Chapter 7: The Brother Who Lied

“Aria, open the door. We need to talk.”

I stared at the bedroom door, my fingers tightening around the phone in my hand until my knuckles turned white.

Darius was standing outside. I could hear his breathing steady, familiar, the same cadence that had anchored me through every nightmare since I was eight years old. But the message on my screen kept replaying in my mind like a rhythmic drumbeat:

Your brother has already made his choice.

He knows you're awake.

I glanced toward the balcony. The thin sheer curtains moved slightly in the night air, even though I was certain I had latched the glass doors before going to bed. Whoever had been standing outside was gone, but the prickling sensation of unseen eyes remained.

“Aria?” Darius knocked again, harder this time. “I know you're in there.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “What do you want?”

“To talk. Open the door.”

“About what?”

There was a long, heavy pause on the other side of the wood. “About what happened tonight.”

My eyes dropped back to the glowing screen. I wanted so desperately to believe him. I wanted to believe that the brother who had shielded me from every storm in my life would never lie to me.

But why had he hidden so much about our parents? And how did a complete stranger know his every move?

I walked slowly toward the door, stopping inches before the frame. “Are you alone?”

Another hesitation. “Yes.”

“Promise me, Darius.”

“Aria, what is wrong with you?”

“Just answer me!”

He let out a weary sigh. “I promise.”

I clicked the lock back and pulled the door open a crack.

Darius stood in the dimly lit corridor, wearing a black shirt and dark trousers. His dark hair was disheveled, his jaw tight with unresolved tension. His eyes swept over my face first, searching for injury, before shifting suspiciously toward the quiet bedroom behind me.

“Why did you lock the door?”

“I wanted to sleep.”

“At this hour?”

“People sleep at night, Darius.”

He didn't smile. His gaze dropped immediately to the phone clutched in my fist. “Who were you talking to?”

“Nobody.”

“Let me see it.”

I pulled the phone back against my chest, taking a small step back. “Why?”

“Because you've been acting strangely ever since the rogue attack in the cafeteria.”

“Maybe because someone literally tried to slaughter me!”

His jaw clenched. “Lower your voice.”

I laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. “Of course. We wouldn't want anyone in Blackthorn hearing that the high-and-mighty Blue Moon Alpha can't protect his own sister.”

“That isn't fair, Aria.”

“Neither is keeping me in a cage of secrets!”

His expression fractured. For a fraction of a second, I saw something raw and heavy flash across his features. It looked like guilt.

Without waiting for permission, he pushed the door open further and stepped into the room. “Sit down.”

“No.”

“Please.”

I hated how exhausted he sounded. I hated that a traitorous part of me still wanted to collapse into his strength and trust him blindly. But the words of the text burned in my memory.

Your brother has already made his choice.

“What choice have you made?” I asked softly.

Darius went completely still. “What?”

I stared directly into his eyes, refusing to look away. “You heard me.”

He studied my face, and I could practically see the gears turning in his head as he tried to calculate how much I actually knew. “Where did you hear that?”

My stomach dropped into a void. I hadn't told him the exact phrasing.

“You know what I'm talking about,” I whispered, horrified.

Darius looked away, staring down at the floorboards. “Aria, there are things... complex things you don't understand.”

“Then explain them to me!”

“I can't.”

“Can't or won't?”

“Both.”

The answer hit me like a physical blow.

I took two steps backward, putting distance between us. “So it's true. My entire life, you've been lying to me.”

Darius dragged a hand roughly over his face, looking suddenly years older. “Our parents didn't simply disappear, Aria.”

I froze, the air leaving my lungs. “What?”

He looked back at me, his eyes filled with a hollow pain I had never seen in him before. “The night they vanished... something happened in the forest. Something that changed everything.”

“What happened?”

“I was there.”

My heart began to hammer against my ribs. “You told me you were at home! You told me you found their missing marks at the border!”

“I lied.”

