A Gift from the Goddess novel Chapter 147

“Rae… What’s happened?” he asked.

I opened my mouth to reply but the words wouldn’t come out. My body was running on pure adrenaline for survival now and I was doing my best to push through the overwhelming urge to cave into my emotions.

“I… I’m…,” I fumbled.

My eyes were trying to water but I gritted my teeth against it.

I didn’t want to fight Kieran… I didn’t know if I could live myself if I were to see the look of hatred in his eyes. Anything but that.

“Rae?”

“I… Kieran, someth—.”

But before I could finish speaking, I was suddenly cut off.

“RAVEN!” Allison’s voice shrilly screamed.

And I cursed. She was here. Probably at the staircase looking for me.

This was game over.

Kieran frowned but turned around to investigate, walking towards my only available exit. One now manned by his insane little sister.

“Kieran! W-wait… don’t….”

However, as I futilely trailed behind him, I was further stressed by seeing that Allison had recruited help. Help in the form of Daniel, the Beta heir.

“Hand yourself over, Raven,” Daniel said, stepping cautiously forward. “Let’s not drag this out any longer than we have to.”

“What the hell is going on?” Kieran demanded.

“I’m sorry, man, but she’s been lying to you,” he said. “Allison said that she admitted to being one of them. Called herself by a name that belonged to The Council of the Silver Mist. She’s a Knight. Rheyna Knight.”

But as Daniel enlightened him to the situation, it was Kieran’s reaction that was the most unsettling.

Or, lack of, to be precise.

Because there was no shock or surprise that crossed his features at all. Just… remaining completely silent as he held Daniel’s gaze.

Almost as if…

Almost as if he knew.

“…Kieran?” I whispered. “Why aren’t you….”

And his face then confirmed it, closing his eyes in guilt for a moment.

Everything made sense now. Why he kept our training sessions private, why I was never allowed to talk about my health problems publicly, why he’d said those words to me last night. They’d struck me as odd, but I’d had more important things to worry about at the time. But his phrasing had been weird.

‘*“Honestly? If the biggest issue we ever have to face publicly is just crimes your father forced you to do, then I think we’ll be fine.”*’ That was what he had said. ‘Biggest issue’ being my past. Because he knew that my birth family would cause a reaction like this, far greater than any other uproar I could possibly create.

“How could you know? Let alone keep this from me? Why bring me here at all?”

“I had my suspicions after I found out about the silver suppressors,” he said. “You kept up with me during a fight whilst taking them, Rae. It meant you had to be from a powerful pack, one stronger than even Ashwood by a considerable margin. Of which, there was only one other in modern history. But… I thought you didn’t remember anything about your birth family. I thought I could protect you.”

The betrayal stung me unlike anything I’d felt before. He’d known this entire time and kept it from me, knowing full well that this might happen one day. That it was information that could likely lead to my death.

And I felt myself sink deeper inside, the last shred of hope dying.

It seemed we’d both been keeping things from each other. Secrets that had dire consequences. Perhaps our relationship really was irreparable now.

“She lied and bewitched you, Kieran!” Allison chimed in. “She’s a descendant of the Siren. Manipulation is in her blood.”

“She didn’t do anything, Allison!” Kieran snapped angrily. “She couldn’t even shift before I brought her here. She didn’t even know what werewolves were. She was an orphan of war, somehow surviving long enough to still be tortured by our pack despite her situation. Sterling was selling silver suppressors, Allison. Illegally.”

“She has you covering up her tracks, believing her fabrications,” she said. “Now I’m starting to wonder if Sterling’s death was really as justified as you claimed. She probably had you kill him as well. Swaying your mind to do her bidding.”

“Allison. Stop and listen to what I’m trying to tell you. Raven isn’t a devil like we were always told. She’s just a girl, an innocen—.”.

“—I killed Sterling,” I said quietly, my voice cutting through the room. “It wasn’t Kieran… it was me. I killed him.”

“Rae!”

“No, she’s right,” I said. “Whether it’s because I’m a so-called ‘Devil’ or due to my past crimes, I’m no innocent, Kieran. Pick a title; Rogue or Devil. Because the same meaning still applies. I don’t belong here. I never did. There is nothing I can do to suddenly change who I am.”

I’d given up and was feeling… exhausted. Exhausted of pretending to be someone I wasn’t… and exhausted of now defending myself against something I couldn’t change. My body felt numb to everything as the truth was unravelled.

I was done.

Allison cried out over hearing my confession, tears starting to fall down her face.

“Listen to her, Kieran! She is literally admitting that she’s evil. She—.”

“Sterling assaulted her,” he interrupted. “Stalked her to her room and tried to force his mark on her. If she hadn’t of killed him, I would have. He overstepped a line and was trying to abandon Ashwood, breaking our rules in the process. He was a bad person, Allison.”

Though I interjected before she could reply.

“Right… but if you check the coroner report, you’ll find that his finger joints were repeatedly broken prior to his death,” I added. “I tortured him before I finished the job. Because that’s what he was. What you were too. A job, Kieran. You really think I was allowed to come here of my own volition? With a man like my father? My leash has only ever been long enough to serve his interests.”

“What…?”

And, finally, Kieran looked surprised.