Madeline:

“You’re my daughter. I’m your mother. I’m Jayla.”

My so-called mother got up from the couch and approached me to hug me, but I rose even more swiftly, stepping away to put distance between us.

Even Livia looked shocked when I did that.

“You’re my mother?” I said, pointing at myself and smiling through the tears.

“Yes, I am. I recognized you the minute you came into my living room. How the hell did you two not notice this?” his mother asked, letting out a chuckle.

Livia smiled too as she tried to comfort me, but I was bitter. I stepped away and pointed at Jayla.

“You’re not my mother,” I said in a bitter tone, wiping the smile from her lips.

“But she is. We can get a DNA test done, even though there is no need. We are family because—” Livia started listing all the reasons to believe that we were siblings, that we were a family, but I began shaking my head even harder this time. “No. How can a mother leave her daughter, take just one, and leave?” I finally said it, the words that had been in my heart since I was a child.

Both their faces fell.

“You brought her here and lived a perfectly safe life while I suffered there, Mother,” I said, putting emphasis on the word “Mother” as I hissed it.

“I—I have my son in the werewolf land, and I cannot take a breath without thinking about him. I’m trying my best to get him here. But looking at you, it seems like you just gave up. You decided to live a happy life with your one daughter.”

I started to hiccup even more as tears rushed to my eyes. Then, suddenly, I gasped, clutching my chest as another wave of confusion and pain hit me.

“You said a mother and triplets,” I reminded her, watching her eyes fill with tears. She looked guilty.

“We had another sister?” I asked, pressing my lips tightly together.

“You’re taking it all wrong,” Livia tried to defend her, but I slammed my hand down in front of me, stopping her from coming any closer.

“You don’t get to defend her. You got her love. You got her time. You have no right to tell me anything, to say anything to me. You’re not the one who suffered,” I continued, letting all my emotions out.

Jayla gestured for Livia to step back, and she reluctantly did.

“So you didn’t only leave me behind. You ran away with just one daughter Another sister of mine is probably suffering in there,”

hiccuped as I complained, shaking my head at her without breaking eye contact.

“You have every right to be angry with me,” Jayla commented.

I placed my hands on my waist and shook my head once again. That was when my phone beeped.

I quickly pulled it out of my pocket because, at this point, I really wanted a

distraction, something to remind me that even if my own mother had betrayed me,

there were other people who cared about me.

Seeing Baxter’s name on the screen made me breathe a sigh of relief before I remembered that he was also hiding things from me.

So, instead of reading his text, I shoved the phone back into my pocket. “Madeline, how did you feel when you found out that your son was left behind?” she asked, watching me narrow my eyes and take a deep breath.

“Anger. I felt anger. I am not gonna rest until I make the werewolves hand my back my son-” was in the middle of speaking when my mother, Jayla, smiled.

“What if the werewolves don’t listen to you?” she questioned, causing my eyebrows to knit together.

“What do you mean? If they don’t, I will fucking start a war with them,” I hissed, watching her smile once again.

“And who will support you? You cannot go to war alone, right?”

Her questions were making me anxious because now I wasn’t only looking at the woman who had left her daughters behind, but also at someone who was asking hard questions about my son.

“Their father. Their father is gonna stand with me,” I said proudly, 0 referring to Baxter because even if we didn’t see eye to eye, I knew damn well there was no way he

wouldn’t help his children

I mean, I had seen him show care and love for Gina and Elara. He loved them more

than he loved Bodhi. I knew that much.

However, the broken smile she gave me shattered something inside me.

“Well, you see, your father fought

hard, hard enough to do whatever he

could. But he was no president. He was no Alpha King Madeline. Althe could do was She paused, swallowing back a big tear. “Just carry me and what was left of our family and bring us to the human world.”

Her words stunned me for a moment.

Then, in a very calm tone, she added, “And then he brought you here. And I guess

he’s gonna find our lost family member and bring her here too.”

My jaw dropped as her words started to make sense and I realized what she was saying. Or in other words, who she was calling my father.