I stared at him, my head spinning. For six years, I had believed our parents died in a sudden border skirmish that their bodies were never recovered because rogues had dragged them away.

“You saw them?” I asked, my voice barely audible.

He nodded slowly.

“Did you see them die?”

Silence filled the space between us deafening and heavy.

I shook my head, fighting back the sting in my eyes. “No. Don't do this to me. Tell me what happened, Darius!”

He moved closer, but I immediately raised my hand. “Stay right there.”

He stopped in his tracks, his hands hovering uselessly at his sides.

“Mother gave me something that night,” he said, his voice dropping to a low murmur. “She made me swear an oath to protect you. No matter what happened, I was never supposed to let anyone discover what you really are.”

“What am I?”

His eyes dropped instinctively to my covered wrist. Beneath my skin, the silver mark began to pulse with a slow, faint heat.

“You're not just a member of the Blue Moon Pack, Aria.”

“I know that already,” I snapped. “The rogue called me the daughter of the First Moon. Kieran called me that. What does it actually mean?”

Darius glanced nervously toward the sheer balcony curtains. “It means there are ancient factions who would tear entire pack territories apart to get their hands on you.”

“Why?”

“Because of what your blood can do.”

Before I could demand another answer, three sharp, deliberate knocks sounded against the balcony windowpane.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

We both whipped around.

My heart nearly stopped.

A dark figure stood on the other side of the glass door. Darius immediately stepped in front of me, putting his broad frame between me and the window. “Stay behind me.”

The figure was shrouded in a heavy dark coat, its face hidden beneath a deep hood. But hanging low against its chest, glinting in the pale moonlight, was a silver pendant.

The exact same crescent moon design as mine.

Darius's posture went rigid, his claws partially extending. “Get away from the window.”

The hooded stranger raised one hand and pressed its bare palm against the glass. A black crescent symbol flared to life against the surface.

Then, a dark, velvet voice echoed directly inside my mind:

Your brother is running out of time.

I stumbled backward, my head spinning.

Darius caught my arm. “Aria! What happened?”

I couldn't speak.

Outside, the figure slowly raised its other hand. Clutched between two pale fingers was a square slip of dark paper. It pressed the note flat against the glass, held it there for a single second, and then vanished into thin air like a trick of the light.

Darius lunged forward, throwing the glass door open. “Who's there? Show yourself!”

Nothing. Only the cold night breeze sweeping across the quiet courtyard.

He stepped onto the balcony, scanning the tree line, his wolf growling low in his chest. I moved carefully toward the doorway and picked up the piece of paper left behind on the stone ledge.

There were six words written in bold, jagged script:

ASK DARIUS WHO HE LEFT BEHIND.

The chill from the paper seemed to seep straight into my bones. “What does this mean?” I whispered.

Darius turned back into the room, his eyes instantly falling on the note in my hand. For the first time since our parents disappeared, my confident, impenetrable brother looked genuinely terrified.

“Where did you get that?” he demanded, his voice cracking.

“It was on the ledge.”

He snatched the paper out of my grip and crumpled it in his fist.

“Darius!”

“Forget what you saw. It's mind games.”

“Who did you leave behind?”

He clamped his jaw shut.

“Was it Mother? Was it Father?”

His breathing became shallow and uneven. “Aria, listen to me carefully. You need to stay away from the eastern tower.”

My blood ran cold.

The eastern tower. Selene had mentioned it hours ago as one of the forbidden areas of the academy.

“I didn't say anything about the eastern tower,” I whispered. “How do you know about it?”

Darius stared at me, his eyes hollow. “Because that's where they took her.”

The room felt as though it were tilting on its axis. “Who?”

He closed his eyes, taking a shuddering breath. “Mother.”

“She's... she's alive?”

“I don't know.”

“But you just said”

“I said that's where they took her!” he snapped, his control finally breaking. “I didn't say she survived it!”

I struggled to draw breath into my lungs. For six agonizing years, I had mourned a mother whose body had never been buried. I had spent countless nights wondering if she had suffered, if she had called out for us before she died.

