Chapter 57 Nico
NICO
The night before had been one of the most relaxing we’d had in a long time. Maddy had enjoyed my lasagna, which pleased me, and we spent most of the night on the couch, talking and watching silly TV shows. It was such a normal night that I could have almost forgotten what was going on in our lives.
We went to bed early, which was exactly what we both needed.
I’d slept through the night, and I wasn’t woken by Maddy having any nightmares.
I hoped that meant she got to have a good night’s sleep.
When I awoke the next morning, I made my way downstairs, trying to be as quiet as possible to give Maddy more time to sleep.
I was brewing coffee and opening a package of bagels when Maddy came down the stairs with the envelope. A smile had been forming on my lips when I first saw her coming down, but once I saw what was in her hand, the grin died on my face.
“It’s time?” It was a question, but my tone made it sound more like a statement.
Maddy nodded as she put the envelope on the counter. The little package of paper looked heavier than it should have. Like Maddy had laid the entire Library of Congress on the counter. I half-expected the kitchen island to crumble under its weight.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” I asked. We needed to do it, but I didn’t want Maddy to push herself to do something she wasn’t completely sure of.
She nodded once, with finality. “I can’t put it off anymore. I shouldn’t have put it off this long. I should have opened it the second we found it.”
“All right. Whenever you’re ready.”
As though she wanted to get it done before she could talk herself out of it, she tore the top off the envelope and pulled out a letter. A quick glance showed her birth mother had written it. I sat beside her and read it over her shoulder.
Maddy,
I’m so sorry for everything. If you’re reading this, then I know you’re alive, which is a blessing to me in so many ways. You must have so many questions. I can only answer what I know. I’ll do my best.
First, I’m sure you’re wondering why I would give away the greatest thing that ever happened to me.
My baby girl. Your father, David, and I were so in love.
I was an advanced student in high school.
By the time I was a sophomore, I’d already completed enough credits to graduate early.
Call me a silly, love-blind girl, but I didn’t want to leave David yet.
Instead, I stayed and took advanced-placement courses.
When David was a freshman in college and I was a senior in high school, I’d already completed enough coursework to graduate with a degree in biology.
Our plan was for me to join him and start studying for my medical degree.
We would finally be able to get married.
It was a wonderful dream, but one we would never see come to fruition.
Your father had always known the royals would come for him.
His father had told him about his heritage and what his bloodline meant.
I knew all this, but I loved him too much not to stand by his side.
David had also kept an immense secret. Not even his father and his half-brother knew this.
David could shift. He was a full shifter.
When the royals came that night, he did everything he could to protect me.
Maddy, your father was very powerful. When he shifted, it was like nothing I’d ever seen before.
Still, as strong as he was, there was only so much he could do against all the men with guns.
He sent me to find his brother and stayed behind to give us as much time as he could.
I gave you away because it was the only way I knew to give you the life you deserved.
The thought of raising a child while on the run was too much.
Kenneth helped me find a wonderful family for you, then he helped me fake my death.
I had to make sure the royals thought I’d died.
If there were even a chance I could be pregnant, they would have never stopped looking for either of us.
Maddy’s hands shook as she looked at me. “My father could shift? It wasn’t just in his blood—he was a full shifter. How did Kenneth not know?”
I nodded. “The fact that he was able to keep that hidden is amazing.” The initial phases of becoming a shifter were very uncomfortable.
It was what Maddy was going through right now.
This David guy had to have had a will of iron even when he was eleven or twelve to keep something like that hidden so well that even his father and brother didn’t know.
I slipped my hand into the envelope and pulled out a set of three photos.
One was of a very tiny baby—obviously Maddy.
The resemblance was clear even as young as she was.
It looked like it had been taken less than an hour after she’d been born.
The other two photos were of her with her mother.
In the first, she was still covered in sweat, but she had a bright smile on her face as she held the baby to her breast. Maddy reached a hand forward and slid a finger across the photo, letting the tip of her finger linger on her mother’s cheek.
I glanced over and saw tears welling in Maddy’s eyes.
The second was of the two of them again.
This time she was in a newborn onesie, and her mother was dressed and looked recovered from the birth.
She was cradling Maddy in her lap. The smile was gone now.
Instead, she was looking at the small child, and I could see a soul-crushing sadness on her face.
There were tears in her eyes as she looked down at the baby.
This must have been the moment she gave Maddy to Kenneth to take to her new family.
