Chapter 8 ;The Secret Reymond Buried

I didn't knock.

I pushed the heavy oak doors of Reymonds private library open so hard they shuddered against the stone walls.

He was standing by the massive stone fireplace, a glass of amber liquid in his hand. He had discarded his jacket. In just a dark grey shirt and black trousers, he looked too large for the refined room, like a caged apex predator waiting for the bars to break.

He turned at the noise, his silver eyes locking onto me.

I didn't hesitate. I walked straight up to his sprawling mahogany desk and slammed the crumpled, singed photograph onto the polished wood.

"Explain this," I demanded. My voice shook, but I didn't care.

Reymond looked down at the desk. He saw the photograph. He saw the fire, the blood on his own hands, and the woman standing beside him.

He didn't speak.

He didn't deny it. He didn't offer a smooth excuse or a quick justification. He just stared at the picture, completely and utterly silent.

That silence was infinitely more terrifying than any lie he could have told.

"Tell me it's a fake," I whispered, my voice breaking. "Tell me Aubert fabricated it."

Reymond slowly set his glass down on the mantelpiece. He didn't look at me.

"It's not a fake," he said. His voice was completely hollow. "Aubert was always good at keeping receipts."

The air in my lungs vanished. The room suddenly felt like it was spinning. I grabbed the edge of the desk to steady myself.

"You were there," I gasped. "You were at the estate while my pack was being slaughtered."

"Yes."

"And you were talking to my mother."

"Yes."

"Why?" I screamed, the word ripping out of my throat. "Why would the Luna of the Walker pack be standing calmly in the snow with a rogue wolf while her home burned to the ground?"

Reymond finally looked up. The molten gold in his eyes was gone, replaced by a cold, devastating bleakness.

"Because she was the one who called me, Natalia."

I froze. "What?"

"Your mother contacted me three days before the massacre," Reymond said quietly. He walked over to the desk, his massive frame casting a long, dark shadow over the photograph. "She knew."

"She knew what?"

"She knew Mauris was planning a coup against your father. She knew the inner council had been bought. She knew they were coming to wipe out the royal bloodline to seize the territory."

I shook my head, stepping backward. "No. No, that's impossible. If she knew, she would have told the guards. She would have evacuated the pack."

"The guards were already loyal to Mauris," Reymond said harshly. "There was no one left to trust. If she tried to move the pack, Mauris would have slaughtered everyone in the valley just to get to you. She only had one play left."

Reymond picked up the photograph, his thumb brushing over the image of my mother's face.

"She called an outsider," he continued, his voice dropping to a rough rasp. "Someone with enough raw power to break through a siege, but no political ties to the northern territories. She called me. I was supposed to get you out."

A cold, heavy weight dropped into my stomach.

"But you didn't."

Reymond closed his eyes. The muscles in his jaw ticked violently. "I was too late. By the time I breached the valley, the estate was already burning. I found your mother at the perimeter. She was trying to draw the hounds away from the eastern wing."

"Where I was sleeping," I whispered.

"She gave me the blueprints to the estate," Reymond said, tossing the photo back onto the desk. "She told me exactly how to find your room. She told me to take you and run."

"And what did she do?"

Reymond looked at me, his expression tortured. "She went back inside. She locked the main hall doors from the inside to trap Mauris's executioners, buying me time to reach you. She burned with them."

Tears spilled over my eyelashes, hot and fast. I wiped them away furiously.

"You knew," I choked out. "You knew exactly who I was when you pulled me out of the snow that night."

"Yes."

"And for seven years..." My voice rose, the sheer magnitude of the betrayal finally hitting me. "For seven years, I thought I was alone. I lived in roach-infested motels. I worked in diners. I hid from every shadow, thinking I was completely abandoned. And you were there. Watching me."

"I was protecting you."

"You were stalking me!" I shoved him. My hands hit his solid, stone-like chest, but he didn't even budge. "You let me live in terror! You let me think I had no one!"

I shoved him again, harder this time.

Reymond suddenly caught my wrists. His grip was completely inescapable, but he didn't squeeze. He just held my hands against his chest, right over his violently racing heart.

"If I had brought you here seven years ago, you would be dead," Reymond fired back, his voice dropping into a lethal, dominant growl. "Mauris was hunting you. The Tunner faction was hunting you. If I had taken you in, I would have had to declare war on the entire northern territory to keep you alive. I wasn't the Alpha yet. I didn't have the army I have now."

"So you just left me out there?"

"I never left you!" he roared, the sheer volume rattling the crystal glasses on the mantelpiece.

He stepped directly into my space, forcing me to tilt my head back just to look at him. His chest heaved against my trapped hands. The anger in his eyes was instantly melting into something desperate, something raw and entirely unshielded.

"I never took my eyes off you," Reymond breathed, his voice breaking. "Every city you moved to. Every diner you worked in. Every time you looked over your shoulder, my men were in the shadows, slitting the throats of anyone who got too close. I killed thirty-two mercenaries over seven years to keep them from finding you."

My breath hitched. The heat radiating off him was overwhelming. The sheer intensity of his confession stripped away every defence I had left.

