Chapter 235
Natalia
I stared
up at the man who claimed to be my brother, my mind reeling. The resemblance was undeniable–the same eyes, the same bone structure, even the same stubborn set to his jaw that Damon always made fun of me
for.
“Who are you?” I blurted out.
“David.” He took a step closer. “My name is David. David of Bloodmoon pack.”
Bloodmoon. So we had found them. Or rather, they had found us.
“And you think you’re my brother?” The word felt foreign on my tongue. I’d dreamed of having a family, of course. Every orphan did. But I’d given up on those dreams years ago, and I’d certainly never thought of myself as belonging to a pack that didn’t even exist anymore.
David nodded slowly. His hand reached out like he wanted to touch my face but he stopped just short. “I know you are. I can feel it.”
I snapped my gaze over to Andrei and Damon, who were still being held back by the warriors although they had stopped fighting. Their faces were just as pale and shocked as mine.
“I was left at an orphanage,” I said. “As a baby. There was no identification, no note. Nothing.”
Something shifted in David’s expression, pain flashing across his features before he could hide it. “I know. You’re a Bloodmoon…” His voice trailed off, and he shook his head. “I’ll explain more later. But right now—” His eyes dropped to Max, who was still unconscious in my arms. “Your son needs help.”
Max. Goddess, in all the shock of discovering I apparently had a family, I’d almost forgotten that my little boy was dying. The fever was still burning through his small body, and every second we wasted talking was a second we couldn’t afford to lose.
“Please,” I said, clutching Max tighter. “He’s sick. Really sick. Can you help?”
David’s eyes widened slightly, and he turned to one of the other wolves. They said something in hushed voices that I couldn’t quite hear before he turned back to me and approached, arms outstretched.
“May I?” he asked quietly.
I hesitated for just a moment. Everything in me screamed against letting anyone else hold Max when he was so vulnerable. But the maternal instinct was warring with desperation, and desperation won.
I carefully transferred Max into David’s arins, watching anxiously as he cradled him.
“We need to move fast,” David said, already turning toward the deeper forest. “The healers are waiting.”
The journey through the Thornwood felt endless. David led the way, carrying Max while I stayed close by. Behind us, the other wolves followed closely, some in human form and some in wolf form, the latter with their silver–marked fur gleaming in the moonlight.
Andrei stayed close to my side the entire time, his hand occasionally brushing mine as we walked. Damon and
1/3
Chapter 235
+25 Bonus
Grace flanked us, both looking shell–shocked by everything that had happened.
I couldn’t blame them. Twenty–four hours ago, our biggest worry had been Max’s fever. Now we were trekking through rogue territory with a pack that was supposed to be extinct, following a brother I didn’t know I had.
“How long has Bloodmoon been in hiding?” Grace asked after we’d been walking for what felt like hours, breaking the silence.
One of the other wolves in human form, a woman with intricate silver markings on her face, answered, “Over a century. Our grandparents were the first to come here.”
“Why?” Andrei asked.
David shifted Max in his arms and glanced at me over his shoulder. “Our abilities became… coveted. Other packs started hunting us, trying to harvest our blood.”
My stomach twisted. “Harvest your blood?” It sounded like something out of a horror novel, not something that people would actually do to each other in the real world.
“They thought they could gain our abilities by consuming it,” the woman explained with a scoff. “Some even tried to keep our people as prisoners, using them as experiments or broodmares to produce special offspring.”
The disgust in her voice made it clear how that had worked out for everyone involved. I suppressed a shudder at the thought of real people being used to breed special children.
“So you disappeared,” Damon said.
“We deliberately went into hiding,” David corrected him. “Deep in the neutral territory where the rogues would keep most people away. It wasn’t ideal, but it kept our people safe. It’s why we’re here today.””
As we walked, I thought about all the years I’d spent feeling lost, feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere.
All this time, I’d had a family. But not just any family—a family that was part of a pack I didn’t even know existed anymore until mere hours ago.
“I saw you in the store,” I pointed out, moving up to walk alongside David. “Did you recognize me then?”
David’s eyes flicked over to me briefly. “I did. But I couldn’t believe it. The sister I had as a child was gone for so long that I thought for sure she was dead. I thought I was seeing a ghost.”
I didn’t press more after that; partially because I couldn’t blame him for feeling confused, but also partially because my mind was still too busy reeling to make sense of it.
Finally, the trees parted to reveal something that took my breath away. The Bloodmoon pack house wasn’t a single building–it was an entire compound carved into the side of a mountain.
Stone buildings seemed to grow directly from the rock face, connected by bridges and walkways that spiraled upward into the darkness. Soft light glowed from carved windows, and I could see figures moving within.
It was like something out of a fairytale, beautiful and otherworldly and completely unlike any pack territory I’d
ever seen.
“Welcome home,” David said softly.
Chapter 235
425 Bonus
Home.
VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABEL
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: Reclaimed By My Alpha (Natalia and Andrei)