Moon Touched (Zodiac Wolves: The Lost Pack #1)(38)
I couldn’t wait.
Chapter Sixteen
It surprised me more than anything when Kaden sat down with us at the large dining room table. When we’d come in and he’d been in the house, I'd half expected him to glare at me and go upstairs, but he’d sat at the island and cut vegetables for the pasta dish we were having. They sent me up to shower off the dirt and sweat from my training, while Stella ran an almost entirely one-sided conversation with Kaden as they cooked.
When the food was ready, Kaden took a seat at the head of the table. I stood, plate in hand, wondering if I was allowed to sit with them. Stella nudged me with her elbow and jerked her chin toward one of the middle chairs. I expected her to take the other end seat, but she sat across from me.
We ate in silence for a few minutes before Stella broke the quiet. “So, Ayla, tell me what it was like to grow up in the Cancer pack?”
I stopped, a bite halfway to my mouth. “It was…” I paused. I wouldn’t lie. I’d been lying through my teeth about my treatment for years. “Awful,” I finally said. Stella blinked as if it wasn’t the answer she was expecting. “I was always shunned for being an outcast, and treated poorly by many of the other pack members.”
“Weren’t you the alpha’s daughter?” She tried to share a look with Kaden, but he had his gaze focused on his plate, eating slowly but methodically.
“I was, but that didn’t matter." I fingered a strand of my red hair. “My father had an affair with a human, and I looked too much like her for him to ever forget it. He made it clear that despite sharing blood, I was no daughter of his. Wesley, my brother and the alpha heir, he was the golden child. He was the only one who treated me kindly.”
“Was?" Stella asked softly.
"He's dead now, thanks to the Leo pack and their allies.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness and pain out of my voice, but I did manage to blink back the rush of tears.
For a moment, I thought I’d killed the mood, as the quiet blanketed us once more. The clink of forks against plates was the only sound in the dining room. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything.
“The Leo pack killed our parents too,” Stella said, and I glanced up at her. She looked sad, but the kind of sad that said that it had happened a long time ago. When I glanced over at Kaden, his hand had tightened around the fork, his knuckles bone-white.
That must be why he hates them so much, I thought. That explained why he wanted to go after the Leo pack first. I nodded and ducked my head again, going back to eating. It was an excellent pasta dish, made with linguine in some kind of white sauce with vegetables and chicken. Stella clearly knew how to cook beyond basic survival skills.
Stella took a long sip of water before she continued. “Our parents were trying to meet with the other alphas to see if any of them would be willing to take our case to the rest of the packs and help us rejoin the Zodiac Wolves. But the other packs wouldn’t have anything to do with us, and for a while, we thought nothing would ever change. Then our parents got an invitation to meet with the Leo pack. It was suspicious, but our father was so excited to finally meet with one of the packs that he didn’t listen to anyone else’s advice."
I sucked in a deep breath at the pain in Stella’s voice. “And they betrayed you. Didn’t they?”
Stella nodded. “The Leo alpha killed our parents and some of their closest friends and advisors. That was when Kaden became alpha.”
I'd never heard about anything like this, even from the boastful Leos. Then again, they'd probably wanted to keep the truth about the Ophiuchus pack a secret. If anyone knew they were real, and not the monsters of myth, the lost pack might gain some sympathy among the Zodiac Wolves. “How long ago was this?”
“Ten years ago. Sometimes it seems like it happened just yesterday. It feels like it, in here.” She put a hand over her heart. Her eyes burned with the same mix of rage and grief I felt, and suddenly I knew that ten years from now, I’d feel the same as I was right now. I didn’t know if I could bear it. “Since then we've been waiting to get our revenge.”
“Ten years is a long time to wait for revenge,” I said. “The Leo pack has only grown bigger and stronger over the last ten years. Why wait until now?”
Kaden put his fork down, a little too hard. I jumped at the sudden noise. He looked up, eyes burning with hatred. “I spent every day of the last ten years preparing my pack for war, ever since I became alpha. Training all pack members to fight. Gathering weapons and resources. Studying the other packs' weaknesses. And now we're finally ready." He leaned forward, his voice low. "As long as you do what I say, we’ll both get our revenge on the Leos.”
I looked into those hate-filled eyes and believed it. He must have been young when he became alpha, and it was impressive that he'd been able to take control of a pack and prepare them for battle. I certainly wouldn't want to stand against him.
After that, the mood was well and truly killed, and we spent the rest of the dinner in silence. Kaden was the first to finish, and he washed his plate and put it in the dishwasher, before stalking upstairs. That was more of the dramatic exit I’d expected him to make before dinner.
“Don’t mind him,” Stella said as she stood up. “He had to grow up fast after he became alpha. He really does care about us under all of that grumpiness.”