After finding our moment, Amelia left to find me something to eat with Ben. Ursula told us Alijah's story as her mother told her. However, it was hard to know how accurate it was over time.

Those who knew of Alijah considered him a failure of his kind, while others called him a deadly mistake. The rest of the Lycans considered him a legend—a cautionary tale of the wolf that went mad because it was in his nature.

Sadly, no one was born a killer; we were made—a fact people tried to ignore as most of them thought it was because he was incapable of love, but it was the complete opposite. Alijah originated from one of the alpha families scattered worldwide at his birth.

Silverant was but a dream back then.

He was a prodigy, much like how they portrayed Fenris. They thought he would've started a new era for the Lycans because he was also the first wolf born under the blood moon. He had been trained, just like Fenris, to be the alpha over every single wolf out there.

Alijah was the one who could unite all the tribes into a unit. However, his path was tarnished when he met an elven girl who stole his heart during one of his diplomatic trips. This happened before he got his blessing. They didn't name the moon elf in Ursula's tale, but Alijah called her Lilith in my memory.

All she knew about her was that she was a medic who worked on the moon elf continent, Allora. Alijah went there to be an ambassador during tension within the races. The Lycans tried to sway the moon elves to be their allies instead of helping the witches, who had aligned themselves with the vampires.

However, instead of going to do his task, Alijah was caught by the elf girl's charm. He was only eighteen when he met her, which in their eyes was too young to know love. When the young man abandoned his duties to chase after the tail, the rest of the Lycans didn't take to this nicely.

Ultimately, they thought the elf was a distraction he would get over, but the moment he realized they would come for him to bring him back to Lyari—the wolf vanished with the elf. It took them two years to find them because of an anonymous tip that had arrived at their doors.

A crow, a favorite familiar for witches, left a letter by the doorstep of the Lycan elders. As he said in my memory, the tale mentioned nothing about the silver wolves betraying Alijah. Back then, Lycans treated traitors with death, but this wolf was a fated fruit they couldn't destroy.

Instead, they took away what he loved as punishment for his defiance. He was helpless to stop them from punishing him, especially when he wasn't present when it happened. According to them, he was barely a man and not blessed by the moon.

They forcefully took Alijah back into the pack he left behind before it took a darker turn. The next part of the tale left me wishing it was nothing more than a story. It had to be something that had been mistranslated and added over time to make it seem worse, but from Ursula's tone, it appeared genuine.

At age twenty, the young wolf was isolated from everyone, including his family, who begged for his release but disappeared soon after they tried. He was fed and forced to procreate with any female deemed worthy to create a true heir for his line.

However, that never happened. They didn't know this back in Alijah's time, but thanks to studies done on Fenris, this was all done without his knowledge. They learned that Blood Moon Lycans were sterile, which made them theorize they couldn't produce an heir until the moon graced them.

We proved it correct because Alijah couldn't produce an heir during his years of torture, while Fenris did the moment he was exposed to the moon. The black wolf couldn't escape his predicament, staying with them under those conditions for two years.

It slowly chipped away at his sanity, and on his twenty-second birthday, the blood moon graced the Lycans with their presence once again. At that time, the imprisoned wolf unleashed unforeseen wrath over their kind, annihilating his pack that night alone.

Only one survivor, a merchant visiting the pack, made it out to warn the others of the storm brewing. Most thought he would be done after taking his vengeance, but no, he wished to destroy everyone who turned a blind eye to his pain.

For an entire year, the black wolf terrorized anyone who came on his path. No magic or weapon could stop him. Well, until a witch opened the gate to the soul cairn. It differed from the way Stella did, as it didn't cause an apocalyptic scenario.

The woman worked with the elves to create the first artifact with the soul of a fallen god. They made the others with lesser souls from brief natural moments when the gate opened. These openings weren't enough for the souls to escape, but with her help, they were able to trap them.

It can't be... can it?

It took the lives of one hundred elves to create an artifact powerful enough to seal Alijah away. They made the more minor artifacts before the witch opened the gate for them. They were too weak to do anything other than halt time for brief moments.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The reason they never used Wolfsbane to stop him. That was because they feared he would destroy the world in his rampage. After all, he could accomplish it in a split second with his power, and everyone knew how the flower made the Lycans rabid.

Alijah only took his sweet time because he wanted to see them suffer. He was twenty-three when he was sealed away in that forsaken realm that held him. His story resonated with me in ways I never knew possible.

The Lycans of old were cruel. In most parts, I wanted to believe they weren't presently like that, but his story sounded so eerily like what they wanted to do with Fenris.

What if I was an elf, unable to bear a child? Would I have been treated the same? Or if I didn't have this gate, would I be dead already?

My life was in danger because I wasn't a Lycan. However, killing me would've been their greatest mistake this time around.

You poor thing, Alijah. I never thought your life was so crappy.

I knew what it was to have your body ruined, to be tortured and mistreated for years.

