Alpha’s Hybrid Cinderella
Chapter 75

Peelle and Osborn were tearing up the house long before they could even walk properly. Blessed with overpoweringly strong werewolf genes thanks to their father, they could slightly shift their fingertips to sharp clawed points, and they decorated the walls, floor, and furniture with their artistic masterpieces anytime we so much as blinked.

This was unsustainable. At this rate, we might as well just put all repairs on hold until they were old enough to learn they shouldn't draw castles and dragons into expensive wood and leather. We had already stopped trying to patch up the dresser as it was. On either side of it, there were about twenty tangled pictures clawed into the wood, just like the two previous dressers that had been there before.

I hoped they would turn their artist talents to paper or another, less expensive medium soon...

"Oh, man. I can't believe they're already so big." Raf bounced her little daughter in her arms as she stared goggle-eyed at Peelle and Osborn. They had stumbled off to the corner to play with their toys after showering her with toddler-style greetings, as they always did when Aunty Raf came to visit. "Laila is going to be that big soon, too. I'm going to have to cover everything in tarp or something so she can't wreck the place. You have a big old house with people to fix things, but we're stuck in our apartment for three more months before the lease is up. If we lose the security deposit because Laila decides to tear up the walls, I'm going to have to put her in a cage or something."

"It won't work." I sighed and slumped into the armchair. "She's got your temper. She's definitely going to bite her way out."

"Ugh! Dont jinx me." But Raf looked askance down at her little girl, who made a sharp sound and tried to gnaw on her mother's thumb. "Yeah, okay. That's fair. She's going to be a handful. I hope she doesn't figure out how to walk anytime soon..."

With her pure werewolf body, Raf's pregnancy had lasted the customary six months, or five months after that fateful call in the middle of the night. In other words, although her daughter was likely not an Alpha pup nor destined to become an Alpha as an adult, she had the natural advantage of fast growth compared to humans and compared to whatever I was.

"Claudia?"

"Oh, sorry. What were you saying?"

Raf bounced Laila a few times on her knee as she peered into my eyes. "Claudia, come on. What's on your mind? You've been spacing out a ton since I got here. You're not tired, I can tell. You've got something on your mind. Is it Evan? Did you argue or something?" I shook my head. "No, no. It's just... I've been wondering. I get to watch my sons grow up and I treasure every second... but what about my mother? What happened to her that she ended up where she did? And..." I swallowed hard. "I keep thinking - she must have been so scared. I had Evan, and you, and Leon, and Ken... But she had no one. She was a prisoner. And Kris ra-" I glanced at Laila and the boys, who were now stumbling back with toys in hand. "You know what Kris did to her. I just keep thinking, did she regret me?" I shrugged. "Probably. It must have been terrifying. It would be strange if she didn't."

Raf held my hand. "She never had the chance to hear your first word or watch you take your first step. Every mother deserves that. Every mother under normal circumstances wants that. I can't read her mind and we can't bring back the dead to ask our questions, but even if she was terrified back then, just know that if she had the choice from the beginning, she would have done everything she could to be with her child. With you."

I knew what she meant. If someone could magically change things so that my mother had fallen in love and married a good man, if my mother could have had a normal life, a normal love, and waited every day and night for her child to be born into the world... she would have never regretted me. But that wasn't what she had had. She'd had pain. Fear. Imprisonment. r***d and forced to bear a hybrid child she would never even get to meet.

For everything she had gone through, there could be nothing to make it right. But at least with the life she had given me, I had found happiness. Could it be enough for both of us? In death, could she rest in peace knowing that her suffering had ended with me? "Why don't you pick it up again?" Raf asked suddenly. "Hire private investigators. Start looking for her. Not, you know, where she was buried, but her life before."

"I don't want to dig up something that could hurt others. Evan hasn't been able to wipe out s*****y in our region yet, much less the rest of the continent. It'll be a while before he can change things everywhere and make it safe for me to look into my mom's past. What if I end up accidentally exposing a hidden refuge? I'm not just worried about what family my mom might have come from - all this digging, it could endanger other humans and we can't protect them all. And not just them. If there really are other elves in hiding..."

We fell silent. Even after all this time, neither of us could believe it. Professor Ornby went back and forth with me over virtual meetings with the test results the first few months after the city war ended, and every time, the results had been the same. I was half-elf, not half-human. I would think of myself as the latter for the rest of my life because that was the way I had been raised, but genetically, there could be no mistake. The healing magic in me grew stronger day by day now that it had awakened, and my children... Evan's and my children... were part elf too, because of me.

Maybe Raf was right. I had willingly given up searching for my mother months ago, setting aside that journey for the future. Evan had promised he would unite the continent and abolish all s*****y. I believed him, more than enough to wait patiently. But that would take years, and it wasn't only my heritage I was sacrificing. It was our children's. Peelle, Osborn, both of them had history somewhere we didn't know. Was it right for me to put it off, maybe indefinitely. By the time s*****y was abolished everywhere, and exposing humans and possible elf havens was no longer dangerous for them, what if the last of my mother's people died out and disappeared?

Or maybe they had all been captured too, just like Kris had obtained my mother as a slave. They could be slaving away now, dreaming of rescue. Or maybe they had stopped dreaming long ago.

Peelle and Osborn wobbled to my knees, looking up with wide eyes. They babbled at each other and at me, then at Raf and Laila. Surprisingly, Laila talked back. The three little ones carried on an incomprehensible conversation while we looked on with faint smiles. "It's your choice, Claud." Raf's voice was soft. "But you know... if you have blood family still alive, I bet they'd thank you for letting them see your boys. This might be the future they've been wishing for all along."

***

Six weeks later, I set off for the train station. Evan was home between his campaigning and diplomatic annexations, and he had insisted I go with not only him, but also a chauffeur, bodyguards - an entire entourage, or rather a small army. It was impossible. Someone had to stay with the twins, and I didn't dare bring them into danger with me, nor did I want to trust them with anyone but their father, my mate.

Not only that, but Evan's absence from the territory while traveling with me could give criminals undue courage to rise up. He had to stay in Scarlet territory with our children to keep the city stable. I refused to slow down Evan's unification when packs were only just now beginning to learn to trust each other again. Rumors were already spreading that Evan had changed from warmongering conqueror to a calmer, more peaceful man, someone who joined werewolves together through mutual advantage rather than with soldiers and invasions. He had to keep going. For the sake of everyone who had suffered like me, I needed him to never stop until the job was done.

The bodyguards had to go, too. No one would answer any questions I had if I had glaring werewolves looming over my shoulder. Instead, we went to the one person we knew we could trust to keep me safe, yet not ground my investigating to a halt. "You sure about this, Claudia?" Ken asked as we boarded the train. "You already hired investigators, but you're going to do some sleuthing yourself, too?"

"It just feels right."

"Well... all right."

"We won't be alone. Lucas is waiting for us at the Dark Moon pack with information. He'll stick with us."

Our journey was just beginning.

But by the end, I would replace the answers I'd sought since I was a little girl.