"Why?" I whispered, my voice trembling. "Why go through all of that for a girl you didn't even know?"

Reymond looked down at my lips, then back up to my eyes.

"I didn't find you seven years ago because I wanted to possess you," he said, his voice dropping to a rough, intimate whisper. "I found you because I promised your mother I'd keep you alive."

The silence in the library became heavy. Electric.

I looked up at him, truly seeing him for the first time. He wasn't just a ruthless syndicate boss. He was a man carrying the crushing guilt of a failed rescue. He had built an entire empire, taken over a syndicate, and waged a shadow war just to keep a promise to a dead woman.

And now, I was standing in his arms.

"Come with me," Reymond said suddenly, letting go of my wrists.

He turned and walked toward the back of the library. There was a massive bookshelf covering the entire back wall. Reymond reached out, pressing his hand against a specific, blank spine of a leather book.

A heavy, mechanical click echoed through the room.

The entire bookshelf swung outward, revealing a dark, descending stone staircase.

"Where are we going?" I asked, my heart picking up a frantic rhythm.

"To show you why Aubert wants you so badly," he replied, stepping into the darkness. "And why Mauris will burn this chateau to the ground to get you back."

I followed him. The air grew significantly colder as we descended beneath the chateau. The smell of old paper and damp stone filled my lungs. At the bottom of the stairs, Reymond hit a switch, and a row of dim, yellow lights flickered on.

We were in a hidden underground chamber.

It was a circular room, lined floor-to-ceiling with steel filing cabinets and glass display cases. It didn't look like a standard pack archive. It looked like a vault.

Reymond walked over to a heavy iron pedestal in the centre of the room. Resting on top of it was a massive, black leather-bound ledger. The edges of the pages were lined in faded gold.

"The Smith Syndicate keeps records of every royal bloodline in Europe," Reymond said, flipping the heavy cover open. The pages rustled, thick and brittle. "Bloodlines, alliances, and mate bonds. We track it all. Because information is how we survive."

He stopped turning the pages.

He stepped back, gesturing for me to look.

I walked up to the pedestal. The page was entirely handwritten in elegant, flowing black ink. At the top of the page, written in bold, was my family name.

WALKER.

Beneath it was a sprawling family tree. I saw my grandfather's name. My father's name. My mother's name.

And then, at the very bottom, connected by a single black line, was my name.

NATALIA WALKER.

I stared at the text written directly beside my name.

DESIGNATION: ROYAL HEIR , PRESUMED DECEASED.

My fingers traced the ink. It was surreal, seeing my entire existence reduced to a historical footnote in a secret underground vault.

But it was the line directly beneath my designation that made my blood run completely cold.

MATE BOND: UNAWAKENED.

DESTINED MATE: ________________

The space for the mate's name was completely blank.

I stared at the blank line. The air in the room suddenly felt incredibly thin.

According to pack law, a true mate bond wasn't random. For royal bloodlines, it was written in the blood itself, a genetic pairing designed to strengthen the ruling class. The syndicate archives were supposed to know the pairings before they even awakened.

"Reymond," I whispered, not taking my eyes off the ledger. "Whose name is supposed to be there?"

He didn't move. He didn't speak.

I turned to look at him. He was staring at me from across the dim room, his jaw clenched so tightly a muscle feathered in his cheek. The look in his silver eyes was utterly agonizing.

"Reymond," I repeated, my voice rising in panic. "Whose name belongs on that line?"

"It doesn't matter," he said gruffly.

"Yes, it does!" I slammed my hand onto the ledger. "If Aubert knows who my true mate is, he can use it against me. He can force the bond. Tell me who it is!"

Reymond took a step toward me, his hands curling into fists. "It doesn't matter who it is, Natalia, because I will kill him before I let him touch you."

The absolute, lethal sincerity in his voice froze me in place.

Before I could process what he just confessed, a loud, metallic SLAM echoed through the chamber.

I spun around.

The heavy steel door at the top of the stone staircase had just slammed shut. The mechanical locking bolts engaged with a series of heavy, violent clicks.

We were locked in.

Reymond moved instantly. He shoved me behind his back, his claws fully extending, his eyes scanning the shadowed corners of the underground vault.

A sharp burst of static hissed through the room.

It was coming from a small, ancient intercom speaker bolted to the stone wall above the door.

"Congratulations, Natalia."

My heart stopped beating entirely. The blood drained from my face.

It was a voice I hadn't heard in seven years, but it still haunted my worst nightmares. Deep. Cultured. Dripping with cruel amusement.

"You've finally found the truth," Mauris Walker purred through the speakers. "I told Aubert the photograph would flush you out of hiding."

Reymond snarled, a terrifying, fully wolfish sound that vibrated the floor beneath my feet.

"You're a long way from home, Mauris," Reymond shouted toward the speaker. "You won't leave this mountain alive."

"Oh, I think I will, boy," Mauris laughed softly. "Because I don't need to fight you. I just need to turn out the lights."

A heavy, mechanical thud echoed above us.

The yellow lights in the vault instantly cut out.

We were plunged into absolute, suffocating darkness.