"Lira, darling, just rest," Rayne pleads. "We are here. We are going to find Morgan, and we are going to—"
"You’ll find a monster," Lira interrupts, her voice gaining a sharp, feverish clarity. "I called you here... because I’m going to the Goddess... and I won’t take his secrets with . I’ve been bad. I’ve been so... so bad. But Morgan... Morgan is evil."
A cold shiver races down Heidi’s spine. "Evil?" her wolf echoes. "No. He’s broken. He’s hurting. He isn’t evil."
Heidi wants to believe her wolf. During the ti she has spent with the Bellamy brothers, she has seen the truth of them. She has seen the way Morgan hides his heart behind a wall of ice and sarcasm. She has seen the scars on his soul. He is rude, yes. He is difficult. But evil?
"What are you saying, Lira?" Amias asks, eyebrows arched in concern.
Lira looks at her parents, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes and disappearing into the bandages. "Do you rember... the cousin? The one you brought ho when I was ten? The one you trusted?"
The Beta and his wife exchange a confused, panicked look.
"He... he used to touch . In the dark. He told he’d kill you if I told. I was a child. I was so small," Lira sobs.
The Beta and his wife nearly collapse with shock. The woman’s mouth hangs open while the Beta lets out a growl.
"It was Morgan who saved ," Lira whispers. "He found out. We tortured my cousin together until he left. Since then... I worshipped him. I did everything he asked. I loved him with a sickness."
Heidi feels like the floor is tilting.
Amias looks like he’s been struck. "Then why date ? We’ve been together for years, Lira! Why stay with if you were in love with my brother?"
Lira turns her head slowly to look at him, a ghostly, pitying smile on her lips. "Because he asked to, Amias. He wanted to be his eyes inside your heart. He wanted to know every weakness, every doubt. He told to date you... because he wanted to make you miserable. He wanted to see you fall in love with soone who belonged to him. He wanted to twist your heart until it broke."
The room goes silent. The only sound is the beep... beep... of the heart monitor.
Amias recoils as if he’s been struck. He looks at his hands, then at Rayne, who looks like she’s about to faint.
"He hates you," Lira says, her voice rising with a strange, frantic energy. "He hates all of you. He told he wanted his brothers dead. He wanted them dead to punish you, Rayne. To punish Tobias. He wanted to leave you with nothing but the mory of the sons you failed."
"Lies!" Rayne screams, her face contorting. "My son is not a monster! You are lying to hurt us because he pushed you!"
"He promised he would marry ," Lira chokes out, a red foam appearing at the corners of her mouth. "He said he would beco Alpha... make Queen. I believed him. I did... I did terrible things for him. I helped him hide the shadows."
She turns her head toward Heidi, her eyes glassy.
"Grayson," she whispers. "He said he was utilizing the banishnt to conclude his plan and co back for . He knew, Heidi. I suspect... I suspect he let the rogues kill Grayson. He wanted Grayson out of the way. One brother down... two to go."
The air leaves the room. Rayne collapses into a chair, her head in her hands. Amias and Darien look at each other, the burr from the betrayal so thick Heidi can almost taste it.
And then, Amias falls to his knees by the bed, his head in his hands. Darien looks at Heidi, his eyes wide with a horror she has never seen. Nash’s parents are frozen, their world having just been inverted.
"He killed Grayson?" Heidi’s wolf howls in pure agony. "Our mate? Our own blood?"
Heidi feels like she’s drowning. Her mind flashes back to Morgan’s touch, his brooding silence. Was it all a mask? Was the man she felt a bond with just a hollow shell for a demon?
"Lira, please," Nash sobs, kneeling by the bed. "Don’t say this."
"It’s done," Lira says, her body suddenly racking with a violent tremor. Her eyes roll back, fixing on the ceiling. "He’s coming for... the rest of you. The darkness... It’s not his wolf. It’s... it’s—"
The heart monitor emits a long, flat, piercing tone.
"Lira!" her mother screams, throwing herself over her daughter’s body.
"Lira?" Nash shouts, lunging for the bed. "Lira! Look at !"
The healer rushes forward, but it’s too late. The monitors are flatlined. Lira’s eyes stay open, staring at a ceiling she can no longer see. The girl who worshiped a monster, the girl who betrayed a good man for a shadow, is gone.
The Beta’s wife lets out a scream that sounds like a soul being torn in half. She falls over her daughter’s body, her hands clawing at the sheets.
Heidi stands there, paralyzed. She looks at Amias who is broken on the floor. She looks at Rayne, who is staring at Lira’s corpse as if she’s looking into the mouth of hell.
The Duskwind pack isn’t just broken. It is haunted.
"He didn’t do it," Heidi’s wolf whispers, but even she sounds unsure now. "He couldn’t have... could he?"
Heidi doesn’t have an answer. She only knows that as the guards lead the wailing Beta out of the room, her whole world has just fallen apart.
The King is in chains. One brother is in a shroud. One brother is a demon in the dark. And Amias and Darien are left holding the ashes of a legacy that was never theirs to begin with.
Heidi reaches out to touch Darien’s arm, but he flinches. The poison Lira left behind is already working. The doubt is the new Alpha.
And Morgan? Wherever he is... he must be laughing in the dark.
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