I watched Blake storm out with my heart at his heels. Conflicting emotions nearly twisted me inside out. Nauseous from worry for him, when he clearly didn't want to be with me...was I pathetic? Yet my fated mate looked so pained! When Blake was suffering, I couldn't stand by without offering succor, even if he didn't want to talk to me.

The elevator dinged, arriving at the floor. Its doors opened as some sort of a gate that would forever shut Blake away from me.

"Wait!" I would have taken after him, if Dad didn't jump from his seat.

"Your precious Alpha will be fine," he said.

I huffed and tried to get around him, hoping that Blake would hold the door or wouldn't get on the elevator at all. But the doors closed with the soulless efficiency the automatic doors do. "No!"

"It's for the best that he's gone, Celeste. He only makes things difficult," was Dad's way to comfort me.

"What? He doesn't! Let me go!"

This last outburst came out of me because Dad blocked my way more solidly.

"Think, think!" He waved the Judgment Tarot card under my nose. "This whole thing is about your mother, and your macho man doesn't give a crap about her."

"Of course, he does." Did he? I couldn't figure it out. "What's abundantly clear is that he can't stand you, and who could blame him? You keep digging under him, finding flaws with everything he does, making stupid comments about our relationship, like this marriage thing. Dad, if you want us to bond, you better stop antagonizing my mate."

Dad shrugged, like Blake's feelings were of no concern in the grand scheme of things. "What should matter to you, is that we both care about Vesper's memory."

I frowned. No apology, no nothing, and he knew he could get away with it because it was about Mom. "Okay, I'll give you that."

"Unless we act, we may lose our last chance to bring Vesper's murders to justice."

"You sound awfully sure. You weren't before."

"That's because Beaumont just confirmed everything I was guessing at."

"By turning on Epsilon Scarlett?"

"Yes." Dad winced. "Could you do me a favor and skip this alphabet soup nonsense? Epsilons and Alphas and Gammas hurt my IQ."

This was his problem? Come on! I glared at him. "Dad, please, stop being an ass."

"Well, since you've said please..." He sighed theatrically. "Let's focus on the facts. Fact one. Louis Beaumont didn't give a hoot about Scarlett until she used Laratta to lure me in. Fact two, he made a deal with Mingan to oversee the raid. So, I reckon Louis would save Scarlett, if he can, but that's not it. His principal goal must be to get his hands on Laratta, quietly."

"Laratta..." It was strange that the rogue I only knew as the Brute—and who deserved this nickname one hundred percent—had a perfectly ordinary human name. "I take it, Laratta was your secret source of information then?"

Dad nodded. "And since all signs point to Beamont being involved in Vesper's death, maybe even ordered it, we can't let him get to Laratta first."

"Dad, the only way to prevent it is to tip Scarlett off," I said.

He didn't even have the grace to blush. "Yes. This."

"Goddess! I didn't mean it like, let's do this. The opposite!"

"Oh." His face lengthened. "Just as I thought there was hope for you yet. Think about it, sweet child, we all get what we want this way. You and I have a chance to corner Laratta. Your beloved thug can sit on his ass, guarding two acres of the woods to his brave heart's content, until his enemies come to him. It's a win-win."

The emptiness in the pit of my stomach churned. "You've betrayed Blake to the Council. Now you want to betray the Council. And you've left my mother and me all these years ago—another betrayal. Have you done anything but go behind people's backs in your life?"

"Ouch." Strangely, Dad smiled, as if my cutting words pleased him somehow. "From the hints Laratta dropped while I was at the island and what I figured since, Vesper played me like a violin. Yet, here I am, working tirelessly to avenge her death. What's that if not ultimate loyalty?"

Steinar was a manipulator, and I would be a dork to walk into his trap. But he accused Mom—my mom!—of scamming him. I scoffed. "How did Mom wrong you? By falling in love with you? Wow, what a terrible imposition! I bet you felt so burdened, so violated. My heart bleeds for you."

He kept smiling through the insults I was showering him with. "Celeste, one thing became clear to me from Laratta's teasers is that Vesper has never loved me."

"What, he was Mom's confidante now? So he came out and told you, pal, she'd never loved you?"

