Page 83 of Challenged Mate
Because of them, Hunter was injured, I was attacked by a rogue shifter, and Asher nearly died when they tried to fix the winner of the games by allying with the Coastal Pack.
My eyes moved to the girl. “Why did you choose this book for me?”
A shrug. She lowered the hand holding the book. “I figured you wanted to learn more about your mom. Your family.”
My heart thumped. “How do you know who my mom is?”
“Please.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re Blair Hemmings. Everyone knows who you are. And since you revealed you have magic, everyone has figured out who your mother is, too.”
“They have?”
“I mean, yeah. It wasn’t hard once we learned her name. All sorcerers and sorceresses know her, even the ones in our pack.”
I was missing something.
I could feel it.
“Why?” I asked her. “Why does everyone know her?”
“Because she was basically a queen. She was The Mother Goddess.”
My heart continued to thump in a nervous rhythm.
“She wasn’t the Mother Goddess, though.” I remembered what my father had shared with me. When he tried to explain his reasons for sending me off to live with the Wilds Pack. “She was training to become the Mother Goddess, but she never actually claimed the title.”
“Um, no. That’s not true. The Graystone Coven wouldn’t have been so pissed when she ran away if that were true.”
She ran away?
I stared at the young girl in front of me, part of me resenting the fact she knew so much about this subject while I’d spent my entire life in the dark.
She stared back. I knew the moment she realized I was ignorant to the facts which seemed so basic to her. Pitching her voice low, she asked, “Your dad didn’t tell you much about your mom. Did he?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “No, he didn’t.”
To be fair, I wasn’t sure my father knew as much as the Wilds Pack shifters. He had no reason to lie about my mom being the Mother Goddess. He’d said she was on track to claim the position. Perhaps that’s what my mom had told him when they got together, and he accepted it as truth without knowing any different.
“I’m sorry.” The girl frowned. “That sucks.”
I choked on a half-hearted laugh. “Yes, it does.”
I stared at the shelf next to me, reading the titles. The books were about spells, charms, covens, certain sorcerers, and more. There was a plethora of reading material about half of my bloodline, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to dive into any of them.
I wouldn’t even know where to begin.
“I can tell you what I know…”
I tore my eyes from the taunting tomes and met the girl’s gaze. “What?”
The girl shuffled her feet. “If you have questions about stuff… I can tell you what I know about it. I spend a lot of time here with my mom, so I read a lot. I probably know more than most of the adults in the pack.”
Hearing the confidence in her voice, I didn’t doubt it.
“What’s your name?”
“Poppy.” She frowned. “I’m named after my great-great-grandmother. I hate it.”
“I think it’s a pretty name.”
