Chapter 6

Chapter Six: 

What My Father Knew

The first page was dated nearly two years before his execution, and his handwriting only grew more rushed with every entry after that, as though he had known, even then, that time was running short.

I traced my finger over the ink, half expecting it to smear after nineteen years, half expecting the entire journal to dissolve into nothing the way good things always seemed to in my life. It didn't.

The pages held steady beneath my hands, solid proof that the story I had been told since childhood had never been the whole truth.

"He suspected something was wrong long before anyone branded him a traitor," I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

"He suspected it because he found proof," Ronan said. "Keep reading."

I turned the page, and the next entry described a meeting my father had witnessed by accident, three Alphas from neighboring territories gathered with a group of rogue wolves no pack should ever have welcomed within its borders. 

He had written down names, dates, and the exact location where the meeting took place.

"These names," I said, looking up. "Some of them are still Alphas today."

"Two of them are dead now. Old age, officially. I have my doubts.

"Ronan sat in the chair across from the bed, his expression unreadable. "The third still sits on a council not far from here."

"Magnus."

"You already suspected him."

"I suspected he wanted me gone. I didn't know he wanted my father gone first."

"Your father discovered that several smaller packs were being deliberately weakened, their warriors killed in staged rogue attacks, so that larger packs could absorb their territory once the survivors had nothing left to defend it with. He confronted one of the Alphas involved. Two weeks later, he was accused of selling pack secrets to rogues."

"The same rogues he had seen them meeting with."

"The very same."

"Everyone always said he died a coward's death, that he confessed before they executed him just to spare his family further shame." My voice shook as I said it aloud. "He never confessed anything, did he?"

"He never confessed because there was nothing true to confess. The council simply needed the pack to believe he had, so no one would ask questions afterward."

I closed the journal, my hands no longer trembling from fear alone. "Why didn't you come forward with this sooner? Why wait until now?"

"Because the men who killed your father are patient, and powerful, and I had exactly one journal and no proof it hadn't been forged after the fact. I needed more before I could move against them. 

I needed witnesses, records, time."

"And now?"

"Now I have you. The daughter of the man they silenced; alive, and asking the right questions at exactly the moment their other lie is falling apart.

"Ronan leaned forward. "Selene, I'm not asking you to trust me blindly. I'm asking you to help me finish what your father started."

"What would that even look like?"

"Gathering what's left of the witnesses who fled after his execution. Recovering records the council thinks were destroyed. Building something strong enough that even Magnus Thorne cannot talk his way around it in front of every Alpha in the Northern Territories."

"There's a healer in Moonfang, Lyra Hale. She's the only person who never stopped believing in me. If we need eyes inside the pack, she's the one person I would trust with this."

"Then we'll need a way to reach her without putting her in danger. The council is already executing anyone who gets too close to the truth. I won't add her to that list carelessly."

"And if I say no? If I just want to disappear somewhere far from all of this?"

"Then I would understand completely, and I would still protect you as long as you needed it." His voice softened, just slightly. 

"But I don't think that's who you are. I think you've spent your whole life wanting someone to finally tell you the truth. I'm offering you the chance to go find the rest of it yourself."

I thought of Kael's face in that hall, the moment he chose doubt over me. I thought of nineteen years of being called a traitor's daughter by people who never once asked what actually happened.

"I want to know everything," I said. 

"Whatever it costs."

"It will cost more than you think."

"Everything already has."

A sharp knock interrupted us, urgent enough that Ronan was on his feet before I finished registering the sound. A young woman pushed through the door without waiting for permission, breathless, her cloak still damp from travel.

"Alpha, forgive the interruption." Her eyes flicked to me, then back to Ronan. "Word from inside Moonfang."

"Tell me."

"The council has issued a warrant across every territory in the north. Selene Ashwood has been formally declared a fugitive, accused of treason against Moonfang and conspiracy in Aurora Vale's disappearance. Any pack sheltering her will be named an enemy of the alliance."

My stomach dropped. "Every pack. That includes you."

"I'm aware," Ronan said grimly. "Is there more?"

The messenger hesitated, and that hesitation made my chest go tight before she even spoke.

"They've assembled a search party to bring her back. Kael Draven is leading it himself."

The room went silent around me, the journal still open in my lap, my father's handwriting blurring as my eyes filled with tears without permission.

"He's hunting me," I said quietly. "The man who was supposed to be my mate is hunting me through his own territory like an enemy."

"Selene..."

"I need to know how close they are."

The messenger's expression answered before her words did. "Close enough that they could reach the mountains within two days, if they guessed correctly which direction you ran."

Ronan's gaze settled on me, steady despite the urgency thrumming through the room. "We have time to prepare, but not much of it. I need you to decide right now whether you're staying to fight for the truth, or running somewhere he will never think to search."

I thought of Kael's hands on mine that morning, promising forever before he had even heard the accusation. I thought of those same hands now leading warriors through the forest to drag me back in chains.

"I'm not running anymore," I said. "Let him come.”