The Secrets of the Panther
Chapter 129

IZZY

The drive to the storage was only fifteen minutes away.

Blake and I drove in silence. I could feel his eyes on me every chance he could look at me, but I never looked back at him.

I stared out of the window, watching the town pass by.

They heavily attacked the town during the war. The town suffered heavy attacks during the war, losing many businesses. Some were being boarded up, and others were already planning to fix damages. I couldn’t help but feel like this was all my fault.

Puna was close by, but she stared out of the window at me. Our power was looming, but it never came up to the surface.

“This is not our fault,” says Puna out of nowhere.

I say nothing but carry on staring.

Blake comes to a stop as we pull into a car park. An enormous building stood tall, with my units with shutters as doors.

Once Blake cuts the engine off, we both stare at the building.

“Do you think the book is in there?” he asks, looking around.

I look over at him, and he stares back at me.

I love this man; I have felt more for him over the last few months, especially with Allie. I knew I could trust him with anything I said or did. He made me realize I could be more than my power, even if I haven’t felt like it since I returned.

“I think it is,” I say, moving my eyes from him to the building.

Blake moves toward me, places his hand in mine, and moves my hand to his mouth. He kisses my hand and holds it close to his chest. I could feel the heat from his body.

“Izzy, I know you think all this is your fault. Axel can feel Puna, and I can sense your emotions,” he says. “The guilt in the car as we drove to get here was unbearable.” I can’t help but look at him.

Blake stares at me. “Izzy, this was never your fault,” he says. “This war was a long time coming. Our pack was caught in something a crazy old man believed in and suffered from all the crap he did to many people. He brought everyone down with him and even got himself and his crazy ass daughter killed by you and Graham.”

I give him a small smile, but the mention of my dad has me feeling slightly broken inside.

“This war was going to happen, whatever happened,” he says. I stare at him. “I know, but I never want innocent people to get hurt,” I say to him with a sigh.

I look back at the storage place. “I think we should go in,” I say to him, changing the subject.

Blake nods. He lets go of my hand after placing another tender kiss on it. We leave the van and head toward a man waiting at the entrance. He had been watching us while we were talking. He looks at us when we stand before him and smiles.

“Ah, young alpha and Luna,” he says as he opens the door. “The storage unit you are looking for is down that corridor.” He pointed in the direction we needed to go. “Give me a shout when you need anything to be moved into the van. I will move it to the back entrance; it will be ready to upload everything you need.”

Blake nods. He hands the keys to the van to the man, who takes them as we head down the corridor.

“Dale phoned ahead and told the man we were coming here,” says Blake as we get closer to the storage unit.

Once we were outside it, Blake used Kat’s key and opened the storage unit. Blake opens the door, and we both head inside.

The unit was like a massive room, but there was a sliding hatch where you could place a van if you wanted to load anything. That explains why Blake gave him the key to the van; he would load up from there.

I spotted loads of furniture that I wanted to take with me. There were two wardrobes, a chest of drawers, and a desk. I showed Blake everything that I wanted to take. Blake waved over to the man and showed him what we were taking.

There was so much stuff, including boxes, around the place. Blake followed me around but glanced around. “Your mother had loads of stuff,” he said as he pulled a box from a pile. I looked at the label: Izzy’s clothes on the front.

Blake opened it and pulled out some clothes, and he looked up at me as I glanced around. Everything looked so familiar to me. I knew where everything went in our house to the markings I left on the furniture.

“I think we could take some clothes here,” he says. “Allie can choose some, and we can give away whatever is left.”

I look back at him. “Yeah, that would be great,” I said, but I noticed some boxes said my mother’s things.

“Move nothing labeled my mother’s,” I say to him. “We can come back here another time and look through them. I want to spend time with them, even have Kat come with me. She can have a look, as I know she might want to keep some stuff of hers.”

Blake smiles and carries on, looking through the box. I walk around and notice the kitchen table with the chairs stacked up on one another by the side of the table. I walked over, and I smiled.

I saw markings on it, where I used a fork to write my name and my mum into it. I had a row for doing it, but my mum never wanted to get rid of it, even when we looked for a smaller place. I run my hand along the table, but I trip on something and hit my hip on something. A drawer pops open on the side of the table. I look at it with confusion; I never knew it existed.

I walked over and looked inside, but my eyes grew wide as I stared back at the item.

A book.

I picked it up and looked at it.

I place it on the table. I grabbed a chair from the pile to the side, placing it in front of the book.

The book looked like the one you see people keep behind closed doors in museums or libraries. Where they store them in glass boxes on certain pages for people to read. I hear movement to the side of me, and I look up to see Blake.

Blake looks at me, but his eyes wander to the book before me. “Is that the book you were on about?” he asks as he grabs a chair from the pile and places it beside mine.

I nod as I glance back at the book.

Blake sits next to me as I open the front cover.

On the first page was a photograph of a family of four. I can’t help but gasp as I stare at it.

Blake looks at the photo, and I can feel his eyes on me, but I never take my eyes off the photograph.

The photograph was of a man and woman with two girls. It was not the couple that got my attention but the two girls.

They were mirror images of people I knew. People I cared about.

The one girl looked like Kat and Alice, with similar features. But the other girl was like looking at a mirror image of my mum, me, and Allie.

There was writing underneath, and it read the Porting Family. Their names were slightly faint, but you could still read them. You could make out the neat handwriting in which the names were written.

“Clara and Deirdre with their parents, James and Sophia,” I read.

Blake moves closer to look but says nothing.

I moved the page, and a family tree was on the following two pages. I skimmed over it as I knew I could look back through it later. I turned to the next page, and there was a heading on top of the page—family history.

I read the book out loud.

Blake never once stopped me as I read my story about my ancestors. I could feel Puna come closer to look at the book with me. She was curious, as I was to know about our ancestors.