POV Kiara
I barely make it out of Marcus's front door before my legs start shaking. The cool night air hits my face but it doesn't help. Nothing can help right now.
Every single thing I believed about myself is a lie. My mother wasn't a brave werewolf who died fighting vampires. She was a vampire. She left us. She chose her vampire clan over her husband and daughter.
My breathing gets faster and faster. The world starts spinning around me. I need to get away from the pack houses before someone sees me like this. Before someone hears what's about to happen.
My breathing came in rapid, shallow gasps as the weight of his revelations crashed over me in devastating waves. My feet pound against the forest floor, branches whipping past my face.
I can't think straight. Every breath feels like drowning.
Marcus's words keep repeating in my head. "Your father told everyone she died in battle to keep you safe."
Safe from what? From being killed for what I am? From my own pack turning against me?
Twenty-three years of lies. Twenty-three years of carefully constructed deceptions designed to keep me ignorant of my own nature.
Every bedtime story, every explanation about my mother's death, every assumption about my identity… All of it crumbling like sand through my fingers.
The rage hit first, white-hot and consuming. How dare they?
How dare my father spend years lying to my face while I mourned a mother who wasn't even dead?
How dare Marcus sit across from me tonight, calmly eating dinner while holding secrets that could have helped me understand why I'd always felt different? Why I'd never quite fit with the other wolves?
Then came the grief. Not just for my father's death, but for the version of myself that had died tonight.
The girl who'd believed she was a pure werewolf. Who'd built her identity around being the pack's Alpha. Who'd thought she understood her place in the world.
That girl was gone, and in her place stood something I didn't recognize.
But underneath the rage and grief, betrayal burned like acid in my veins. Everyone I'd ever trusted had conspired to keep me in the dark. And the only person who'd told me the truth was the monster who'd murdered my father.
I stumbled through the forest, desperate to reach the deep woods where no pack member would witness whatever was happening to me. My vision blurred with unshed tears, and my hands shook with emotions too big for my body to contain.
When I finally reached the grove where I'd trained as a child. Where my father had taught me to fight and hunt and lead, my control shattered completely.
The scream that tore from my throat carried twenty-three years of suppressed truth, and strange power exploded from my body like a shockwave. The sound echoed through the trees—part human anguish, part something wilder and more dangerous.
The ground shakes under my feet. Ancient oak trees crack down their centers, massive trunks splitting with sounds like thunder. The tree closest to me tips over completely, its roots tearing out of the earth.
Boulders split in half around me. The very ground breaks apart in lines spreading out from where I stand. Smaller trees snap like twigs. Leaves and debris fly through the air.
I can't stop it. I can't control whatever is happening to me.
My body feels like it's tearing itself apart from the inside. My bones ache like they're changing shape. My muscles burn and stretch in ways that shouldn't be possible.
Everything hurts.
But the physical pain isn't the worst part. The worst part is understanding that nothing about my life has been real.
My senses explode outward. I can hear every insect moving in trees miles away. I can smell each individual pack member's scent from impossible distances. The sounds are so loud they hurt my ears. The smells are so strong they make me dizzy.
Is this what being half vampire means? Enhanced senses beyond what werewolves have? Strength that can destroy forests?
I collapse to my knees in the destroyed clearing. Broken tree pieces and rocks surround me. The ground is cracked and torn up.
I did all this. This power came from me.
"Kiara?" Thomen's voice fills my head through our mate bond.
The familiar warmth of his mental touch should comfort me, but right now it just makes the guilt worse. His voice was gentle and concerned, filled with the desperate need to comfort me, and the familiar love in it made my heart break all over again.
How could I tell him that everything about me was a lie? That the woman he'd fallen in love with didn't really exist?
"I felt your pain spike through our connection," he continues, worry is clear in every word. "Are you hurt? What's happening? Where are you?"
I force myself to breathe slower.
I can't let him know what just happened. I can't tell him that I just destroyed half a forest with hybrid power I didn't know I had.
"Everything's fine, darling," I lie, trying to make my mental voice sound normal. "Just needed some air after dinner with Marcus. I'll be home soon."
"Are you sure?" Thomen's mental voice carried skepticism. "The pain I felt through our bond... it was intense."
"I'm sure," I insisted, forcing warmth into my mental tone. "Marcus just told me some difficult truth about my father. I needed time to process it. Just give me a few more minutes, and then I'll come home to you."
That's not exactly a lie.
Marcus did tell me about my father. He just also told me everything else.
"Okay," Thomen says, but I can feel his continued worry. "Don't be out too long. It's not safe with vampires in the area."
If only he knew that the real danger might be me.
His mental presence fades as he stops actively communicating through our bond. I try to stand up but my legs still shake. The destroyed forest around me looks like a bomb went off.
How am I going to explain this if someone finds it?
That's when another voice slides into my mind. This one is different from Thomen's warmth. It's darker, older, carrying power that makes my skin prickle.
"I can feel you, love," Aleron's voice whispers in my consciousness.
I freeze. He's not here physically, but somehow he's in my head just like Thomen was. Except I never gave Aleron permission to access my mind.
"Get out of my head," I say out loud to the empty clearing.
"I can feel your pain, your confusion, your fear," he continued, his mental voice smooth as silk. "The way your body is changing, the way your power is awakening… You're magnificent, love. The bond between us is fully active now."
"We're not soulmates!" I shout at the air. "You're my enemy!"
"That doesn't change what we are to each other," his voice says calmly. "I can feel everything you're experiencing right now. The betrayal. The anger. The fear of what you're becoming."
Horror creeps up my spine.
If he can feel my emotions, can he see my thoughts too? Does he know what I just learned from Marcus?
"Not your thoughts," he says, answering my fear. "Just emotions. But your feelings tell me enough. Someone finally validated you the truth about what you are."
"Stop talking to me."
I don't want to hear this. I don't want him in my head. I don't want any connection to the man who betrayed my father and got him killed!
But as I try to push his presence away, I realize something terrible. I can feel his emotions too. His concern for me. His regret about the past. His loneliness that stretches back decades.
The connection flows both ways. I'm linked to Aleron whether I want to be or not.
"I know this is overwhelming,” he replied calmly. “But you need to accept what's happening to you. Fighting against your vampire side will only make the changes more painful."