006– Secret & Lies

RAEGAN

SECRET AND LIES

A week ago should have been the happiest moment of my— our lives. I guess I was wrong, woefully.

It had morphed into an intricate, heart wrecking nightmare, one that has plagued my mind for a week now. The entire length of the days my moonbeam had locked herself away from the world, from us— her mates and family.

And I’d realized that I was probably in my own world thinking she’d be happy about it. I knew deep down, below my selfish soul but I didn’t think it’d be this bad. My moonbeam had locked herself up in her bedroom, shutting out everything and everyone—that didn’t exclude us, her mates.

But we’d been a proper family until a week ago when she’d finally turned eighteen. When she had finally become aware of our mate bond. It was a secret I held… we held, my brothers and I.

We’d always known about it… since that night. I was the first of the bunch to realize it. And it’s been years since then.

My selfishness hadn’t let me reveal the truth to my parents. Her sweet fragrant overwhelmed my senses and I let my bestial nature take over.

The image of my mate’s dread-filled face had left me sleepless. I craved her presence even more with each passing day. Each day seemed like an ache in my bones ‘cause I wanted to see her; to have a glance at her face, to touch her, to marinate the vision of her beautiful persona into my mind over again. But all that was impossible with her lucked up in her room for the past week, not letting anyone in, even the maids.

Her turning of age had caused the pull I felt for her to intensify and it only took my brothers’ constant reminder to stop me from breaking down the door to her bedroom for that cause.

“This is all your fault, you know.” My brother’s voice drags me out of my thoughts.

I sigh against his words, a reality I did not want to acknowledge. I lift my head from my knotted hands against my forehead to look at him, giving him a cold glare.

“What? Am I wrong?” He growls at me and I wound a brow up at him.

“Damian, please... can we not do this now? I’m thinking.”

“Fuck no!” he hissed, rising from where he sat. Then he points a finger at me. “We wouldn’t be in this mess if you had thought about the consequences that night, then you wouldn’t have to sit here thinking.”

“You’re just as involved in this as I am. Why are you blaming me?”

“Because it was your idea, which makes it your fault.” He sneered with emphasis on the ‘your.’

“I didn’t see you objecting to said idea when I proposed it. In fact, you were too happy to indulge and lie to father and mother about Coral being our mate, Damian.” I retort harshly, getting up on my feet, ready to face off with him. If that was how he was going to play this card, two can do the trick. He recoils at my words, biting down a snarl.

“You were well aware that the three of us were mated to her and you knew what that would mean if our parents found out about it.” I snapped.

“Don’t you scold me.” Damian grits out.

The hell I will! You don’t get to put the blame solely on me, I might have been the one to initiate the idea and right now, I’m thinking of a solution for all this but you’re just as guilty as I am.”

“Wait, can you guys not—” Through my anger, I catch our youngest twin, Rune, start to speak but it was the voice that spoke over him that sends sparks of dread through the fibers of my bones.

“Unbelievable.” My father’s growl bounced through the walls of the living room. Our heads snaps to his direction, where he was standing by the entrance. His eyes glowing a morbid silver that looked cold enough to freeze the room and our attention with it and hot enough to kill us all.

“I had thought something was very wrong right from the morning you three disappeared on your sister’s birthday and then reappearing at night only to have the three of you looking so pleased that she was your mate,” he sighed, stepping into the room, his steps measured as he rubs on his stubbled jaw, “but to think you guys actually knew and kept it a secret from your mother and I… what in the goddess’s name is actually wrong with you three?!” he barked, sending us flinching at his harsh remark.

“Father, that’s not—” Damian doesn’t get the chance to speak. Father moves fast, partly transforming into his wolf, he cuts the distance with lighting speed and catches Damian’s face in his palm. With the force of his strength, he smacks Damian against a wall.

Rune is shaken as he tries to escape father’s fury but he’s just as unlucky as Damian. He gets caught and is thrown against a book shelf, the books crashes down with his body on the floor.

“Tell me something, son,” My father’s voice was low but raw with anger, I could feel it reverberating off him in solid waves. “What exactly were you really thinking?” He sneers, turning to face me.

I gulp at my father’s daunting demeanor, the eerie feeling of fear creeping up my spine. I haven’t actually felt this way in a very long time— in fact the only time I’d felt a familiar feeling was when I was a teenager training under tutelage of my father who was at the time still the pack’s leader.

My father was indominable, that fact I knew well. I was called the undefeated Lycan King but in truth, my father was the true embodiment of that name. He was the only one, even after ascending the position of Alpha that I couldn’t defeat in a fair duel.

I hadn’t felt the almost crippling effect of his daunting aura in a very long time. “Well, son, care to explain? And depending on your answer, I might rethink killing you.”

“I did what I thought was right. You would have taken her away from me.” I blurt out and regret it a second later.

My father closes the distance between us swiftly with a leap, a hard punch wrecks my gut and sends me catapulting across the room. My body collides with a couch, knocking me off against it as it painfully breaks my fall.

“That’s a very stupid thing to say.” He growls.

I groan from the pain my body’s been inflicted with, my head a bit foggy from my father’s hit. “I couldn’t help it… even you should understand how powerful the goddess’s mate bond upon us feels.”

“Well, yes, I do know it feels and I definitely understand your point of view…”

“Then—”

“But that doesn’t give you the right.” He barks. “Do you realize the extent of the damage you’ve caused?”

Father’s furious words clawed at me, dealing me a blow my selfishness had caused and because of that, I had ended up hurting the one person I should have protected with my life.

Grabbing me by the collar of my shirt, father drags me up and I catch the draw-back of his fisted arm, ready to deal me another hit. I couldn’t fight my father, not when I was in the wrong and… if that were to happen, it’d be the grand end of the house. As much as I hate this, I’d like to avoid further damage…

Then I felt it, her presence, accompanied with the sweet fragrance of her mouth-watering scent. My mate. My moonbeam. And my heart almost burst out of my chest as her warmth filled the room in an instance. My brothers felt it to because their heads were already raised when I glanced up at them. Their gazes stuck towards the direction of the living room’s entrance.

“Father… wait!” The sound of her voice as she raced into the living room was what I’d longed to hear for the past week, though filled with urgency and panic, the silky rich, vibrancy of it overflowed like milk and honey through my bloodstream. And I didn’t need to look at them to know, I could also feel my brother’s elevation as well.

But my father’s too agitated that he doesn’t hear her plea, her feet carries her across the room, wide, beautiful bottle green eye shone with worry and somehow it gladdens my heart to see her show such strong emotions for us.

“How could you three be so foolish as to lie to us?” My father’s scolding voice thunders through the room. I’d almost forgotten the situation on ground due to her presence. “Because of your foolishness, you might lose your mate, forever!”

His words has her feet trap to the ground and just then I’m thrust against a wall.

“Wh-What are you talking about, father?” My mate questions, lips slightly parted as she stares, bewildered at us.