16. Chapter 16
Chapter 16
Alyssa
T he room had grown suspiciously quiet, and it took me a moment to realise it was because I was alone. I remembered vaguely the suggestion of going to see if they could find Rhidian and something about shifting tonight. That should be where my mind was right now. It was an immediate need, and the guys were about to go through something big. I should be supporting them. But I couldn’t tear my gaze away from my name written in my father’s looping handwriting.
My fingers grazed the paper as I tried to delay the inevitable. I didn’t even know why it hurt so much. This was a message I’d longed for, the final goodbye we’d never got to have. But now that it was here, I didn’t know if I could face it. I was afraid of what I was about to find.
The hand that grasped my shoulder startled me. I could have sworn they’d all left me alone to read the letter in private. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Ryder smiling down at me.
“Need some company?”
I nodded, realising that it wasn’t about trying to hide the fact that I was about to fall apart from them. I wanted the closeness of someone to lean against, someone to take the burden if it became too much for me, and I wasn’t even afraid to admit it anymore.
There was strength in letting yourself be weak. Holding it all together on your own was exhausting, and having someone who could help hold up that burden wasn’t failing. It was growing, evolving, creating a life that was actually worth living.
“You don’t have to do this now, you know? If you’re not ready, you can wait,” Ryder told me as he moved around the chair to duck down in front of me.
I knew what he was trying to do, and I appreciated that he cared enough to try to take the pressure off me. But he was wrong. It needed to be done. The one thing we didn’t have was information, and without it, we were at a distinct disadvantage, not knowing who we were supposed to be protecting ourselves from. We all needed the answers this letter could hold, not just me.
“It’s okay. I need to do this. There’s no point putting it off.”
Ryder’s head cocked to the side as I spoke, and then he took my hand, pulling me out of the seat as he stood. Dropping into the chair I’d vacated, Ryder pulled me down into his lap, wrapping his arms around me as he pulled me back to rest my head against his shoulder.
“If you’re not ready to read this, you’re not putting it off, Alyssa. You’re preparing yourself for something you know might hurt you and there’s no shame in that,” he told me softly. I could feel his lips moving against my hair from where he’d tipped his head to lie against mine.
“But we need to know what it says. We need to know if everything here is what it seems to be. He hid this for a reason, but he had to know I’d be back here searching for answers at some point.”
Right now, I had this vision of a loving family in my head. The memories of my parents and the life we had here were all I had left. They were the only things I could turn to when the memories of what happened got too strong to ignore. And I couldn’t lose them. I couldn’t learn it was all a lie. I wouldn’t survive it, and I didn’t know if I even wanted to. That scared me more than what could be written on these pages.
“If you’re sure you want to do this, I’ve got you,” Ryder told me. His arms squeezed me tighter, as if to confirm the point. “We do it together. Like everything else. You’ll always have me at your side if you need me there, Alyssa.”
I peered up at the man who was so intent on taking care of everyone around him. He thought we didn’t see it, and I knew Ryder well enough by now to know that he didn’t even think it was something worth praising. He was content to wrap himself in layers of humour, pretending that he didn’t give the group something it so desperately needed. And through it all, I couldn’t help but wonder who was looking after him before vowing to myself that it would always be me.
Without a word, I unfolded the paper, revealing the writing hidden inside. Even though I’d seen my name on the front, it still brought a tear to my eye to see a page of my father’s handwriting. This was the closest I’d ever be to him now.
Taking a deep breath, and hoping it came with an ounce of courage, I started to read aloud.
My dear sweet Alyssandra,
I had hoped you would never need to read this letter, but here we are. The solstice has begun and the pieces are already moving into place. It won’t be long now. And as much as it pains me to know what you’re about to go through, I at least have the solace of holding on to the fact that you will survive.
I don’t even know how to say the things that need to be said. Even putting it down on paper is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do and, to be honest, I’ve put off writing this letter for far too long. But time is one thing we’re never given enough of. Centuries of being your father would never have been enough, my sweet girl. It has been my greatest honour to watch you grow into the woman you’ve become. I only wish I could have stood by your side throughout it all.
Your mother and I were never lucky enough to conceive a child. Nymeria had a different fate in store for us, but when you were put into my arms and I held you for the very first time, I knew immediately that you were always supposed to be ours. Our sweet, beautiful miracle. A gift from Nymeria herself.