I know exactly how you feel! So... what if I never met Fenris? Would I have been like you? I'm sorry, Alijah. I can't be your light, but do you deserve to die because of what you've done?

By the time Ursula was done with what she knew. I wanted to throw up for other reasons than my pregnancy. Unable to hold my discontent, I buried myself in Fenris's chest, which seemed to be the same as I was.

It was almost like they were trying to do the same to him since everything my wolf heard was like his life.

People never learned, even knowing their history. If...

Disgusting, Lilith. If that happens to Fenris, I'll... kill them all. Shade hissed, jumping onto her wolf's shoulder.

Alijah glossed over a lot when we spoke in that weird space. Perhaps it was because of the time constraints. Though I suspected he didn't want me to feel pity for everything he went through.

Or perhaps you were trying to be strong for me. How sad is this? Why did this have to happen at all? Just let people love whoever they want to love.

I would never know the black wolf's reasons, but he wasn't the evil being I saw him as.

You're another victim of this cruel world of ours, and you have every right to hate the world that took everything from you.

After his isolation, his family appeared to have abandoned him in that rotten place, too.

Damn it, is there a way for you to live to see better days? Or are you too far gone? No... Tobias had said I wasn't the one, but if it isn't by my hands, then at whose will you finally know peace?

Having had enough, Fenris urged me onto his back. Amelia and Ben returned from their errand, not knowing what had transpired. They handed me a few dull cookies to eat. Fenris held me tightly to him so I could eat while he carried me out of the room.

There was a lot to swallow after the day's revelations. Instead of heading to the room, Amelia insisted we go to the Silver Fang manor. Ryker agreed that the way tensions appeared would make it safer for me to be away from all of this.

After all, the Silver Fangs had an army of Lycans loyal to them alone. No one would be dumb enough to go to the manor to harm me, and Evan didn't live there. The fact I was leaving the building was surreal, especially knowing I was about to step into a world I didn't know how to behave in.

Amelia put it in terms of Fenris finally coming home. Melody shyly followed along when Ben encouraged her to go too. Liam also tagged along, though this wouldn't be his first trip into the manor.

However, for me, it would be the first time I ever laid eyes on it. The trip there wasn't long, just a fifteen-minute walk from the Cerberus base. Before I knew it, we stood before a grey metal gate, holding a white manor behind them.

Once they opened, they revealed a line of Lycans in their beast forms, who bowed to us on our way in. The scent of roses was the first thing that hit me as their gardens were full of bushes filled with colorful flowers.

The main building was made of white marble with a black contrast, perfectly matching its royal theme. It was fancier than anything I had ever seen in a book. It was smaller than Cerberus, but that was an entire organization founded by Lycans.

Was this where you lived your childhood before living with me back in the room? How much did you give up for me, Fenris?

"My father built this when he married Mom. Do you like it?" My wolf asked, stopping by the entrance so I could inspect everything.

The wooden decorations and doors to the manor were made of dark oak, a wood found in the elven lands. I wasn't the only one feeling overwhelmed as Melody was taken aback by its beauty. Everything appeared like a fairy tale.

"It's amazing. This was your home?" I asked in awe.

I was blissfully unaware of Fenris's lineage until this moment. The majestic beauty of the building was on an entire other level. The architecture was on par with castles I had seen from the human side. On every corner of their yard, there were wolf statues.

They each had plates with names on them—the lineage of the Silver Fang family. The closer I got to the roses, the more I remembered how their scent lingered on him when he was younger.

"Mhm. Now it's yours too." My wolf pointed out.

I quickly crashed back into the world upon hearing him say that.

"What?! No, I'm just a guest." I grumbled.

He sighed, "You'll be..." he trailed off before shaking his head.

He headed inside, saying nothing else as Ben waited for him by the door. Amara had come with us, too. Amelia always wanted a medic in the home for me. Even though humans could bear children from any race, it was more complicated than a normal pregnancy.

It didn't help I was probably carrying more than I could handle. The white wolf promised Amara an entire lodge and pay while she helped me with the pregnancy. It was an offer too good to pass up, especially since she would work for the famous Silver Fang family, too.

Once inside, the interior decoration followed much of what we saw outside, yet there were crystal sculptures. It never hit me that my wolf was basically from a sovereign family. I always knew he was important, but this hammered it in place.

He was an heir to an entire kingdom. Even Amelia's stuck-up attitude made sense if this was where she grew up. They even had maids, butlers, staffers, and things that I never thought I would ever see in my lifetime.

All of them were purely loyal to the Silver Fang family, too. They were composed of every race, which surprised me even more. Of course, none were combat-worthy, but Lycans constantly patrolled around in the manor grounds, making this the safest place other than Cerberus.

There was no safer place for me now that I bore Fenris's pups—the Lycans' future. Nothing was more threatening than a pack of wolves going after a threat directed at their pups.