Chapter 11: A Name From The Past

Devlin's POV

The clinic door closed behind me.I stood on the steps, thinking about everything I'd just learned.

My answers were still missing, but one thing was clear: if there was more to my mother's past, I wouldn't find it at the clinic.

That old administrative building came to mind.

Our pack archives.

Birth records. Migration records. Council documents. Old reports. If my mother had arrived in Red Moon more than twenty years ago, there had to be something on paper.

Maybe I'd find something there.

Then I started walking.

Looking into my own family history didn't need anyone's permission. And if my father had hidden part of it from me, I was going to find out why.

The older part of our pack grounds was quiet when I reached it. Most pack members didn't come here anymore. Newer offices had taken over almost everything, leaving this place to old council records, property documents, and files nobody bothered opening unless they had a reason.

And I had one. So I pushed open the heavy door.

The receptionist looked up from her desk. Her eyes widened slightly when she saw me.

"Luna Devlin."

"Good morning."

"Can I help you?"

"I need access to our old pack archives."

She hesitated.

"Is there a particular record you're looking for?"

"My mother's."

Something changed in her face. Just for a second. But I saw it.

"Is there a problem?"

"No." She shook her head fast. "Of course not."

"Then I'd like to see them."

"I'll have to check with—"

"With whom?"

She stopped.

Then I gave her a polite smile.

"I'm still the Luna of this pack until Jason officially removes that title. Unless something changed while I was asleep."

Her cheeks went red.

"No, Luna."

"Good."

She disappeared through a side door and came back a few minutes later with an old brass key.

"Records are downstairs."

She held it out and I took it. "Thank you."

Dust and old paper hit me the second I stepped inside. I hit a switch. A row of weak bulbs flickered above me before settling, showing shelves that stretched farther back than I expected.

I started searching.

Birth records, marriage records, migration records, pack transfers, old council correspondence. My fingers moved along labels until I found the section I wanted.

Foreign Arrivals — Twenty-Three Years Ago.

My heart gave a hard beat.

One file had nothing useful. Another had names I didn't know. A third was a dead end.

Then, just as I was starting to think I'd wasted my time, I saw a name.

Adanya.

I stopped.

For a second all I did was stare before pulling that file off its shelf.

My mother's name, printed neatly on its tab.

Adanya.

I opened it.

Name: Adanya. Origin: West Africa. Date of arrival: twenty-three years ago.

I read it twice.

Seeing her name inside an official Red Moon record felt wrong somehow. Like she wasn't supposed to be in there. My mother had only ever existed in my head as pieces — a face I barely remembered, stories other people told me, and little else my father let me have.

But here she was. On paper. A woman who'd walked into this pack carrying a history nobody had ever told me about.

I turned the page.

Then the next line caught me.

Status: Protected Arrival.

I frowned. That wasn't a normal classification.

Several lines were blacked out. Not faded. Not damaged. Someone had gone in and erased them on purpose.

Another page. More black ink.

My pulse kicked up.

Then I saw a signature at the bottom.

My father's.

He'd personally signed off on these restrictions.

I stared at his name. For years I'd told myself he just didn't like talking about my mother. This was different. This wasn't silence. This was paperwork. Orders.

Someone had gone through an official record and cut pieces of her out.

And my father had signed it.

Most of the file was either missing or blacked out as I kept reading, but one handwritten line had been left untouched along one edge.

Just one sentence.

Do not disclose her lineage.

Again I read it.

Why would my father care so much about her lineage? What was so dangerous about where she came from?

Other pages mentioned her arrival, her registration, the temporary protection she'd been granted — but every part that might explain why had been stripped out.

Then something slipped from between two pages and landed on the table.

A photograph.

Picking it up, I forgot to breathe for a second.

A woman stared back at me. Dark, beautiful skin. Long black hair. Delicate features. Eyes that looked so much like mine.

My chest hurt. My mother. Adanya.

There had never been many photos of her. I flipped it over.

Three words, handwritten.

From the Old Lands.

That phrase tugged at me. I'd heard it before, though not often. Never in a normal conversation. It was one of those names people said in whispers instead of records. Each time I'd heard it, whoever said it went quiet right after, like they'd let something slip they shouldn't have.

It wasn't a country. Not a kingdom either. At least not one I knew.

My eyes went back to her photo.

Why had my father worked this hard to erase this part of her? What were the Old Lands? What had my mother been hiding?

Something warm stirred under my skin. I went still. It spread slow, deep below the surface. I pressed my palm to it but It got hotter.

A faint golden glow showed through my skin.That familiar symbol started forming across my chest, and I waited it out.

Something was different about her photo.

It was warm. I almost dropped it.

That glow under my skin pulsed once, and for a second her photo pulsed back, like it was pulling warmth into itself.

Then it stopped. The glow faded. Her photo went cold in my hand.

I stood there, breathing unevenly, my eyes on my chest.

Whatever was happening inside me wasn't random. It had reacted to her photograph. Or to wherever she'd come from.

Before I could make sense of any of it, footsteps sounded outside this room.

I shoved the file behind my back just as the door opened.

Lance stood there. Jason's Beta.

His eyes went straight to the file. Barely a flicker. But I saw it.

"Lance."

"Devlin."

He stepped inside.

"What are you doing down here?"

"Research."

"Research into what?"

"My family."

His gaze slid behind me again.

I noticed.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because I've found out there are things about my own life nobody thought I deserved to know."

His jaw tightened.

"Devlin—"

"What?"

He looked away. For a second I thought he'd actually say something. He didn't.

That told me more than silence should have.

"You know something, don't you?"

"No, I don't."

Too fast. I raised an eyebrow.

"Lance."

He sighed. "I know there are things the Alpha's never talked about."

"Like what?"

He said nothing.

"Tell me."

"I can't answer that."

"You mean you won't."

He didn't deny it, so I stepped closer.

"You've watched this pack for years. You've watched Jason change. You've watched his family treat me like I was an inconvenience. And you've said nothing."

"I'm his Beta."

"And I'm his Luna."

His eyes met mine.The silence stretched.

Then, quietly: "There are things in those records that were hidden for a reason."

I glanced down.

"Then maybe I deserve to know the reason."

"Maybe."

That irritated me more than a flat no would have.

"Lance."

He looked at me.

"If you know something, just say it."

Something shifted in his face — closer to concern than anything else. I wasn't interested in decoding it, so I shut the file.

"If you're trying to protect Jason, you're wasting your time."

"I'm not trying to protect Jason."

That made me pause.

"Then who are you protecting?"

He didn't answer.

It was answer enough.

I walked past him. At the doorway, I paused.

"One more thing."

He waited.

"If you ever decide to tell me the truth, don't insult me with half of it."

Then I walked away and closed that door behind me.

Adanya's photograph went into my handbag.

I didn't know what the Old Lands were. Neither did I know what lineage my father had been so desperate to bury, or why her photo had reacted to whatever was living under my skin.

But I knew this much now.

Lance knew more than he was saying.

And whatever my father buried all those years ago wasn't buried deep enough.

I would find it.

One secret at a time.