Alpha Klayton | ✔️

23 |

It really wasn't our first time meeting, of course.

I mean, this would just be the first time we met in real time — the first not within my dreams. Well, sometimes they feel like nightmares when it involves Artemis.

She quirks her eyebrows at my snarky comment. I'm boiling inside at her audacity to continue to enter my life when she is clearly so not wanted.

However sweet she may seem on the outside, Destiny seems to think she is rotten on the inside. At this point, I'm willing to side with anyone who is opposite of Artemis's

"No matter, I think it is time we talk in a more... realistic fashion," she shakes off my comment and stares at me standing in the middle of my room.

I scoff and brush past her shoulder and my awestruck parents, who were standing behind watching the both of us. They are clearly unaware that I have already been... acquainted with the Moon Goddess. The stairs creaked under my heavy steps as I strut over them. I whipped around once I was in the kitchen— I didn't want to have this conversation in my childhood bedroom.

So much has happened in that room; my first real kiss, sneaking my best friend in at night, the first time I had—

My thoughts are broken off by her ever evading presence entering the room. The people I called mom and dad trailed behind, ashamed and looking as if their tails were between their legs. I didn't even have to start the conversation, she clearly had a lot to say.

"To start, I want to clear your parent's names— they did this because I commanded them to, and I don't believe I could have chosen better. They gave up their lives... vowing to me they would never shift again unless it was to protect you, and they were disowned by their pack— all for you. There is nothing more real than their love, blood or not. I can feel it in the room," She stops and I can feel her gauging my reaction. My parents waiting anxiously in the corner as well.

I feel my heart sink.

I'm conflicted.

I love my parents so much but I just couldn't wrap my head around all of it. I mean, if they truly cared about my well-being they would have told me.

Right?

I decide right now that the best thing to do was to hear the rest of the story. I couldn't react until I knew everything that needed to be said. Hearts were on sleeves, including mine. I just nodded at Artemis as a motion to continue and not saying anything else.

She sighs; this was not the reaction she was expecting I guess.

"When you were born I had to do something, Adira. I have lost everyone. My daughter, my granddaughter, my great-granddaughter. I wasn't going to let you, my great-great-granddaughter be next," There were tears in her eyes but I gazed straight forward, trying to not let it affect me as much as I knew it was.

"It always started at around the age of 18, when they became stronger but also easier to sense. People knew what they were. Living in the supernatural world left them vulnerable— they were hunted until the ends of the earth. None of them made it past thirty."

She's telling me I am in danger.

However, the only threat I saw was her. She continues.

"If you didn't know who you were, you would never have tapped into your abilities. We were so close to saving you— but you insisted on applying to Meyersdale. It was unconscious but your lineage was leading you there,"

I soak everything in that Artemis has told me. But I wasn't ready to forgive and forget. She had been selfish.

I hated selfish people.