Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
Just the idea of curling up with a book as Rowan made dinner. Another purr worked its way out and I froze. What the hell was I thinking?
Rowan is not mine. Not now…maybe ever.
I needed to pull away from these thoughts before I hurt myself even more than I already was. I felt tears spring to my eyes and I looked at Toya.
“Hey…are you alright?” She came to my side and I shook my head.
“I fucked up.” I answered honestly for the first time since everything happened between me and Rowan.
“Talk to me.” I pulled her back to the couch, and I unloaded.
“I’m going to tell you everything. But you can’t tell anyone.” I clenched my fists. “I trust you, and so do my wolves.” I looked up at her and watched her register my words.
“Your wolves?” Her mouth dropped open. “Like more than one wolf?”
“I have a secret…multiple secrets.” She nodded. “I need your oath that you won’t tell another soul. I haven’t even told my best friend yet, but I need someone here to help me and I trust you the most.”
I watched multiple emotions fly across her face.
It was hard to tell with her dark complexion, but she looked a little pale.
“Okay. I, Toya Argara from the Malawi pack, promise to keep everything you are about to tell me between us. I won’t share this with anyone, even under torture or command, until you release my oath.
” I waited until the words sunk in and nodded.
“Thank you.” I smiled and shook her hand.
“You have become my closest friend here, Amy. We may have best friends back home, but here you are, mine.”
“I feel the same way.” I smiled and then shook my head.
“I don’t know how much of my pack’s history your father knew, but I have to explain it.
” She settled back and I could tell I had her full attention.
“The first werewolf was made in the Agora. A patch of land that a witch held dear. Her son, her only child, was attacked by the local wolves. Their Alpha had been killed by humans and they attacked the first one they saw. The witch found her boy and called on her goddess, the three faced goddess, and begged for his life. But it was the Moon Goddess who gave him back to her. Changed. He held the spark for power, and wolves and he passed that down to his son, and it continued, until you get to me. A werewolf descended from the Moon Goddess’s first, and a witch. ” Toya’s eyes were enormous.
“Holy shit, you are from the first family?”
I just nodded and looked away. “Lycan’s are a different breed, descended from the Moon Goddess herself. Did you know that?” Toya nodded. “It’s a little weird to think of that because Lycans mated with other Lycans.”
“There were more lines.” Toya interrupted me. I looked up in confusion.
“What?”
“Other gods saw the blessing the Moon goddess gave to the Lycans and approached her. They created their own line of Lycans and wolves so that breeding wouldn’t become an issue.
” Toya twirled a ring on her finger that I just noticed.
“The Goddess Nut, of the sky in Egypt, was the first to make the request, but not the last.” Toya looked over at me.
“That is where my line falls from. The first wolves in Egypt. But all lines that came after, know of the first family.” She grabbed my hands. “But why bring up the Lycans?”
“Because, I’m Lycan.” I huffed out a sigh. “I’m Lycan, wolf and witch, all rolled up into one tiny package.” She stared at me for a long time. I nudged her. “Say something…” The longer she stared up at me, the more I felt the need to squirm under her gaze. “Toya…”
“Holy fucking Goddess.” Toya jumped to her feet.
“Are you serious? This makes so much sense.” She turned in a circle, talking to herself.
“The fact you are so powerful.” She started to list things off.
“That I felt drawn to you. Instantly, we had a connection.” She whirled back to faced me.
“You said wolves. Does that mean you have a wolf, and a Lycan…Do you have two forms? Do you have actual powers, or does it just bump up your aura and power level?” The questions poured out of her like vomit. She couldn’t stop.
I held up my hand, and she froze. “Come sit back down.” She sat next to me and I concentrated on my hand. A wisp the size of a tennis ball appeared, and she gasped. Her eyes grew wide as she stared at me.
“You have power?” I laughed and nodded.
“Yes, I have power, actual power. That’s why we can always talk openly here and not have to worry about being overheard. I snap a shield in place so others can’t hear us.” She looked at me and snapped her fingers.
“The first night here. When you came into the bedroom and we called our dads. I felt something shift. The room became echoey, even with all of us in there. I thought it was just my ears adjusting to the height of the penthouse, but it was you.”
I nodded again. “I’m still new to all of this, but I’m slowly learning.” I snuffed out the wisp and stood. I shifted, first into Nix’s form, waiting a minute, then shifting into Megan’s.
Toya’s hand flew up to her mouth. “Holy shit.” I chuffed out a laugh and then shifted back. She pointed at me. “You keep your clothes? How is that fucking fair?” I threw my head back and laughed. I laughed until my sides hurt.
“Toya…”
She waved her waves at me. “No! This is bullshit.” She laughed. “I end up naked if I shift in my clothes and you get to keep your modesty.” I laughed again. She was taking this way better than I thought she would.
“I feel like I should say sorry, but I am thankful for it.”
“I would be too.” She flopped back down on the couch. And I slid next to her. “Fuck, you are so lucky.” I snorted and Toya turned to face me. “What? What did I miss?”
I rubbed my face. “You have taken everything I’ve said pretty well. But there is more. My line has a secret.”
“Another one? How many do you frickin’ have?” I laughed, but I could tell she was invested.
“I actually don’t even know when this started but the Moon Goddess blessed my line with a second chance.”
