Chapter 136: Who Answered the Call?

Author’s POV~

Logan opened his mouth to argue, to fight back.

Not a single sound came out of his throat.

"Tell me!" Selena screamed, tears finally breaking free, pouring down her pale cheeks hot, and furious while her chest heaved violently.

"Tell me what a newborn infant did to deserve being ripped from her mother’s arms! Tell me why I had to hold an empty, freezing blanket to my chest every night for ten years while some bitch raised my daughter!"

The grand hall plunged into an absolute, suffocating abyss of silence.

Lucas and Logan stood completely frozen, staring at their weeping mother, then glancing blankly at each other.

They had no answers.

There were no words left to say, because there was no defense for the ungodly pain carved into Selena’s face.

It was too raw, too ancient, and too deep to ever argue with.

Selena roughly swiped the back of her hand across her wet face, smearing the tears. Her heavy breathing slowly dragged into a ragged rhythm, and her shoulders slumped. When she spoke again, her voice had dropped into a terrifying, dead calm.

"That girl is going to pay for every single second of it," Selena whispered, locking her eyes onto her sons. "Every single day of the ten years I lost... Adeline will bleed for it."

Alpha Daren stepped up beside his wife, planting a heavy, possessive hand firmly on her shoulder. He looked down at his sons, his face looking like a mask of absolute doom.

"Listen to me very carefully, both of you," Daren ordered, his tone leaving zero room for debate.

"Here is how this is going to play out from this second forward. Adeline will never, ever find out who her parents were. Not a whisper, not a clue. We have buried that history in blood and poison, and it stays buried."

"But Father—" Lucas tried to interrupt.

"I told you to let me finish!" Daren’s voice dropped into a dark, guttural growl that instantly paralyzed Lucas’s tongue.

"The first priority is finding Chloe. I don’t give a damn how long it takes. Our daughter is out there, and she needs her true family. Every single alpha in the Crescent Pack will be out tracking her scent by dawn."

"And once we find her?" Logan asked, his voice strained.

Selena’s lips slowly curved upward, stretching into a cold, sickeningly sweet smile. The tear tracks were still wet and shining on her cheeks, but her eyes had completely transformed, hardening.

"Once our baby is safely back in this house," Selena whispered softly, "we pay a very special visit to the dowager luna of the Second Throne."

The twins stared at her in mounting horror.

"We are going to tell her the absolute truth about Adeline’s precious parents," Selena continued, her voice dripping with venomous glee.

"We are going to lay it all out in agonising detail, who Fredrick and Scarlett really were, the scale of their treason, how they betrayed the High Concord, and every dirty crime they committed against the Lycan empire. Just wanted to remind them what they did to the Four Thrones and then who that bitch Adeline really is."

"You’re going to tell the royals," Lucas said slowly, the horror dawning on him, "that Adeline is the spawn of their most hated traitors."

"Yes. In front of every single royal elite and council member," Selena’s smile widened into a terrifying grin. ℯⅇ𝙡.

"Let them hear the glorious truth straight from our mouths. And then... we sit back and watch."

Selena slowly turned her head toward the massive floor-to-ceiling window.

Outside, the night sky had turned an bruised, violent purple, and heavy, thick drops of rain were beginning to slam furiously against the glass.

"We’ll see how long the Four Thrones keep protecting that little bitch," Selena whispered into the dark room, her voice laced with pure, unadulterated poison, "once they find out whose traitorous blood is actually running through her veins."

Alpha Daren stood like a monolith beside her, offering no argument, his heavy hand squeezing his wife’s shoulder in a silent, deadly vow.

Behind them, Lucas and Logan remained nailed to the spot. They didn’t speak. They didn’t dare move an inch. They only stared at their parents’ rigid backs, feeling a glacial, bone-deep terror crawl slowly up their spines.

~

Adeline’s POV~

My eyes slid down the paper, past the messy lines of ink, stopping dead at the very bottom of the page.

Ten small digits.

Just ten numbers, neat and dark, sitting right there on the white sheet.

So this is it.

One part of me, the desperate, pathetic part that was so tired of being lied to, wanted to punch those numbers into my phone right this second.

It wanted to hear a voice, any voice, that could finally tell me who my real mother was, why every single year of my life felt like someone had ripped the first Chapters straight out of a book.

I wanted to figure out this nightmare once and for all.

But the other part of me, the survivor who had learned the hard way how cruel this pack house could be, was screaming at the top of its lungs.

What if it’s a sick trick? What if someone is just playing games with you? What if Chloe left it there to mock you? What if the twins set a trap?

"And what if it isn’t?" I muttered, my voice shaking.

That single question was the one I couldn’t push away.

It sat right in the center of my chest like a jagged stone.

If there was even a one percent chance that this number led to the real truth, to who I actually am, then I couldn’t just walk away and pretend I never saw it. I had been running and hiding my whole life, and look where it had gotten me.

With shaking, freezing fingers, I snatched up my phone. I typed the ten digits carefully, checking every single number twice to make sure I hadn’t messed it up.

Then, my thumb hovered right over the bright green call button.

I closed my eyes tight, took one deep, trembling breath, and pressed it against the glass.

Ri...

The line clicked.

I didn’t even get to hear the first ring finish its cycle.

My breath caught instantly in my throat.

I had expected a long, agonizing wait. Two rings, three rings, a voicemail greeting, or maybe just dead silence.

But the call was picked up so instantly, so smoothly, that it felt like the phone had already been pressed tight against someone’s ear, their thumb hovering over the screen, their eyes locked on the glowing display the entire time.