“God,” Maddy whispered. “I can’t imagine how this must have felt.”
“That’s the truest love I’ve ever seen,” I said, and I meant it. “Giving away the thing you love more than anything else in the world to keep them safe? It’s the bravest thing I think I’ve ever heard of.”
Without another word, she picked the letter back up to continue reading.
Once you’d been safely placed, Kenneth arranged for me to undergo plastic surgery.
I have to say, it was bizarre to wake up with a totally different face.
He helped me forge documents to show I’d completed my degree under my new name.
I went to med school and focused on pediatrics, with a focus on shifter children.
I was a fast learner and graduated early again.
I did a one-year residency, then pulled strings to ensure I got a job at the practice where your parents took you for check-ups.
You were three-and-a-half years old the first time they brought you in.
It was all I could do not to burst into tears when you came walking into that exam room.
Kenneth made sure to contact your parents and let them know that they could safely get the suppressants from me.
It was another one of our ideas to keep you hidden from the royals.
I used my position as a doctor to run tests on all my patients.
I never told the parents, which I felt bad about.
Still, I was doing it for their benefit.
I had to make sure they weren’t descendants of Edemas.
Those children would be targeted, and it was my way of protecting them. I could hide their information.
At this point, I’m sure your wolf has awoken.
I know you’re angry about her being suppressed, but you have to understand why we did it.
You have to know what is coming. If you haven’t shifted already, then it’ll happen soon.
The suppressants weren’t only to keep you hidden from the royals but from everyone around you too.
When your father shifted, he wasn’t cruel or evil, but there were times when the wolf took over.
It became more pronounced and exerted more of its personality than typical shifters experience from their wolves.
During the full moon, it was worse. He could sometimes be scary, almost feral.
He came home multiple times, covered in blood, needing to clean up before anyone saw.
He’d have no memory of the night before.
One of the things that weighed on him was that he had no way of knowing if the blood was animal or human.
It was terrifying for us, and eventually, it broke your father.
He decided he wasn’t going to shift anymore.
He was strong enough mentally to hold it back without drugs, but it was a struggle.
It was physically painful for him to hold the wolf back.
This is what I was afraid your wolf would be like.
It’s the other reason I decided to put you on the suppressants.
You need to be very careful. I’ve included some articles in this packet.
I slid out several pieces of cardstock that had newspaper clippings pasted to them.
The stories were of murders and deaths that had taken place in and around Tampa in the years leading up to Maddy’s birth.
The descriptions were of people who’d been torn open and eviscerated as though they’d been attacked by a wild animal.
“Oh, Jesus,” Maddy said, putting a hand to her mouth.
I shook my head. “This doesn’t make sense.
When I shift, my wolf comes to the forefront, but I’m always still in charge.
She’s saying that your father sometimes completely lost himself in his wolf?
That… that’s a little terrifying to think about.
A lot of the urges my wolf has are not socially acceptable.
If I wasn’t there to temper those desires…
” I trailed off, shaking my head, unsure how I’d cope with something like that.
I think those deaths were caused by your father’s werewolf.
I used my connections to get blood samples for these victims and did a DNA check.
Every one of these people had familial connections to the royals.
I think when your father shifted, the wolf took over and hunted down royals where he could find them.
Your father told me the legend of Edemas. You may have heard them too, by now. The thing is, the standard legends are not correct. They are a warped version of the events, propaganda that was propagated by the royals.
The legends say Edemas wanted full-blooded shifter children, that he had a harem of shifter women to complete this desire, that his human wife, the queen, was not giving him sufficiently powerful offspring, and when she balked at his concubines, he had her killed, which is what started the revolt against him. This is not true.
The hidden part of this story is that Edemas’s wife was murdered by her own family.
They were greedy and jealous of Edemas’s power.
His wife was killed, as was his eldest daughter, the heir to the crown.
His daughter was thrown from the staircase.
That is what set Edemas off. The loss of his two most loved family members is what twisted his mind and drove him into madness.
It brought about his murderous rampage. He’d always been hungry for power, and yes, he did have concubines, but he was never cruel until the murder of his wife and eldest daughter.
Your father believed he was the reincarnation of Edemas himself.
He had it in his mind that he would be cursed to relive the same fate as his ancestor.
David often had nightmares, visions, and memories of things from the past. Things he thought were real images from Edemas’s life.
He saw things he couldn’t possibly have known.
These memories were how he knew that the legends and stories were wrong. He lived the truth in his dreams.