"Not in so many words. The asshole is more slippery than he looks. To keep me tied to Scarlett and him, he made me work for every tantalizing bit of information. Every time I thought he knew nothing important, he would give me something, dole out information crumb by crumb. So, it was hard to put things together, but between his stupid guffaws, one thing I could read rather clearly, is that Vesper didn't love me."

I threw my arms up with a stifled cry. "You've either outsmarted yourself or you're outright lying to me."

"Why would I invent a lie so damaging to my ego?" He had the audacity to look hurt. "Vesper had never fallen for me at first sight. Sad, but true."

"Dad!"

"Not even a tiny crush, Celeste. It was all a game."

"Uh-huh," I said, "and I, a love-child she kept against all odds, is simply a figment of your imagination."

"You, my sweet daughter, are as far away from a happy little accident as could be." He sat down heavily, suddenly looking old. His hands grasped cards like a lifeline. He shuffled the deck and offered it to me.

Instinctively, I took the top card and laid it on the polished table surface. "The Moon. It was the Goddess' will."

"Not so fast." Dad clicked his tongue. "In human Tarot, the Moon doesn't mean the Goddess and her guidance. It stands for all the hidden fears and doubts, and commands us not to believe everything we see or hear."

Setting aside the fact that every beginner magician starts their card tricks by pulling exactly the card they want from the deck, and that this reading literally advised me not to trust him... "We're not humans. We're werewolves."

"Just listen to me. This is all I ask." He reshuffled the cards once again, letting me keep the Moon. So I would be stuck with my doubts, I suppose. Because that was what I desperately needed in my life, more uncertainties. Thanks a lot, Dad.

I sighed. "I'll listen. I won't promise that I'll believe you."

"Fair enough." He laid out two cards, one next to another: the Empress sitting on a golden throne, surrounded by children and cheerful subjects; and the Chariot, driven forth by a grim-faced charioteer.

"There was only one thing I read correctly about Vesper. She didn't want what you're striving for. Being a Luna, mated to an Alpha, this wasn't her. But she also wasn't a lost soul, searching for her destiny in the wide world. She knew very well what she wanted to be."

I tapped the Chariot card. "She wanted to be in the driver's seat? A travel blogger? What?"

Dad put another card over the Chariot, this one in reverse. Horned, smug face smirked at me from it, reminding me of Harold a bit. "The Devil?"

"Like that, it represents both freedom and control. Your mother, Celeste, wanted to run with the Shadow Pack."

I scoffed. "Please! Not in this millennium! The rogue hunts, the secret assassinations in the Council's name, it's all so nineteen-seventies."

Dad wagged his finger. "That's what they want you to think. Just before you were born, the media blended fantasy and reality so much that those who wanted us to no longer stay hidden or those who simply didn't give a damn, multiplied. Suddenly, the Shadow Pack with their clandestine surveillance and their thick files on the prominent rogues was relevant again."

I exhaled in frustration. "Dad! Mom was a cop. A human detective. Not some secret agent hunting down the rogues."

"I'm a rogue, but I'll be the first to admit that many of us lose ourselves to mindless violence. What better place for a werewolf headhunter than inside the larger police force that tracks down various criminals? Reporting to two masters is exactly what the secret agents do."

This was stuff other foster kids dreamed about, a glamorous parent, a mysterious reveal, and an explanation for being left behind. Even the kids of perfectly nice folks sometimes invented tales like that to spice their existence. Not me, however. I loved my mom just the way she was, from as little as I remembered, and my mind resisted Steinar's wild tale. "It's all conjecture and wild fantasy!"

"Then why didn't Vesper ask to join a pack when she found herself pregnant? She carried a child of a Meteoric bloodline. Any pack would be thrilled to embrace you and her as their own, including the Californians. She had to have a compelling reason to raise you hidden among the humans."

Familiar pain pierced my heart. Ever since Blake showed me the werewolf world, I wondered why I grew up alone. I blamed Dad for not coming for me, but Mom had years to return to the pack and bring me up within my culture. Instead, I grew up alone and despised.

I gritted my teeth. "And this reason is...?"

"She wanted what every parent wants deep down. A child who is a more powerful version of themself."

"If I have children..." I choked up a little. The revelation from the Goddess was too new to be real. "If I have children, I wouldn't want them to be our clones. The whole point is to see them grow into different wolves with their own destiny."

