The Nameless Luna – Book Two: What Binds and Breaks: Chapter 7

When the darkness unravels around me, I don’t know where I am. I don’t know how I got here or how I will ever get back.
But I know things will never be the same.
The swirl of leathery black wings and shadows consolidates into a cloud in front of me, solidifying back into the form of the red-eyed man.
My father.
I could pretend that I don’t believe it. I could tell myself that I’m in shock and that this stranger might very well be lying to me. But it would be a cruel joke at best. The truth is, I knew who he was the minute he mentioned my mother. I saw it written on his face that resembled mine, felt it in the back of my mind the same way his voice had echoed there.
It made sense, really. This was the reason I could mind link to him. It’s the reason my eyes are violet instead of blue like my mother’s and my uncle’s, the crimson undertones marking me irrefutably as something different. Because whatever this man may be… he is not a wolf.
“Apologies, child, but I had to get you out of the shifters’ territory. Crossing another king’s border can be a delicate affair, even without having to worry about the sunrise. Besides, I wouldn’t want to risk a rogue interrupting our reunion.”
Reunion? I nearly snorted.
Tristan felt guilty about taking me from my old pack, saying that he’d kidnapped me. But my mate had offered me his hand. He’d offered me a choice.
This is something entirely different.
I scan my surroundings, searching for anything I might be able to use as a weapon, trying not to remember the way broken champagne glass bit into the skin on my palms what feels like a lifetime ago.
I’m standing in what appears to be an empty throne room. We’re inside a castle—not just a villa or a mansion, but a proper stone pillars, towers, velvet drapes, princess-worthy castle.
“What are you?” I ask under my breath, staggering back from the man who now watched me with a curious, almost catlike gaze.
“I am Marco Silas, King of Night,” he says, lifting a hand to his chest before bowing gracefully.
More like the king of ambiguously-unhelpful-answers.
I frown at his words, noticing the way darkness follows his every movement as if his shadow is a living thing that clings to him like a cape.
“So… you’re an Alpha of sorts?”
The man’s brow furrows in distaste, but there is a twitch in the corner of his lips that hints at amusement as if the notion itself is laughable.
“Of sorts,” he repeats. “Packs are for wolves and covens for witches. What I lead is a clan of nightwalkers.”
Nightwalker? The word tugs at something buried deep in my memories. A hushed word whispered with great urgency, a scary story meant to keep children from misbehaving. But that sort of monster is more commonly known by another name, and I can’t help but take a small involuntary step backward, my jaw hanging loose in shock.
“You’re a vampire.”
Again, his lip twitches, and he folds his arms across his chest with an almost predatory sort of patience.
“My kind and I have been called many things. That is one of them. But tell me, child, what shall I call you?”
The question shouldn’t take me by surprise, but it does, and the insult of it cuts deep. I know it was unreasonable to expect this man to know my name. He told me himself that he thought my mother had died before I was born. Until recently, he did not even know I existed.
Still, there had been a small part of me that had hoped, and it’s now crushed with such a sudden force that it nearly knocks the wind out of me.
“Nothing,” I reply coldly, my voice barely above a whisper. “You should call me nothing. I have no name. My mother lost her mind before giving birth to me, and she died shortly after. I was born with nothing. You left her with nothing, and she died insane and alone. I was never given a name.”
Surprise flashes across his scarlet eyes, and it looks unnatural on his sharp features.
“What are you talking about?” he asks, taking a step toward me. “My dear child, I did no—”
“I am not a child,” I snap, a sob cracking my voice, and when he moves to close the distance between us, I push my hands against his chest, shoving him back. “I stopped being a child long ago, and I am certainly not yours. You don’t know me. I don’t even know me. You have no idea what I have been through because you weren’t there. I don’t know what you did to my mother, but do not think for a moment that it makes me yours.”
“What I did to your mother,” he replies sharply, anger burning behind his bloody gaze, “was love her. I adored Vanessa. Many years ago, when your uncle was still an overly ambitious young man, he sought to secure himself as the next Alpha of the Banes. He sent out scouts high into the mountains, farther than any wolf in their right mind would have ventured. He was looking for power, trying to prove his worth as a future leader. What he found, instead, was me.”
Something darkens in his expression, and I do not dare interrupt him. Honestly, I’m not even sure I want to. I’m horrified and furious and heartbroken, but I’m finally getting some answers.
“My people had lived in peace for centuries, thriving in the shadows of secrecy, but your uncle and his squadron discovered my kingdom; Viktor did what Viktor does best. He caused trouble, foolishly believing he could wield the strength of my clan for his own purpose and take over my kingdom. But when he realized he’d picked a fight he could not win, he abandoned his petty little battalion and fled. My nightwalkers killed every single Bane that stupidly tried to take our own home from us. Only two wolves survived the battle: Viktor, who turned his back on his men to save his own skin, and his sister Vanessa, who’d been unwillingly dragged into your uncle’s schemes.”
I knew there had been conflict before Viktor became Alpha, but from what I’d heard, everyone believed it had been against another pack of wolves. Viktor had covered up the truth of his encounter with the vampires to conceal his failure. Knowing my uncle, he probably spun it into a tale of heroism, claiming that his team had been attacked by rogue wolves or some other villainous pack. When he became Alpha, he certainly would have had the resources to bury the truth, turning himself into a brave warrior for the pack, and the nightwalkers became little more than legend.
Right now, none of that really matters.
I’ve always known the length to which my uncle is willing to go for his own selfish gains, and it’s no secret that my knowledge of my own world and the people who inhabit it has been limited at best. I’d been wrong about the Rovers being a bunch of rabid rogues, and I was wrong about the existence of vampires. I’ll add it to the growing list of things I feel clueless about in my life.
But Vanessa… I’ve never known my mother. And that I cannot ignore.
“What did you do to my mother?” I ask, my hands clenching into fists.
“I let her go,” Marcos replies calmly, resentment crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Vanessa was kind and wise, and she tried to warn Viktor against his suicide mission. She was not like the others. She neither feared nor fought the things she did not understand. She was merely fascinated by them.” Something soulful and sorrowful washed across his elegant features, and his gaze was distant, blurry with affection and regret. “We wrote to each other throughout the years, even after her brother became Alpha. She was such a loving, lonely woman. I did not realize I was falling in love with her until I found myself dreaming of her during the day and longing for her every night. I did what I swore I’d never do, and I left my lands to sneak across the territories to visit her.”
A forbidden affair between a wolf and a nightwalker. My mother was never marked. She never mated with a male… she couldn’t. A vampire’s bite would be fatal to a werewolf, so even if my father loved her as he claimed he did, he could never mark her.
And the offspring of such a union would be the hybrid of two enemy species. I’ve never fed on blood, but I’ve also never shifted into my wolf form. Neither one nor the other.
Tears sting my eyes, and I take a shaky breath, feeling the fight drain out of me.
It turns out my uncle was right—I’m a half-breed mutt, after all.