And my brother had known all along that she might still be breathing.

“You knew,” I whispered, tears blurring my vision.

“I was trying to protect you, Aria.”

“Stop saying that!” I screamed, my voice fracturing. “You don't get to decide what I deserve to know! You don't get to lock me in the dark and call it love!”

“Aria”

“Did you leave her there?” I asked, the words falling like lead. “Did you leave our mother behind?”

His face crumpled, a mask of sheer agony slipping over his features. Then, he whispered six words that completely shattered my world:

“I had to choose between saving you... or saving her.”

I couldn't move. I couldn't speak.

“That night, Mother told me to take you and run,” Darius whispered, his voice trembling. “She stayed behind in the clearing to hold them off.”

“Who were they?”

Darius shook his head helplessly. “I don't know all of them.”

“Was Lucien Ravencroft there?”

His head snapped up, his eyes wide. “How do you know that name?”

I didn't answer. I couldn't tell him about the silver pendant or the memory of my mother's warning. Not now. Not when I couldn't even trust him.

Before he could push me further, the phone in my hand vibrated violently.

A new message flashed across the black screen:

UNKNOWN NUMBER: He is telling you only half the truth. Ask him what happened to the second child.

I stared down at the text, the words repeating in my head like a surreal nightmare.

The second child?

I slowly raised my head to look at my brother. “What second child, Darius?”

The color drained completely from his face. “Give me your phone.”

“No.”

“Aria, give it to me right now!”

“WHAT SECOND CHILD?” I yelled.

He reached out to grab my arm, but before his fingers could touch me, a dark, velvety voice sounded from the open doorway behind him.

“Perhaps I should answer that.”

Kieran Ravencroft leaned against the doorframe, his dark, calculating eyes locked onto Darius.

My brother whirled around, instantly stepping into a protective stance. “You have no business being in her quarters.”

Kieran ignored him entirely. His gaze shifted smoothly to me, glancing down at the glowing text message on my screen. “Your family has been keeping a very dangerous secret from you, Aria.”

Darius's hands curled into tight, clawed fists. “Get out before I break your neck.”

Kieran finally looked at him, his expression cold and unimpressed. “Tell her the truth, Nightshade.”

“Stay out of my family's business!”

“Or what? You'll threaten me again?”

The air between them grew impossibly thick, suffocating with raw, lethal power. Their wolves surged to the surface, and the electric lights above us flickered and buzzed violently.

I shoved my way between them, my heart pounding. “Both of you, stop it!”

They both froze, looking at me.

I looked at Darius first, my voice trembling. “Who was the second child?”

Then I turned to face Kieran. “And what do you know that he isn't telling me?”

Kieran's expression softened into something unreadable. “Your mother gave birth to twins, Aria.”

The room went dead silent.

Darius closed his eyes in bitter defeat.

I looked back and forth between them, desperately waiting for one of them to tell me it was a sick joke. Neither did.

“Twins?” I whispered, the word feeling foreign on my tongue.

Kieran nodded once. “You had a twin sibling, Aria. And according to my father's private records... that child was never supposed to survive.”

A icy shiver traveled down my spine, freezing the blood in my veins. “Where is the other child?”

Kieran looked directly at Darius, but my brother remained silent, staring at the floor.

Then, Kieran delivered the words that tore through everything I thought I knew about my past:

“Your missing twin is the exact reason Lucien Ravencroft ordered me to kill you.”

Just as my mouth opened to demand an explanation, a sudden, blinding heat exploded beneath the skin of my wrist. My silver mark burned as if dipped in liquid fire.

And then, a dark, echoing whisper sounded directly inside my skull:

Little sister...

I stumbled backward, catching myself against the bedpost.

I recognized that voice.

It was the same voice that had called to me from the balcony moments ago a voice that was currently calling to me from somewhere deep within the dark corridors of Blackthorn Academy.