Chapter 63: Unraveling

Aurora

Eleanora and I were on our way back to my place. She spoke excitedly about my mother and told me how it was raising her.

“Oh, and when she met Rodrick. It was love at first sight. Their mate bond kicked in immediately, and they were inseparable since then.”

“How did they meet?” I had to ask her even though I know the story by heart. Dad always told it to me when I was a kid. Still, I never grew tired of it.

“That was at the Silver Bow Pack’s annual ball. The alpha back then had decided to invite unmated wolves from allied packs to see if his fated one was among them.

“My Becky had no interest in meeting her mate yet. In fact, she thought she was cursed and would never get the chance to meet her fated one.”

“Cursed? Why would she be cursed?” I asked as I opened the front door.

“My Becky was a bit of a pessimist, you see. She thought her origin had cursed her, and that she was destined to die a lonely wolf. That the royal lineage would end with her. But the Moon Goddess proved her wrong.

“The moment the late alpha, Gunolf, walked in with his beta—the late Alton Barone—and your father—the then-gamma, Rodrick Craton—it was love at first sight,” she said dreamily.

I couldn’t help the smile that crept up my face.

“They dated for a couple of years, but then your father proposed to her. I must admit that he was a very romantic man,” she said as she entered the house and sat on the living room couch.

“They married at the Silver Bow Pack, and then Becky and Rodrick left to live here at the Blood Moon Pack. Since your dad was the gamma and all, there was no other choice, but Becky was okay with it.

“She grew up in the Silver Bow, but she never felt like she belonged; neither of us did. Not that we were outcasts or anything, it just wasn’t our pack,” she said.

“What was Mom's pack like? The one she was born in?” I had to ask.

“It was a very peaceful pack. Humble and secure. It had roughly eight hundred members. But they were all kind-hearted. They had accepted us witches within their pack without any prejudice.” She reminisced.

“What was the name of the pack? According to the documents we found in the Silver Bow Pack’s library, you said you came from the Golden Blood Pack?” I asked her.

“Yes. Your grandparents. The alpha and luna of the Golden Blood Pack were ambushed. They had no mercy as they killed men, women, and children. They slaughtered them all.

“At the time I was one of the pack's leading mages. Your grandmother, Lady Amelia, handed your mother, who was only an infant, to me, and they implored me to run away and seek refuge in the closest pack.”

“Who could do such a thing? Why would they attack the pack?” I asked her.

“It was human hunters who attacked the pack. They slaughtered every one of the members,” she said as a somber expression covered her face.

I still couldn’t believe it. Why were the hunters after us wolves? I’d understand the other supernatural beings like vampires who feed off of human blood and maybe evil witches who practice dark magic, but why wolves?

We have never harmed any human being. Then I remembered something that Eleanora said while we were in Wolfgang’s office.

“You said my mother was half human. Does that mean that one of my grandparents was…?” I trailed off on the last word.

“Human? Yes. Your grandmother, Lady Amelia,” she said.

“How did the elders allow that relationship?” I had to ask. Mating with any other being, especially human, is taboo and considered an abomination.

“As I said, the Golden Blood Pack had no prejudice. Once Alpha Maverick found out that Lady Amelia was his mate, they took her in as one of their own, and he marked her,” she said to me.

“At first, when your mother was born, there was doubt about her even being a wolf, because Lady Amelia had a normal pregnancy of nine months. A werewolf pregnancy is of only three months.

“When Rebecca was born, she showed no sign of being supernatural, so we assumed she’d taken after your grandmother.”

“But she wasn’t. She was a royal, just like me, wasn’t she?” I asked.

“Yes, but I only found out years later, when she shifted for the first time. The Silver Bow Pack doctors had examined her as a baby and determined that she was a wolf pup.

“They had to make sure that she was one of their kind and that I wasn’t lying, but somehow had her supernatural powers suppressed until she became of age.

“Once she went through her shift and we saw the white fur covering her body, we knew there was more to her. Her powers were beyond anything I had seen as a witch, but she had no control over them.

“I noticed they were mostly triggered when she was feeling anxious or angry.” She explained. “That’s when I started investigating about white wolves, and I came across the existence of the Descendants of the Moon.”

“Was my grandfather the royal then?” I asked. It had to be him, right? He was the werewolf, after all.

“No. The royal lineage is inherited only to the next female.”

“So…that would mean that my grandmother was the royal?” That couldn’t be right. She was human.

“Yes. Years after your mother’s death, I discovered that your grandmother had an ancestor from the royal line. Lady Amelia had been adopted by humans, so the knowledge of her bloodline was lost for a time.

“Her lycan blood remained dormant, but it was renewed in her daughter, thanks to the mating bond she had with your grandfather, a full-blooded werewolf.”

“But she never shifted or showed any supernatural power, did she?”

“No, she didn’t. Your mother was what we call a hexed pup. She was, by nature, of werewolf blood, but she did not have the abilities or strength of the were kind,” Eleanora said.

“But she could still mate with a werewolf. How was that possible if she did not have a wolf of her own?” There was no way she could have mated with that half of my grandfather without a wolf.

Everybody knows that without a wolf, there is no chance of mating.

“She did have a wolf, dear. But somehow they were completely separated. They never did communicate with each other, so it seemed like she was hexed.

“I had only read about it in books but never thought I’d actually come across it. I only wished I had known before. I would have helped Amelia reach out to her wolf.

“She would have been the key in avoiding the death of the Golden Blood Pack,” she said once more with a somber expression. I could tell she was genuinely hurt that she could not save my grandparents.

That she did truly care about them.

“Until recently, it was believed to the world that royals had been extinguished. It seems that word had come out somewhere that Lady Amelia was royal after your mother’s birth, and they attacked not long after.

“I still don’t know why they are targeting the royals, but it seems personal to me,” she concluded, and she was right. It all seemed too personal to me as well—how determined this Wendell guy was on killing me.

“They did say they hunted all supernatural beings. Maybe it’s an obsessive-compulsive behavior?”

“I don’t know, hun, but in any case, I need you to be ready. That’s why, starting tomorrow, you’ll be under special training,” she said.

“For now I would like a warm meal and to get some rest. I am an old lady after all.” She gave me a wink before standing and stretching her arms. This woman didn’t look a day older than thirty.

“How old are you exactly, Eleanora?” I asked. I know it’s not good manners to ask someone their age, but curiosity got the best of me.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” she said as she walked out of the living room and headed up the stairs.

“Where are you going? Wait, I’ll show you to your room,” I shouted as I got up and ran after her.

“Oh, there’s no need, sweetie. I know my way around. Becky and Rodrick always placed me in the room right next to the staircase. In fact, I already had my luggage delivered in here.”

She opened the room, and what was once an empty space was now completely furnished. The bed was made; the closet was in the middle of being organized as gowns and pieces of garments flew from the open luggage into the closet.

“Wow.”