Bled By My Alpha Parents Adopted By The Lycan King Chapter 10
Princess Nova
A year later, the Silvermoon royal family returned to the capital for the Winter Gala.
They brought with them a daughter no wolf outside the palace had ever seen.
The whispers ran through the pack halls for weeks before the Gala itself.
The Lycan Queen had a secret pup. Sickly at birth.
A high healer had warned that she must be kept from the world until her eighteenth year.
Her name had been registered as Princess Nova of Silvermoon on her last birthday, and the King had sealed the title with his own hand.
Every high-ranking she-wolf in the capital wanted to see her.
They would have to wait.
I stood under the covered walkway outside the great hall, warming my hands on the small brass foot-warmer Lyle had pressed into my palms half an hour ago. He had told me the Gala was too loud, that I looked tired, and that he was going to fetch me a fresh warmer because the one in my sleeve had gone cool.
He always thought I was still small. Still a pup.
I ran a hand over the white fox cloak on my shoulders and smiled to myself.
I was not small anymore. The Queen’s royal healers had done their work. My cheeks had filled out. My hair had grown thick and dark.
I looked seventeen, maybe eighteen, the way I should have looked all along.
The year in the palace had covered fifteen years of dark rooms.
I could not remember the Ashborne Pack House clearly anymore.
I did not want to.
“Nova?”
The voice came from behind me. It was cracked and quiet.
“Is it you?”
I turned.
Rowan Ashborne was standing at the end of the walkway.
He looked older. Thinner. There was a slight drag in his left leg when he took a step forward. His eyes locked onto my face, and he did not blink.
“Nova,” he said again, and the word broke in his throat. “Tell me I’m not dreaming. Tell me you’re really—”
He started toward me, faster.
I stepped back.
He stopped.
For a long moment he just looked at me, mouth trembling.
“Nova. Your name is Nova. You’re the Ashborne heir. You were taken from us fifteen years ago and we searched, we tore the whole capital apart looking for you. And then— and then we didn’t know. I didn’t know. Nova, come home. Please. We’re so sorry. Come home.”
I looked at the wolf who had shoved me down in the wisteria courtyard and kicked me in the chest.
“I don’t know what the young heir is talking about,” I said quietly. “I have a family. I am not any Ashborne heir.”
His eyes dropped to my sleeve.
Something in his face changed. He reached out.
I flinched. “Calling the princess by her name directly is against the rules.”
He caught my wrist anyway and pushed the fabric up, and there on the inside of my forearm, above the faded silvery lines of a thousand needle scars, sat a small red crescent birthmark.
His breath left him.
“You’re my sister. You are. Where have you been this last year? We tore the ground apart looking for you. Where—”
“Rowan!”
Two more figures came down the walkway. Alpha Cassius. Luna Marissa.
The Luna saw me and her legs gave out under her. She stumbled the last three paces on her knees and threw her arms around my waist.
“Nova. My Nova. My pup. Mother is here. Mother has been looking, my little Nova, my little pup, I am so sorry, I am so sorry.”
Her tears soaked into the fur of my cloak.
They should have been warm.
They only felt wet.
I stood very still and I let her cry.