Chapter 71 – The Truth Kael Was Never Told
POV: Kael
I had stopped believing in coincidences a long ti ago.
In Blackmoor, coincidences were usually planned by soone powerful enough to stay unseen while everyone else paid the price for them later. The older I got, the more I understood that truth. But understanding it and accepting that it applied to my own life were two different things entirely.
The council chamber had emptied nearly an hour ago, yet the tension from it still sat under my skin like sothing irritating I couldn’t scrape out. They had grown bolder lately. Not openly disrespectful, not enough to challenge directly, but close enough to test boundaries they never would have touched before.
And every single one of those boundaries led back to Liora.
So blad her quietly.
Others blad her loudly.
A few blad for bringing her here in the first place.
I leaned back slightly in the chair inside my study, my gaze fixed on the pile of old docunts spread across the desk in front of . Most of them were incomplete. So had pages missing entirely. Others looked like they had been intentionally damaged before being hidden away.
That alone told enough.
People did not destroy records unless those records mattered.
The fire in the corner crackled softly as I reached for another file, opening it carefully. The paper had yellowed with age, the edges brittle enough that too much pressure would ruin it.
Marriage records.
The first wife.
Then the second.
Then the third.
Nine nas.
Nine won.
Nine Luna ceremonies.
And nine deaths that had all been explained away differently.
Illness.
Failed bonds.
ntal instability.
Weak wolves.
One by one, they had disappeared from Blackmoor until eventually people stopped questioning it and started pretending it was normal.
My jaw tightened.
I already knew the marriages were not real political alliances. Not truly. I had known that for years, even before Seraphina stopped pretending otherwise with . The won had been chosen carefully, brought here carefully, observed carefully.
Tested.
The thought left sothing bitter in my mouth.
I stared at the fourth file longer than the others.
Alia.
Officially dead.
Body never recovered.
The report claid she threw herself into the northern river after becoming unstable during her first shift failure. The wording was clean. Too clean. Whoever wrote it had removed every unnecessary detail like they were trying too hard to make it believable.
I flipped through the remaining pages slowly.
There it was again.
Blood irregularities.
Potential compatibility.
Dormancy indicators.
None of it sounded like marriage docuntation.
It sounded like research.
I leaned back slightly, rubbing a hand across my jaw as exhaustion settled heavier into my shoulders. I had barely slept in days. Every ti I closed my eyes lately, sothing pulled awake again. Council pressure. Seraphina. Isolade disappearing without a trace. Liora training behind my back while pretending she wasn’t. The pack dividing itself quietly into factions waiting to see who would fall first.
And beneath all of that—
Fear.
Not fear for myself.
For her.
Because every answer I uncovered sohow made things worse.
A knock sounded against the door before it opened.
Ronan stepped inside without waiting for permission, his expression already tense enough to tell he had news I wouldn’t like.
"My Alpha."
I looked up. "What is it?"
"We searched the lower archives again."
"And?"
"There’s more missing."
Of course there was.
I let out a quiet breath through my nose. "Specifically?"
"Anything connected to the old bloodlines. The original Luna records. Healing classifications." He hesitated briefly. "White Wolf references."
The room went still around .
Not physically.
But internally.
Because that na had followed for months now like sothing waiting just beyond sight.
White Wolf.
At first it was only whispers hidden inside old legends. Then it beca theories buried in sealed records. Then experints. Then dead wives.
And now Liora.
I leaned forward slightly. "Tell exactly what you found."
Ronan stepped closer and placed another folder onto the desk.
"This was hidden separately from the others."
I opened it imdiately.
The handwriting inside wasn’t official Blackmoor script. It was older. ssier. Written by hand instead of formal record keepers.
My eyes moved across the first page quickly.
Subject compatibility unstable.
Awakening incomplete.
Healing traits present but unsustainable.
Potential White Wolf markers detected.
I froze.
The next line hit harder.
Failure before ascension.
My fingers tightened against the paper.
Not one wife.
Several.
Several of them had carried traits.
Not fully awakened.
Not complete.
But enough for Seraphina to keep trying again.
Again and again.
Again.
The word dragged another mory forward imdiately.
The wall.
The hidden writing Liora discovered weeks ago.
Again.
I stared at the page for several long seconds before speaking.
"She knew," I said quietly.
