Chapter 5

"Right," I say when I can catch my breath. "And I suppose next you'll tell me vampires are real too?"

His expression doesn't change. "No, those are myths. But werewolves are very real. You are very real."

"This is insane," I say, standing up. "I'm leaving."

He doesn't try to stop me, which somehow makes me pause. "You've been feeling it, haven't you?" he asks quietly. "The changes. Your senses are getting sharper. Food tastes different. Your temper flares at the smallest things. The pull of the moon."

My heart skips a beat. How could he possibly know that?

"That's... that's puberty," I say weakly. "Normal teenage stuff."

"Is it normal to feel the call of the forests that you have never been to, longing for you to run them?”

Before I could answer, “Well, well, what do we have here, an Alpha heir, Alpha heir Harrison no less, with a rogue, how interesting. The forbidden one still lives; you were meant to have been stillborn. Very interesting indeed.” Drawled a voice came from behind the tree, a scout from a rival pack.

I whirl around to see a woman with striking red hair emerge from behind the tree. She's tall and moves with a grace that seems too perfect to be natural. Her dark eyes look between Clint and me with calculated interest.

Clint steps in front of me so quickly that I barely register the movement. His body language has completely changed, his shoulders squared, stance widened, like he's preparing for a fight.

"Rebecca," he says, and his voice has dropped to a dangerous growl that sends shivers down my spine. "You're a long way from Thompson territory."

"Just observing," she says with a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "Father was curious about rumours of a...special visitor in Harrison lands." Her gaze slides past Clint to lock onto me. "I see the rumours were true."

I have no idea what's happening, but the tension between them is so thick I could cut it with a knife. This woman—Rebecca—is looking at me like I'm some kind of prize, and I don't like it one bit.

"Leave," Clint says, and there's something in his voice that doesn't sound entirely human. "Now."

“Why, after all, she’s my elder half sister, born from a forbidden mating. Our grandmother said she was stillborn. Father will be so interested to find out that his forbidden heir still lives. However, our brother may see it rather differently. As you, Alpha heir, you know all too well you can’t touch me as I have no wolf. I’m three years younger than her, and that could easily be seen as an act of war. I assume your mother’s pack, the Moonhearts, can’t be too far behind; I still can’t believe my father touched a mutt like her. Fated or otherwise, but then upon your birth and supposed death, they were forced to reject each other, feuding packs and all.”

The blood drains from my face as Rebecca's words hit me like physical blows. Half sister? Forbidden heir? My legs feel suddenly unsteady, and I have to grip Clint's arm to keep from swaying.

"What are you talking about?" I whisper, but even as I ask, something deep inside me recognises the truth in her words. The missing piece I've always felt, it's not just about being different. It's about being hidden.

Clint's muscles tense under my grip. "Don't listen to her, Tiffany. She's trying to manipulate you."

Rebecca laughs, a sound like broken glass. "Oh, I don't need to manipulate anything. The truth speaks for itself." She takes a step closer, and I notice her movements have that same fluid, predatory quality as Clint's. "You really don't remember anything, do you? Not even fragments?"

"Remember what?" My voice comes out strangled.

"The night they took you away. You were meant to have been stillborn." Her dark eyes gleam with something that might be pity or might be cruelty. "Our father was devastated when he thought you died. He never knew the Moonhearts spirited you away to live with humans."

My head is spinning. This can't be real. I'm Tiffany Moore, daughter of two perfectly normal accountants who adopted me as a baby. I'm not some forbidden heir to rival werewolf packs. That's insane.

But then why does my heart recognise the word "Moonheart" before my brain does? Why does the name evoke a deep ache in my chest?

"You're lying," I say, but my voice wavers.

"Am I?" Rebecca tilts her head. "Tell me, dear sister, what do you know about your birth parents? Your real ones?"

I open my mouth to answer, then close it. The truth is, I know almost nothing. Mom and Dad always said the adoption was closed, that my birth parents wanted privacy. I never pushed because it never seemed to matter before.

"That's what I thought." Rebecca's smile turns predatory. "You've been living a lie your entire life, Tiffany. But don't worry, I'm here to bring you home."

"She's not going anywhere with you," Clint snarls, and this time there's definitely something inhuman in the sound.

"That's not really your choice, is it?" Rebecca's gaze flicks between us. "After all, blood trumps whatever little puppy love situation you have going on here."

The casual dismissal of whatever's between Clint and me sparks anger in my chest, hot and fierce and completely disproportionate to the situation. Before I can stop myself, I step out from behind Clint.

"Don't talk about things you don't understand," I hear myself say, and I'm shocked by the authority in my own voice.

Rebecca's eyebrows shot up, and for the first time, she took a step back.

That’s when another voice cuts through our conversation, “You think she’s going anywhere with a Thompson,” came a growl that had to be male.

“Oh, how nice your mutt of a half-brother on your mother’s side, Alpha Heir Eric Heart.”