"Vesper wanted to be in the Shadow Pack, on the frontline of the struggle with the rogues. She used me and my prophecy as a plausible cover to escape her pack's pressure to mate Alpha Louis Beaumont. Birthing a child of a Meteoric bloodline into the Shadow Pack, with—knowing me..." he sighed in a self-deprecating manner, "a very personal distrust of the rogues seems like a logical next step. That's why she maintained our connection, when she didn't have to."

"Or, if she was in the Shadow Pack, she had to keep tabs on you because you were a dangerous deviant. Then, she fell in love." I cringed, because it sounded like something from a silly movie.

"Aha!" He jerked his thumb into my face, before I hid my dismay. "I saw this. You don't believe this maudlin nonsense, do you?"

"It could have happened! Love is a powerful force."

"Yes, yes, it sets the most rational hearts in bloom! But it's far more likely that she saw you as a weapon, raising you in shadows, ready to strike. If she intended for you to be a Luna, like every other little girl, she would have planted you with the most powerful pack in North America."

For a second, air was choked out of my lungs. I clenched my hands together, as if trying to hold on to the loving image of my mother that lived in my heart for twenty-three years. Something cold and smooth pressed into my fingers. My fated mate ring!

"She gave me this!" I cried, waving the blue stone under Steinar's nose with its twin stars. "She wanted me to find my fated mate and my pack!"

Steinar didn't look convinced. "Vesper was a lone wolf. She couldn't have lied about everything when we were together. And she despised domesticity...Celeste, you're going to hate me for saying this, but I think your mother would have hated the fated mate's bond that tied you to one pack and one man. I think she would have wanted the same thing I want for you."

My throat went dry. "To leave Blake and become a rogue?"

"Fie, rogue has become such a damning label." He wiggled his brows. "No wonder you balk when you hear the word. How about, shall we say, a lone wolf? That's what I am, Celeste, and that's what your mother was. Honestly, when all is said and done, Vesper and I were kindred spirits. In another life..."

"Thanks, but I'm fed up with solitude."

"Because you didn't know your true heritage! You are a meteoric blood. Maybe Vesper was wrong, and you're not a weapon. It's up to you to discover what you can achieve on your own in the wide world. Maybe, you have the dizzying heights to reach in science, maybe you—"

I glanced at the twin star in the moonstone and the Moon card I was still holding. "The Goddess speaks to me with my mom's voice. And she gave me this."

My voice quivered when I said that, lacking conviction, because my mother's ghost didn't appear during my mating ceremony with Blake. She appeared when I infiltrated the Muck's, hunting the rogues, untangling Scarlett's intrigues.

Did it mean that Steinar could be onto something?

No. I crumpled the stupid card in my hand and tossed it into the trash can. Too bad I couldn't do the same with my hidden doubts. "Whatever Mom believed when you two mated, she must have changed her mind. Period."

"Fine, be content with your trivial, tiny happiness for now." Steinar pursed his lips. "It's for the best that he doesn't want to marry you in the eyes of the human world. It leaves you free for the day when—"

Here he went again, casting shade on Blake's love. Trying to make our fated mates' union seem impermanent, just like his own brief affairs. How dare he! Why? Suddenly, the light bulb went up in my mind.

"I know what you're trying to do! You're isolating me from everyone who loves me, because you're a pathetic, lonely old man caught in a web of paranoia! I am not like you." I was yelling into his face, and it felt liberating, like a dark veil had been lifted from my eyes. "I'd never leave someone I love. Married or not, I cherish what I have with Blake. And you won't keep me from telling him that for one more second!"

I strode for the elevator and banged on the button. The machine hummed, coming toward me. When the doors finally opened, I remembered something else important and whirled on Steinar from the doorway. "And if you dare to warn Scarlett about the attack—"

He made a face. The door closed, leaving my threat unfinished. I slumped against the mirror on the wall, overwhelmed with feelings. The other mirrors reflected my drawn face and feverish eyes under the brush of blonde hair. I was a mess, and no wonder. Everything seemed to go wrong, and dark clouds thickened over the happy life I built for myself in Grauberg. But at least I was on my way to set the most important thing straight, for I had never been so sure that Blake and I belonged together for eternity. Goddess, let him feel the same!