Ronan stayed silent.
"She knew exactly what she was searching for."
Not a powerful Luna.
Not political alliances.
Not stronger heirs.
The White Wolf.
Everything led back to that.
The marriages.
The experints.
The ceremonies.
The deaths.
Even Liora.
Especially Liora.
I stood abruptly and moved toward the shelves lining the far wall, searching through another locked compartnt hidden behind old military ledgers. My fingers found the smaller box imdiately.
The one I had avoided opening for years.
I unlocked it carefully.
Inside were older reports. Personal ones.
Not written by Seraphina.
Written about .
I pulled the first docunt free.
Condition worsening.
Dependency increasing.
Vial stability temporary.
Recomnded isolation during episodes.
My expression darkened imdiately.
I hated these reports.
Hated the weakness written into every line of them.
Seraphina’s control over had started long before I was old enough to fully understand it. Every ti the pain beca unbearable, every ti my body started failing under whatever poison she kept inside those vials, she was there with the cure.
Or what she called a cure.
Enough to keep alive.
Enough to keep functional.
Enough to keep dependent.
My grip tightened slightly.
For years I convinced myself enduring it was necessary because Blackmoor needed stability. Because challenging her directly before I understood everything would destroy the pack faster than she ever could.
But lately I had started asking a different question.
What if the instability had been her all along?
I looked down at the final report in the box.
The date made my stomach tighten instantly.
Winter Solstice.
Three years ago.
The mountain incident.
I opened it slowly.
Subject found near northern ridge.
Signs of severe internal collapse.
Vial deprivation confird.
External injuries suggest deliberate attack.
Recovery interrupted by unknown female presence.
I went completely still.
Ronan frowned slightly. "My Alpha?"
I barely heard him.
My eyes stayed locked on the page.
External injuries suggest deliberate attack.
Not ambush by rogues.
Not accident.
Attack.
Soone had left there to die.
The mory returned sharper than I wanted it to.
Snow.
Cold so brutal it burned my lungs.
Blood soaking through my clothes while my body shut down piece by piece.
And then—
Her.
Liora.
Standing in the snow looking terrified and stubborn at the sa ti while trying to drag toward shelter even though she barely knew who I was.
At the ti I thought fate had a cruel sense of humor.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
I flipped the page quickly.
The final paragraph had been partially burned, but enough remained readable.
Monitoring confird subject encountered compatible carrier prior to arranged selection process.
I stared at the sentence.
Then read it again.
Compatible carrier.
Liora.
Prior to arranged selection process.
The room suddenly felt too small.
"They already knew about her," I said quietly.
Ronan’s expression hardened. "Before the marriage?"
"Yes."
Not random.
Never random.
The realization settled slowly and heavily into my chest.
Seraphina had not chosen Liora after eting her.
Liora had already been chosen long before the ceremony was arranged.
Maybe before I even t her.
Every piece moved into place with terrifying precision after that.
The attack.
The missing vial.
Being left near death on that mountain.
Liora finding there.
The sudden marriage proposal afterward.
Ebonvale agreeing too quickly.
Seraphina watching everything too carefully from the beginning.
None of it had happened naturally.
Soone orchestrated it.
Soone needed desperate enough, weak enough, vulnerable enough to bond with the exact woman they wanted inside Blackmoor.
And sohow that terrified more than everything else combined.
Because if Seraphina planned all of this—
Then what exactly was Liora ant to beco?
I looked back down at the report, my chest tightening as another thought forced its way forward.
Would Seraphina even let her live if she awakened fully?
The question answered itself imdiately.
No.
Not if she couldn’t control her.
Not if the White Wolf beca stronger than the leash she spent years tightening around this fortress.
A cold anger settled into then, steadier than rage and far more dangerous.
All this ti I thought I was protecting Liora from Blackmoor.
But what if Blackmoor itself had been built around hunting won like her?
I closed the file slowly.
Ronan watched carefully. "What do you want to do?"
For a mont I didn’t answer.
My thoughts kept circling back to that night in the snow.
The way Liora looked at .
The way she hesitated before helping anyway.
The way everything after that unfolded too perfectly to be chance.
I finally looked up.
"That eting..." I said quietly, more to myself than to him.
The truth settled fully into place.
And once it did, there was no unseeing it.
"That eting was never an accident."
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