My breath hitches. “Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice breaks, but I keep going. “Why did you mate with him? With the man who built his entire legacy on hunting down our kind?”
Finally, she looks at me. Her eyes are hollow. “The best place to hide is in plain sight. No one would have ever suspected the alpha’s mate and stepchild.”
She looks old suddenly. Older than I’ve ever seen her. The proud, strict woman who raised teenaged me with ice in her veins has faded into someone I barely recognize.
My heart twists painfully. “You always wanted me gone. Is that why? Because I was a hybrid? You hated me because of that?”
Her head lowers. When she speaks, her voice is filled with defeat. “I didn’t hate you, Violet.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“I was trying to keep you safe.” She looks up again, and there are tears in her eyes. Actual tears. “I saw your father die in front of me. Your brother. I had to be harsh. We were living amongthe enemy.”
I want to argue, but the words stick in my throat.
“And when I found out about your fated mate bond…” She trails off.
My stomach drops. “How did you know about that?”
“I saw Darius looking at you when he came to the main house for your eighteenth birthday. I saw the change in his expression. The longing.” Her lips press together for a moment. “His wolf was in his eyes. I knew, Violet. I knew what you were to each other. So, I sent you to Europe the next day.”
My head swims. She sent me away because of Darius. Because she saw what I couldn’t see.
“I was never going to call you back home,” she continues. “But Alaric, that murderous bastard, wanted you here.”
My chest lurches as confusion wars with fear. “Since Darius knew I was his fated mate, did he try to keep me from leaving?”
A part of me whispers that he wouldn’t have. That he never wanted me to begin with. But another part, a desperate, foolish part, wants to believe he would have fought for us.
My mother’s upper lip curls. “I will never allow you to be with that man, Violet. I would never have allowed it. His family has your family’s blood on its hands.” She pins me with her eyes. “It was Zion who killed Trevor.”
Both names shock me, but all I can see in my mind is Trevor. My brother. The boy I barely remember but whose absence has shaped my entire life.
“Those monsters came to our settlement,” my mother says, her voice shaking with rage. “Zion wanted someone. A girl he’d had his eye on. We all paid the price for that. And he made it look like we were the monsters.”
I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Zion killed my brother.
My mother pulls at her chains, the metal scraping against the rock wall. “Darius is just like them. You would have found out sooner or later. The moment he learned you were a hybrid, he would have killed you. He’s no different from the rest of his family.”
Tears drip down my face. Darius doesn’t want to publicly claim me as his mate because being with his stepsister is already taboo enough. If that is such a problem for him, if he cares more about his position as alpha heir than being with me, then my being a hybrid would be the final reason he needs to walk away. He would reject me. Perhaps even kill me himself.
“Maybe you’re right,” I mumble.
But my heart screams that she’s wrong. Part of me disagrees desperately, clinging to the memory of his hands on my skin, the way he said my name like I was something precious.
I look at my mother through blurred vision. “What’s going to happen now?”
She sighs, and the sound is full of resignation. “They’re going to kill us, Violet. I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
The term of endearment catches me off guard. I lower my head, pressing my lips together to keep from sobbing. Tears fall anyway, streaming down my face.
We sit in silence. The torch flickers, casting dancing shadows across the walls of the cell. I count my heartbeats, trying to ground myself in something tangible.
“How did Alaric never know you were a hybrid?” I finally ask.
My mother’s voice drops to a whisper. “I used my magic to control my scent. But you”—her voice breaks—“you were too young. The medicine I gave you subdued your wolf, your powers. Every dose was a risk.”
I think about all those years I felt broken. All those years I thought something was fundamentally wrong with me because my wolf was so weak.
