Claims
Chapter 128
ALEXNDER
I wasn’t supposed to be here today, not according to my own schedule at least. Visits to my mother’s were always carefully arranged–she liked them that way, I liked them that way. But today wasn’t planned.
I had been convinced… almost compelled to come over and talk with Helen. I knew Faye wasn’t going to drop it. So, for the sake of her peace of mind…and mine, I decided to do it.
My mother met me in the sitting room, surprised, her expression caught between delight and unease. “Alex,” she said, brushing her hands over her dress as though she’d been caught off guard by royalty. “You’re here? I was surprised to see your car through the window.”
My mother was a woman who prized order, who never liked surprises, and here I was, walking into her sanctuary without notice. Of course she’d wonder why.
“I needed to see you,” I said evenly, forcing composure into my tone. “Something came up. Something I need to hear from you directly.”
That made her stiffen. She had always been perceptive…too perceptive. The tiniest shifts in my words, in my face, could unsettle her, and today she was clearly unsettled.
“Something came up?” she echoed slowly. Her gaze moved over me as though searching for visible wounds. “Is it Faye? Is she alright?”
“She’s fine, mom,” I said quickly, cutting that possibility out of her mind before it rooted into panic. I sat down, and she did same.
She let out a faint breath of relief, pressing a hand against her chest. But the tension in her
frame didn’t ease. “Then what is it? You wouldn’t come here like this unless it were serious.
Please, talk to me dear.”
“Or..” She gestured toward the dining table with a forced smile. “Let me make you something. You haven’t eaten, have you? We’ll talk over lunch. It will be easier if-”
“No, mom. I’m fine, don’t bother yourself about that,” I said. Her brows lifted slightly.
I continued. “I didn’t come here for lunch. I just came for answers.”
Her lips parted as though she wanted to protest, but something in my eyes must have told her not to. She waited, rigid, her fingers twisting together nervously.
I drew in a breath before starting the awkward conversation. “I need to know about Father’s
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past.”
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The words dropped heavy between us. She blinked rapidly, her face twitching as though she hadn’t heard me right.
“What about his past?” she asked carefully.
There was no point circling around it. “Is it possible,” I said, each word like a stone dragged out of me, “that he had another child? Apart from me and Irene?”
Her entire body froze. I saw it instantly–the shift in her eyes, the tightening of her mouth, the hint of something she didn’t manage to mask quickly enough.
Shock. And recognition.
My throat went dry. “Mother,” I pressed, my tone harsher than before…. filled with desperation, because gods help me I didn’t want this to be true. “I’m asking you plainly. If there is even the slightest chance that there’s someone out there with Father’s blood running through their veins–if you know about it–you cannot keep it from me. I am not a child.”
“Alexander…” Her voice broke on my name, soft and fragile.
“You’ve always demanded honesty from me,” I continued. “Now I’m demanding it from you. As your son, and as Alpha. Too much depends on this for you to bury it. If there’s nothing, say so. But if there’s something…if there’s truth to the rumors…I need to hear it from you, not
from enemies.”
Her face crumpled, the strength she usually held herself with shaking. She turned away from me, as if she couldn’t bear my stare, her shoulders trembling faintly.
“Some things,” she whispered, her voice hollow, “are better left buried.”
I stared at her, my heart pounding hard against my ribs. The knot in my chest pulled tighter, suffocating me. She didn’t deny it. That was the first thing I noticed. She hadn’t said no. She hadn’t scoffed, hadn’t dismissed the question as absurd. She said it was better left buried. Which meant there was something to bury.
A chill spread through me.
“So there is something…you’re not denying it,” I said.
She stood up and face me, tears brimming in her eyes, and that was when the fragile control inside me began to splinter. Faye was right. I’d thought she was being cautious, maybe even overthinking…but no. She was right. My mother knew something. And I could no longer pretend otherwise.
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“Answer me, mom.” I demanded, the Alpha in me rising now, demanding obedience. “I deserve the truth. I am your son, and I am Alpha of Blood Crescent. My people depend on me to know what threatens us, what shadows from the past could rise against us. If Father left something behind–a mistake, a secret… I cannot lead blindly. Tell me what you know.”
Her lips quivered as she shook her head, as though trying to deny herself the ability to speak. I could see the war in her… the wife who had been betrayed, the mother who wanted to protect her son, the Luna who had lived with too many secrets for too long.
I held her gaze. “Mother,” I said softly, almost pleading now. “If you ever loved me, if you ever trusted me to be the man you and father raised me to be, then trust me with this. Do not shield me from the truth. I can take it. What I cannot take is the unknown.”
For a long, endless moment, she said nothing. Only silence filled the room, broken by her shallow breaths and my pounding heart.
And then, at last, she drew in a deep, shuddering breath, her eyes closing as if bracing herself against a storm. When she opened them again, her voice came up.
“Yes.”
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