Page 114 of Midnight Moon
Daughter of the Mother Goddess…
The sorcerer’s words played in my mind.
The world spun.
I stumbled. Asher leaned forward as if to steady me.
I pulled out of his reach. “Don’t touch me!”
He retracted his hand and straightened. His closed expression concealed his thoughts.
“Blair,” my father said gently, as if trying to coax a wounded pup out from its den. “I know this is a lot to take in, but it’s true. Before she died, your mother warned me her people might come for you. I never thought anything of it. Not until rabid shifters began popping up in our territory.”
I wrapped my arms around my torso, trying to hold myself together. “You think sorcerers made rabid shifters and released them on our lands? All to… lure me out or something?”
My father answered with one, simple, word, “Yes.”
A new fear squeezed my heart. An ordinary rabid shifter could be dangerous, but they were mindless. A mature shifter would have no problem subduing such a creature.
But, if the rabid shifters in Summit territory were anything like the one I faced in the forest, the creatures would be methodical and deliberate. They posed a very real threat to my pack, and the thought of any of my packmates getting hurt because of me did not sit well with my soul.
“Is this why you agreed to the Wilds Pack’s idiotic prize in the first place?” My father had put up a fight when Asher proposed his pack’s reward for winning the Alpha Games, but now I wonder if he had this plan in his head all along.
“No,” my father answered. “I had no intention of sending you to live among the Wilds Pack. Not until you were attacked. I realized there was no safer place for you than among fellow half-breeds. Their magic will protect you.”
Fellow half-breeds.
My head fell forward, and I stared at my muddy sneakers. I felt so many things: confusion, fear, regret… betrayal.
“You left.” I raised my gaze to my father. “Why?” How could he disappear for days after I told him about the attack? Hadn’t he feared the sorcerers could’ve tried again?
He replied, “I went to speak to a friend.”
“Who?”
“An ally—someone I thought might be able to strengthen the protection around our pack lands.”
There was only one race who could do that. “A sorcerer?”
“A sorceress,” he corrected, “Yes, but she told me there were no guarantees. The sorcerers who wish to find you are powerful, and she couldn’t promise her protection would stop them.”
“So, you made a deal with the Wilds Pack,” I stated, remembering how he and Asher argued before the Wilds shifter’s first match.
As I spoke with my father, the mate bond urged me to look at Asher. I’d denied the mystical link until that moment.
My attention moved to the dark-haired shifter. He and Chase stood in silence, watching and listening. Neither appeared surprised by my father’s revelations.
I was the last to know.
Tears warped my vision. I looked at my father. “You asked Asher and Chase to win, even though you knew it would kill my dream of becoming the next Summit alpha.”
“Your dream is not dead, merely… paused. Until we can guarantee your safety, you must stay on Wilds Pack territory.”
Paused?
What a joke.
There was no way my doubters wouldn’t jump on the opportunity my absence presented. They would nominate a different alpha heir as soon as possible. Of that, I was certain.
