Chapter seven

Avira glanced up, to see Neil watching her closely. He was sprawled in his chair, one elbow propped casually on the armrest, his index finger sliding absently back and forth over his bottom lip. His dark eyes gave nothing away.

Avira slide the article to the next page and there was the birth announcement of their daughter. Rosie Soliel Callister. Tears pressed against the back of her eyes and she but her lip hard to stop the tears from coming.

Everything she had known, everything she had believed about herself, her aunt and her foster parents was shattered and lying broken at her feet. She wasn’t who she thought she was.

She was this woman, this luna Avira Callister, who had a baby and a husband. She uncovered the next article with trembling fingers.

This one proclaimed her missing. From her friend’s house , where she had gone to visit after the birth of her child.

“I had a friend.” She asked in disbelief without looking up.

“Yes!”

Eye witnesses mentioned her going in to the forest on the far end of moon ridge where the rebel alpha pack had possibly taken her.

Why has she willing walked in to the forest?

The fourth article pronounced her dead. She quickly flipped to the next page. A marriage contract, spelling out everything her father and Neil had agreed to. She didn’t read it because she was sure she didn’t need to.

She closed her eyes and dropped the papers on the table between them, then clasped her hands in her lap so he wouldn’t see them shaking. She was his wife and Luna. The mother of his child and she couldn’t remember any of it. Avira tried so hard to conjure up an image of a baby in her arms, but she couldn’t do it.

What was wrong with her? How could a mother forget her own baby? She turned her head away on the seat back and dug her fingernails in to her palms. She would not cry, she could not cry certainly not in front of him. She couldn’t be weak.

“Do you still wish to deny the truth?” Neil asked.

She shook her head, unable to speak for fear she would lose control. Her wolf had recoiled back in pain making her weaker.

“Why did you do it, Avira? Why did you leave your child? Did you ever think of her ? Did you ever stop in your plans to leave her on how she would grow up without a mother?”

It took her several moments to answer.

“I don’t remember doing it,” She forced out, her voice barely more than a whisper. “I don’t remember anything about that…. that day.”

She thought he wouldn’t believe her, that he would demand to know the truth, demand she stop lying but he blew out a breath and looked away before turning to pierce her with his dark stare again. “Tell me exactly what you do know, then. Tell me gir you got to New York.”

She wanted to be defiant, but she was too mentally drained to conjure up even a hint of strength. “All I know was that I was in Moonridge and then I was in New York living with foster parents after my dad disappeared,” she said, hugging the blanket tighter. “ I don’t remember when I left or how I got there. My Aunt says it’s because of the accident. Because my wolf was weak and I was in a coma for almost a year. I don’t remember the accident, but the doctors told me it was normal.”

“After you recovered why didn’t you return to New York?”

“I thought about it time to time, but couldn’t bring myself to visit a place that traumatized me, a place that made me feel like an outcast all because I was weak and then when I couldn’t reach my father I thought he had abandoned me.”

“Why did you change your name?”

“I didn’t change it. Amy stone is my stripper name,” She said not wanting to admit that calling herself by another name made her feel powerful and different from the bullied girl that grew up in moon ridge.

“And why are you stripping? Like a cheap slut! Did you need money?”

The way he called her a cheap slut made her head boil.

“I am not a cheap slut.” She snapped eyes red from suppressed tears. “And no I didn’t do it for the money, my father left me plenty of money to last me for a lifetime. I loved dancing and a friend of mine encouraged me to try out stripping, I did and next thing I knew I was a stripper.”

A disapproving frown made his sensual lips seen hard. “A Cheap stripper.”

Avira felt even her wolf becoming angry. “I like to strip. I am good at it and like I have said before I am not a cheap whatever it is that is twisted in your head.”

“I never seen you dance before tonight.”

“I danced a lot to my mother’s songs while growing up. If I have never danced for you, then I suppose I was afraid to. Afraid you would disapprove of it.”

“I might not have, if you were dancing for just me,” he said softly.

“I must have thought so.”

“Perhaps you did.” He was apologetic.

“We must not have spent a lot of time together,” she ventured. It was clearly obvious with the way he knew so little about her.

“Enough,” he said, his eyes suddenly hot and intense.

Avira dipped her head in embarrassment hoping he hadn’t seen her blushing. She was here with a man who was clearly her husband but she couldn’t remember their mating or sexual experience with him.

“How long were we married before….the baby?”

“You were pregnant the first month and you disappeared a six months after Rosie was born.”

“So we weren’t together for two years .”

Before he could reply, a call came in. His phone was placed on table between them and she saw the name Sharon. He snatched his phone and without a word to her walked away. Who was Sharon that made him move away so abruptly to take her calls?