to help me find justice for wounds that have festered my entire life, all I feel is gratitude.
Some debts can only be paid in blood, and I intend to collect every drop.
Lucian squeezes my hand gently. “There’s someone else who wants to see you. Daciana has been asking to speak with you since yesterday, but I told her you needed more rest.”
My heart lifts slightly. Daciana—my oldest friend, the one constant from my childhood. “Send her in.”
He presses a soft kiss to my forehead before leaving, and moments later, Daciana enters. But the woman who walks through the door looks nothing like the fierce warrior I remember. Her shoulders are hunched, her eyes red-rimmed, and guilt radiates from every line of her body.
She can’t meet my eyes, and with each passing second, dread builds in my chest. Something is terribly wrong. Daciana fidgets with her hands, opens her mouth several times as if to speak, then closes it again. The silence stretches between us like a chasm.
Finally, I can’t stand it anymore. “How much did you know?”
The question breaks her. Daciana collapses into the chair beside my bed, her face crumpling as sobs wrack her body.
“There are things far too terrible for a child to be part of,” she chokes out between tears.
My stomach drops at the way she words this, like she’s speaking from experience. “Daciana, what are you saying?”
She rocks back and forth in the chair, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. “As the Beta’s niece, I had firsthand knowledge of what was being done to your mother.”
The words hit me like ice water. “Knowledge of what, exactly?”
For a long moment, she can’t answer me. She just sits there, shaking, years of suppressed horror written across her face.
“Daciana.” My voice is sharper now, the anxiety making me impatient. “What knowledge?”
“Alpha Gareth stopped her from escaping,” she whispers. “He gathered the entire pack. Made us all watch at first, then...”
She can’t finish the sentence, but she doesn’t need to. The implication is clear.
“Made you all watch what?” But even as I ask, I know. I can see it in her eyes, in the way she flinches from my gaze.
“He forced everyone in the pack to take part in killing her.” The words come out in a rush, as if she’s been holding them back for decades. “Everyone, Astra. No one was allowed to refuse. No one could walk away.”
The room spins around me. Everyone.
I stare at my friend—my sister in everything but blood—and suddenly understand why she looks so broken.
“Even you?” The words are barely a whisper.
She covers her face with her hands and weeps harder. The sound is broken, anguished—the cry of someone who has carried unbearable guilt for too long.
I can’t breathe. Can’t think. My oldest friend, the person I trusted most in the world, was not only there when my mother was killed, she was forced to take part.
Time stops. I sit there in stunned silence, trying to process this new layer of nightmare. Not just that my mother was executed, but that children were forced to be part of it. The entire pack participated in my mother’s murder.
“I was six years old,” she finally whispers through her fingers. “You were eight. I didn’t understand what was happening, but they made me—they made all the children—”
She breaks down completely.
Only six years old. A pup. Just like I still was at eight.
More minutes pass in silence except for her weeping. I stare at the wall, my mind struggling to accept what I’m hearing. The pack probably thought I knew, that I remembered. They were all complicit. Every single one of them.
“I’ve lived with this for sixteen years,” Daciana eventually continues, her voice hollow with pain. “Sixteen years of knowing I was there when your mother died, that my hands—” She chokes on the words.
“Stop.” I say the word sharply, cutting through her spiral of self-recrimination.
She looks up at me, tears streaming down her face, terror in her eyes. She’s afraid of me now, I realize—afraid of what I’ll do with this knowledge.
I’m quiet for a long moment, watching my friend fall apart, feeling my own heart break for the child she was. For both the children we were.
The anger I expected doesn’t come. Instead, there’s a deep, overwhelming sadness that settles in my bones like the winter cold.
“You were six,” I say finally, my voice steady despite the tears on my own cheeks. “Six years old, Daciana. A baby.”
“That doesn’t make it—”
“It makes it exactly what it was,” I interrupt firmly. “Child abuse. You were a victim, too.”
She stares at me like I’ve said something impossible. “But I was there. I participated. I—”
“You were forced to participate in something I know you did not want to do.” My voice grows stronger, more certain. “What do you think would have happened if you had refused? Would Gareth have let you simply walk away?”
“Some of the adults enjoyed it,” she whispers, as if confessing a terrible secret. “You could see it in their faces. But the children, the others who were coerced—we were all traumatized.”
The whole idea makes me sick: adults who enjoyed torturing an innocent woman, and children who were traumatized by being forced to witness and participate in a murder.
“I’m so sorry, Astra,” Daciana sobs. “I’m so, so sorry. I should have tried to stop it. I should have—”
“You were a child,” I repeat, reaching for her hands. “What could you possibly have done against a pack of adults? Against an alpha?”
Something inside me breaks open then. Not anger or rage, but a deep, overwhelming sadness for the children we both were. For the innocence that was stolen from an entire pack.
I reach out for my friend and pull her into my arms, holding her tight. We’re both crying now, all those years of suppressed grief finally spilling out.
“You were a child,” I whisper fiercely into her hair. “It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault.”
“It never stopped haunting me,” she sobs against my shoulder.
“Your mother was such a lovely, gentle-hearted woman. She adored you, Astra. Even at the end, even when they were...She was only thinking about protecting you.” Her voice breaks.
“I can’t remember who screamed more—your mother or you.
You were there, watching. They made you watch everything. ”
The image sends fresh pain through my chest. “What about Selene?” I ask quietly. “Was she...?”
Daciana nods miserably. “All the children. But Selene doesn’t remember any of it. She and many others suppressed their memories. They don’t remember what happened.”
“Good,” I whisper fiercely. “She shouldn’t have to carry that.” I pause for a moment before asking my next burning question. “What about my father?”
Daciana pulls back slightly, wiping her eyes with shaky hands.
“He came back for you and your mother after your grandfather’s death.
Gareth killed him, too.” Her voice turns bitter with old pain.
“Gareth was twisted beyond anything, Astra. Evil in ways I didn’t understand as a child.
He enjoyed the power, the fear. He was as brutal as possible. ”
I stare down at my hands, processing this final piece of the puzzle. Both parents dead. Both murdered by a monster who forced children to carry the guilt of his crimes.
A sad smile pulls up one corner of my lips. “I really am an orphan, then.”
Daciana grips my hands tightly, her voice intense through her tears. “But you are loved. Your parents gave the ultimate sacrifice, and now, you are dearly, deeply loved. Hold on to that, Astra. Please.”
We sit together in the quiet of the room, and for the first time since my mother died, I allow myself to truly grieve.
Not just for her, but for my father I never knew, for the childhood that was stolen from me, for the innocence lost by an entire pack of children who were forced to become unwilling participants in a murder.
And somehow, amid all that grief, I find a strange kind of peace.