You are special, Alyssandra, and I don’t want you to ever doubt that. Fate has not laid an easy path for you, but remember that it is still yours to command. Prophecies are nothing but words, my sweet child, so ignore them. Nymeria has always been about intention. It’s how we’re taught to form our magic, and it is how we taught you to live your life. Be vibrant, be bold, and be courageous. I know you have great things inside you, and your story won’t end before you choose it to. Yours is a long and winding path and I wish I could be there to walk it with you. We should have prepared you more. We should have told you earlier. There are a million things we should have done, but we had to keep you hidden, keep you safe until the time came for you to walk the rest of this path alone.
Trust yourself, Alyssa. Trust your magic, and most of all, trust your mates. Bonds are meant to make us stronger. Lean into them. Don’t listen to the ill-informed superstitions of others. Forge a path to greatness and save the realm. Save the ones we couldn’t and forgive us for keeping you in the shadows when you were always supposed to rule in the light.
Your ever loving father.
I turned the paper over, and finding nothing on the back, looked at Ryder instead. This couldn’t be it. It didn’t give us any of the answers we were looking for.
“He loved you,” Ryder finally said. “He loved you so much, he didn’t want you to have to face this alone.”
It was enough to make me want to cry, but there was something about what Ryder had said that had me turning back to the letter instead.
Trust your mates.
Bonds are meant to make us stronger.
He knew. They knew I was going to find not just one mate but multiple, and not only that, but that I’d have to enter a bond with them. This was against everything I’d ever been taught, but now that I was thinking about it, was it what I’d been taught? I knew the story of the widow, everyone did. It was the cautionary tale that older fae liked to tell when they felt like their children wouldn’t conform to what they wanted them to. Yet, I couldn’t recall my parents ever telling me the tale, and deep down, I’d always known they had to share a bond as well. Even though no one spoke of it. My mother and father had both held the marks of royalty, but that shouldn’t have been possible because only my father came from a royal line.
I opened the book, flicking through the pages to find page after page of handwritten folktales, each with annotations at the side, adding factual specifics where the tales were too vague. The later pages were filled with sketches of the creatures of Nymeria and information about them and the places they lived. There were maps and descriptions of places, notes about Nymeria itself and pieces of legends stitched together to give a bigger picture of how Nymeria and its magic worked. This was like a manual for our realm and it was as if my father had known my mates would come into this world with no knowledge of it and the dangers it held.
“I think he wrote this for you,” I told Ryder, passing the book to him.
He raised an eyebrow before carefully opening the book and slowly turning the pages with more care than I’d have expected. He knew this book would mean a lot to me, and the fact that he was handling it like that meant the world.
“There must be something in here about the prophecy,” he mumbled, more to himself than to me. “He wouldn’t have risked you not knowing.”
“Not unless he knew there would be someone here to tell me it instead.”
My mind turned to Fizzle, and I didn’t know if it was my desperate need not to lose anyone else that was making me think I could trust him, or if I truly could. I hated that after all the years he’d been at my side, I still doubted him. I hated that it had come down to this. If he’d just been honest with me from the start, he could have saved me so much heartbreak.
“I’m going to read through this, if that’s okay with you? There have to be more answers in here. Or maybe there’s more hidden in this room?”
I looked at the shelves around us and knew there wouldn’t be anything else. What would be the point in risking that we wouldn’t find the letter if we found something else and stopped looking?
“No. This is it. Unless there was anything else behind the bookcase.”
I reluctantly climbed off Ryder’s lap and made my way to where Maddox had swung the bookcase a few feet away from the wall. There was a void behind it, far larger than the book we’d retrieved, but apart from dust, there was nothing else on the concealed shelf.
“Maybe someone else found it and took whatever was inside? Or he didn’t have time to hide whatever else was supposed to be in there?”
I shook my head. “No one would leave the letter behind if they’d taken something else. And he knew what was about to happen. He had plenty of time to write the letter and put it in there with the book. He’d have added anything else that needed to be there at the same time. My father wasn’t the type of man to leave much of anything up to chance.”
He knew . He knew what was coming for them and they did nothing to stop it.
I couldn’t even face thinking about that right now, so I chose to turn away and think about something else instead.
“We should catch up with the others. Make sure that everything is in place for tonight.” I turned to find Ryder standing behind me, a sympathetic look on his face. “How are you feeling about your first shift?”