“A second chance at what?” She leaned in. “Like a mate? We all have that…” But I quickly shook my head.
“At life.” Her eyes bugged out of her head.
“You come back to life? Like a vampire…are vampires real?”
I laughed again. “I don’t know about all that, but I know I’m not a vampire.” I shook my head at her. “What I mean is, I have already lived until the age of twenty-four. I found my mate. I was a Luna, and I grew my pack.”
“Holy shit.”
“And then…” I took a breath and looked at my friend.
“My mate betrayed me with my stepsister. He strapped me to a table. And had our pack doctor cut our pup from my belly. With silver.” Her gasp said it all.
“At least I got to hold him on my chest for a moment.” I sniffled as my tears fell.
“I can still smell him when I close my eyes. I hear his struggling breaths, and his stuttering heartbeat.” I wiped at my face, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t stop my sob.
“Amy…” I tried to smile as I cried harder. My hand fell onto my stomach and I had to shake myself back to now.
“He was perfect. And then he was ripped away from me and his father killed him while I was strapped to the gurney bleeding out. As Shannon, my stepsister, came to me and taunted me about lying to him.” I wiped my eyes.
“But it was all a lie. She convinced my mate that she was pregnant with his pup, that ours was someone else’s, when in fact hers was the Betas.
Because she was a whore. She slept with any ranked wolf she could. ”
Toya wiped a stray tear. “Who?” It was the only question she could ask. The only one that mattered. Who was the male that ruined me? “Who?” Her question more forceful. “Who do I have to kill?”
I laughed as I clutched her hand as a lifeline. My mind kept dragging me back to that day. I had spent so much of my time focused on my next move that I had pushed my last life to the back of my mind. Or I tried to.
But whenever I was asleep, my mind would bring me back to that day. To my son’s softly staggered breathing, and his face pressed against my skin. I wake up with his scent in the air and I have to search my bed to remember that he is gone.
Never even existed in this life.
“Before I tell you, I need to explain this. In my last life, I knew nothing I do now. I didn’t even know about my second wolf. It had always just been Nix and me.”
“Nix?”
“My black wolf. My secret Lycan.” I snorted. “She is my Alpha. Megan, my grey wolf, is a Gamma. Still Luna rank, just not as strong.” I heard a snort in my mind. I sent back love, and she sent a wave back.
“Your power?” Toya asked, but I shook my head slowly.
“Because of who I am, I needed to balance my power and be able to control it before I could shift. In my last life, I was still as strong as I am now, but I had never shifted, and because of that, Shannon had a way of tormenting me. She convinced my pack that I was less of a wolf because I never shifted.” I rolled my eyes.
“But that is a whole other thing. Anyway, because I never knew of Megan, I assumed my mate was Nix’s, but I was wrong.
My mate was Megan’s. I never met Nix’s mate before I died. ”
“So you have a second mate out there somewhere. Who, let’s fucking pray, is better than the last.” I nodded. “Now, who was your mate?”
I rolled my head on my shoulders. “Megan’s mate is Brandon…Vince’s son.”
Toya coughed. “Are you serious?”
“I really wish I wasn’t.”
“Is her mate…” Toya trailed off and then grabbed me by my shoulders. “IS! You haven’t rejected him? How does he not realize that you’re his mate?”
“When I died…I woke up on my eighteenth birthday. I asked my mom if I could reject him, and she could hear something was wrong. She knew my father could help save me.”
Toya flapped her arms. “Your dad has powers too.”
I cackled. “Yeah. When I went to his pack, I learned about it all. Met my second wolf, learned how to change my scent.”
“But won’t that stop you from finding your Lycan mate?” I nodded. “Then why don’t you reject him and then move the fuck on?”
“I wish it was that simple.”
“Then tell me. I will help you. Whatever it is, I’ll help.”
“My father and Rowan think Vince is involved. I need to get close to him, I can’t if I reject him.”
“How is getting close to him going to work?”
“I need to be able to figure out a way to get into their records. Their systems, to see if they are involved.” And lifted a shoulder. “I’ll need to get into the pack house to do it.”
Toya shook her head. “I don’t like it.” I leaned against her as she wrapped her arm over my shoulder.
“I don’t like that you have to get so close to him after he hurt you.
” I just stayed silent because there wasn’t much to say.
“I don’t know why or how, but I feel so protective of you.
I can feel it in my bones that we were meant to meet. ”
I nodded. “I feel the same way. But I’m not sure why or how. Normally, we feel this protective of our inner circle. Our Betas and Gammas.”
She agreed. “But I’m an Alpha.”
I pulled away. “Exactly.” I stood and pulled her with me. “Come on. I’m starving, and we aren’t going to solve the mystery tonight.”
She groaned. “I am so stiff.”
“I can honestly say I am excited to have a soaking bath before bed. These work outs and moving these couches in killed me. But I need food.”
Toya stretched and I heard a pop on her back. “Okay. Let’s go.”
“Did you want to try out the restaurant in the cafeteria building? I haven’t eaten there yet.” I offered as we slipped our shoes back on.
“Goddess yes. Let me call the others. We can make a night of it.” I pointed to her, and she pulled out her phone.
“I’m just going to check out my phone and grab a jacket. Then we can swing downstairs and grab them.”
“Living here is so much easier.”
“I know.” I ran to grab my coat and then we headed out.