Vindicator

Chapter 23

After promising to find Theo, Karma left the Queen to return to the Lupine Realm. There, she found her mother and Faith sitting on the ground looking stunned.

Pulling her hood down, Karma stared at her mother with a frown. "Mom?"

Christina, who appeared to be in a daze, looked up at the sound of her daughter's voice. Her eyes were teary, and her face was as white as a sheet. "Karma..." she whispered.

"Mom! What's wrong?!" She demanded, rushing to her mother and dropping to her knees by her side.

Faith had been curled around Christina in what appeared to be an effort to comfort her. The wolf let out a soft whine, leaning in to nuzzle against Karma once she was within reach. This only served to worry the girl more. "What's going on?" She demanded of her mother.

Christina didn't answer, and instead hugged Karma tightly and began sobbing. Panicking at her mother's behaviour, but uncertain how to help, she just hugged her tightly and whispered reassurances in her ear.

After what felt like forever, Christina finally cried herself out of tears. Despite this, she still wouldn't let go of Karma, trembling as she clung to her daughter desperately.

"Mom, you're scaring me...What happened? Why are you so upset? Please talk to me" Karma said quietly, rubbing her mom's back soothingly.

"Karma..." Christina hiccuped. "There is so much I have never told you...So much I still wanted to protect you from" she sniffled, taking in a shuddering breath.

Frowning, but not understanding, Karma gave her a squeeze. "You don't need to protect me, mom. It's my turn to protect you, okay?"

Christina let out a sad chuckle, shaking her head. "No, my darling...I don't mean physically protecting you...I mean protecting you from the truth" she admitted.

"What truth?" Karma demanded gently.

"The truth about our family" Christina said, sniffling. "The truth about your father...And your pack...But most importantly, about your birth."

"Mom, you can tell me anything" Karma assured her. "I know I have you and Faith here to support me, and Alessia to fight beside me. I can handle the truth, I promise."

At her daughter's blissfully ignorant assurances, Christina pulled back to examine the woman she'd raised. She smiled tearfully, so proud of her daughter, and so heartbroken that she didn't have a better mate for Karma's father. She tucked a strand of Karma's hair that had fallen loose back behind her ear, taking in a deep breath.

"I don't really know where to start, or how to say it, but...Maybe I can start from when you were born" Christina said, taking Karma's nod as encouragement to continue.

"There's a reason that your father didn't disown you until you were born. When I was pregnant, we did all the pre-natal care and scans, and everything suggested that I was pregnant with a healthy baby boy as we expected." Christina explained.

"Did I get switched at birth or something?" Karma guessed.

Giving her daughter a smile that didn't reach her eyes, Christina shook her head. "No, nothing so simple. A wolf can identify their pup by scent clearly. It's why your father's declaration that you weren't his was so ludicrous. His entire argument was ridiculous...He'd have known if I was cheating, he'd have been able to smell that you're his. He just abused his power to make his own truth, and nobody could object."

"Then why didn't you know you were having a girl?" Karma asked.

"The night you were born, you made history in multiple ways. Not only were you the first female to ever be born to an Alpha...You were also one of the two in the first set of twins born to an Alpha." Christina explained.

Karma's jaw dropped, and her eyes nearly bulged out of her head. "I'm a twin?!" She shrieked.

Somehow, now that all of her emotions had been cried out, Christina was able to remain calm as she nodded in affirmation. "Yes, you have a twin brother. He so perfectly blocked you from all of the scans that nobody ever realized. Even your heartbeats must have been in perfect sync, somehow, to completely mask you. We were all shocked when you came out first, but it made a bit more sense when your brother followed."

Karma just nodded numbly, absorbing this new information as best as she could.

"Your father was livid...He was so ashamed to have a daughter, and to have twins. He didn't see you both as the gift that I knew you were. He just saw everything as an embarrassment, and he decided he needed someone to blame. Since he no longer needed me, because he had his male heir, he banished the two of us to the edge of the pack territory. He couldn't reject me without impacting the pack, and he knew I would die fighting to protect you...So his solution was to raise your brother, but shun me and you." Christina explained, taking Karma's hands in hers.

"I was heartbroken to lose my son, but I knew he'd have a good life as an Alpha heir. You needed me more, and I didn't have a lot of say in the matter anyways, so I made the best of it...But your father turned out to be a cruel man, and he made sure to torture me through our bond, as you know. That should have been a sign, I should have realized it then, that your brother wouldn't be safe with that monster...I just convinced myself that he only held me responsible for the embarrassment he felt he'd experienced" she went on bitterly.

That got Karma to snap out of her stunned surprise. "Wait, you mean my brother is in danger? You think he's being tortured too?" She demanded

"I do" Christina admitted, a lone tear slipping down her cheek. "Because his name is Theo, and he's the Alpha heir of the Red Moon pack."