It was a blatant change of subject because I didn’t want to think about the rest, and thankfully, Ryder went with the flow just like I knew he would.
“Excited.” When he saw the shock on my face, he laughed. “I can feel him, you know? The wolf. I can feel him pacing the edges of my mind and he wants out. It’s like I’ve got this itch just below my skin and I can’t quite reach it.”
“That sounds… really annoying, actually.”
Ryder laughed again. “Yeah, and I think the annoyance is all his.”
“Is it strange, feeling someone else in your mind? Do you… do you hate that I’ve done this to you?” I knew it was the only way for them to come into Nymeria and they’d all agreed to it, but they didn’t really have a choice in the matter when it came down to it.
“Fuck no! Are you kidding me? This is insanely awesome. I’m going to change into a wolf. Do you know how exciting that is? All my life I thought I was worthless, but it turns out that it just wasn’t what my life was supposed to be. This feels so right, Alyssa. I finally feel whole.”
Whole . That definitely wasn’t how I felt right now. I’d never felt more broken, and I absolutely hated it. I thought back to the bar when I’d first met the guys. It felt like an age ago, even though it was only a few weeks. How had I gone from that strong, self-assured woman to what I was now? The constant questions and doubts were getting old. I wanted to get back to the woman I’d always been, but maybe without all the self-loathing and denial I’d cloaked myself in.
Damn, becoming self-aware of your issues really wasn’t a fun time.
Sighing at myself, I shook my head and resisted the urge to slap some sense into me. “We should catch up with the others,” I said again. “I want to check the site they choose and make sure there won’t be any problems. I’m not prepared to risk any of you when you’re at your most vulnerable.”
This shift would be dangerous. The guys were obviously more than the ordinary shifters we’d come across before. Not to mention that Dean had an alpha wolf side to him now that, whilst he currently seemed in control, we had no idea what would happen once the wolf was allowed free.
Tank should really stay back at the palace. Having him there when Dean shifted for the first time could spark a dominance fight. We couldn’t afford for either of them to be injured right now, even if they healed quicker than they should be able to. There was no way he’d agree to that, though. Not unless I stayed back there with him, and I wasn’t about to do that. We couldn’t leave the guys alone and vulnerable, and right now there was no one else I’d trust to have their backs.
“It’s okay, you know?” Ryder said as my hand reached for the door and my escape out of this place. “It’s okay to be overwhelmed and sad and maybe even angry.”
My hand pressed against the wood of the door I’d opened so many times to see my smiling father sitting at the desk behind me. This had once been such a happy place, and I was struggling to put the image of the person I was back then with who I was now.
“How am I supposed to get over all of this? The lies, the betrayal, the massive sense of responsibility that I’m not prepared for and have absolutely no idea how to handle? I don’t even know who I am anymore. Queen? I guess there was a time when I’d thought it would happen one day, but that was lifetimes ago. I don’t even know who my people are, let alone how I’m supposed to protect them. I just feel so… broken.”
It was a fact that I hadn’t ever wanted to admit to myself, but it was a feeling I was more than familiar with. I’d spent decades in the human realm with this hanging over me. All I did was ignore it. Pretending the life I’d built around me was enough that I wasn’t struggling to get through the day with the guilt of abandoning those who’d needed me. And now here I was with the responsibilities I’d so utterly failed, staring me in the face, and all I could think about was the four men who meant the world to me. I was failing them again. I was running in a completely different way and I didn’t even know if I was ashamed of it this time. Some queen I’d turned out to be.
Ryder’s hands came to my shoulders, and he gently turned me around before he backed me against the door. His gaze locked with mine and there was nothing but understanding in his eyes. That, more than anything else that I was feeling, was what brought the tears to my eyes.
“No one expects you to be perfect, Alyssa. This is a totally new reality for you, and you’ll always have me at your side to help you navigate through it. You’re allowed to be confused. You’re allowed to be pissed. You didn’t ask for this and yet it’s yours, anyway. The four of us are going to do whatever we can to get you through it. You realise you’re not getting rid of us now, right? You’re ours, and nothing is getting between that.”
For once in my life, I listened, and I accepted the things he was trying to say to me. The weight on my shoulders finally started to lift and even though we faced nothing but danger, I could see a future I actually wanted to embrace for once.