First

Chapter 82

“Yes! That’s how you do it!”

Tatum jumps to his feet, fist pumping

air, he jams his hands together with much excitement, chuckling with the look of a proud father in his eyes.

It’s another day of the contest and one of his warriors has just taken down another wolf that was almost twice his size in wolf to wolf

combat.

“Did you see how he did that?” He asks Leila, touching her shoulders with excitement.

Leila jerks at his touch, like someone jolted out of a trance by his touch. Her body is present there, perhaps her spirit too but her mind is already far gone.

“What? Who did what?” Leila replies, glancing from the bloodied man in the auditorium back to Tatum, looking completely clueless as to what happened.

“Are you okay?” Tatum asks, taking his seat. His peering gaze full of

concern.

“I’m fine,” Leila replies dismissively.

“Are you su-”

“I said I’m fine Tatum,” Leila’s voice comes out a bit harsh before it drops an octave lower. “I just want to focus on the match.”

“Cool,” Tatum smiles sadly at her and he doesn’t push her any further.

None of them spoke of that night but something has been different about her since then. He wants to help her, he wants to share in her burden but she doesn’t trust him enough to share with him and it really

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hurts

‘She wants to focus on the match,’ she said but she is already completely lost in her own world again, staring into space.

Can he ever get to her?

She doesn’t trust him and she doesn’t even try to hide it, the fact is like a thorn, slicing deep into his heart causing him immeasurable pain.

Leila looks at the bodies being thrown around in the middle of the arena but she cannot really see anything.

There is nothing wrong with her eyes, it is her mind that has sunk into an abyss of theories of what ifs, some scary to even imagine, some strange to ponder but they all nibble on her mind, urging her to make sense out of it and find the truth.

Curtis found someone who may be able to get in touch with Kelvin for her and she has forwarded the pictures of the files she got from the

class A archives to him.

Any moment now, she hopes to hear from him and the anxious waiting is killing her.

Her father was the beta of the blood oak pack, a respected warrior and a high ranking member of the council and yet, the record of his death is

almost non-existent.

It’s almost like someone did not want him to be remembered or for his death to be investigated.

Her suspicion that Carmela’s father might have something to do with her dad’s demise feels like a bitter taste on the back of her tongue, a hard pill she doesn’t want to swallow.

There is no way her father, the fiercest warrior in the pack would be easily killed by two rogues when he had another strong Beta with him

2/4

ordets Carmela’s father did not help or he struck the deadly blow

Right now, she needs to consider everything, he took over as Beta after her father died, his daughter became the phoenix luna almost

immediately after and the so called rogues who killed her father were never found, did they even try to find them?

Carmela woke up with a mark on her one day and her father declared it is the mark of the phoenix Luna. The mark is literally a phoenix, how could anyone doubt it?

But the prophecy did not say what the mark would look like, only that the Luna would be born with the mark of a phoenix.

There is so much that doesn’t make sense, so much that she needs to figure out.

What if Carmela’s mark isn’t even the real thing?

Tatum’s wolf doesn’t even sense her wolf as his mate.

What if she really isn’t the phoenix Luna?

That could change everything.

Her phone beeps and she jumps, glancing at Tatum whose eyes are on her but he looks away quickly, an expression she cannot read in his

eyes.

Her heart pounds in her chest both in relief and in worry as she picks up her phone.

Kelvin finally replied to her message but the content of his message defeats everything she had been hoping on.

[Carmela’s mark is real. It was confirmed that very day by the pack witch. It is according to the prophecy.

She quel combine wake the fearing

She will offenele paw a wall to the gorge with on the lame and when

how the condomar me phone

and