The Alpha's Temptation

"I am well," Tania replied in a careful voice. Numerous questions surfaced when she met his gaze. She still couldn't believe that he was her father.

Biham stared at his heir for a long time and his throat bobbed up and down. It was as if he was unable to speak. After a long moment, in a shaky voice he said, "I would like to hear everything about you. Do you trust me enough to tell me?"

She hardly didn't have  anything in her life that she wouldn't want to reveal, except that she was Eltanin's mate. He had asked her to stay quiet about it. Tania bit her lip as her heartbeat accelerated. She really didn't know where to start. Her heart thudded against her ribcage. "I want to hear about yourself first," she said, looking at his drawn features. "As far as I remember, my father was a simple farmer and my mother was… my mother."

"You mean Cordea and Arthur?"

A blast of shock passed through her as she shook her head in disbelief. Those names reverberated in her nightmares. They were a figment of her imagination, but Biham just gave them a physical entity. With wide eyes and tingles spreading all over her skin, she stared at him incredulously. Air punched out of her lungs. "C—Cordea was my mother?"

Biham narrowed his eyes. "Please don't tell me that you believed that Cordea was your mother. That bitch kept you away from me for so long. She wasn't the one who carried you for nine months and then spent hours screaming with intense pain to give birth to you," he spat. "It was Kinshra who carried you, despite all the protests from the Elders. I– I—" he choked.

Realization hit Tania like a lightning bolt.

Cordea was the woman who protected the little baby in her arms. The little baby was herself. All her dreams materialized in front of her. None of it had been in her imagination. It was the truth of her past that had haunted her through her nightmares.

"Don't talk about her like that," Tania said. Had her cheeks become wet? "She protected me. Arthur protected us. They— They—" she didn't know what they did after that, but, "I remember them loving me so much." She gulped her cries, sobbing. "Until our hut was razed down. Some soldiers gutted it and killed the only parents I had ever known." Tania's body trembled, while crying at the loss that she felt in the pit of her stomach, in the core of her heart. "Cordea protected me with her life."

"She should have come to me, but she chose to hide you!" Biham snapped. "I had been under the impression that my child had died with my mate."

"Your mate?" Tania said in a gravelly voice.

Biham shook his head with so much guilt that he hoped that the earth cracked open and he would disappear into it. "Your mother, Kinshra was my mate and my second wife."

Tania's hands flew to her mouth. She remembered her dreams about Kinshra.

Seeing how pale she had become, Biham shifted near her and held her hand in his. "You are the true heir of Pegasii. I have finally found you Lusitania and I will not let you go now. Pegasii has a bright future under you. Do you realize the kind of fortune you have inherited? This entire palace, its jewels, its treasury, this whole kingdom is yours, my child! Tomorrow, I will take you to the royal garden where you will meet the spirit of Pegasii."

All those words felt like a giant boulder on her heart. Heir? True heir? Bright future? Treasure? But she was a slave in the Cetus Monastery, with a part of her soul with Menkar. "How did my mother die?" She wanted to know so badly, even though she should be excited about her future.

"I don't know…" Biham replied, feeling totally helpless. "I sent—" Why wasn't she acknowledging all the wealth? If it had been Morava, she would have started planning her ascension, but this little girl was asking about her mother.

Tania remembered the bright light in her dreams that consumed a beautiful woman with wings. "Was my mother a werewolf?"

Biham jerked his head up. "No…"

"Then?"

"She was a fae…" He stared at her with disbelief, she asked a question that she wouldn't have asked normally.

Tania closed her eyes and fell back on the pillows.

"Lusitania…" Biham said and squeezed her hand, but she pulled it away from him.

"After my parents were killed, I was sent to my grandmother who would—" she wiped her tears but they wouldn't stop. "Who would say I wasn't her grandchild. She was a drunkard and she beat me often. She would make me work in her house every day and give me very little to eat. She never had enough money to feed the both of us. Do you know what she had done in the end?"

Biham braced himself for the worst. Had Tania gone to a brothel?

"The old woman sold me for a few coins to the High Priest of the Cetus Monastery."

A sigh of relief crossed him. He had to thank Menkar. "I will have to thank Menkar," he mumbled. "You could have gotten into the wrong hands."

Tania sucked in a ragged breath. "Menkar—"

A heavy knock pounded on the door. "Your Highness, there's been an attack on the far east of the palace!"

Biham cursed as he raked his fingers into his hair. He wanted to spend more time with his daughter, but the Draka king was being a bastard. "I have to handle this, Lusitania. But know this—I will be announcing you to my kingdom the day after tomorrow. After that, you will address King Eltanin as the heir of Pegasii and not as some slave girl. He will have no choice, but to retreat once he knows of your true identity." He rose to his feet, patted her shoulder and then strode out of the door.

So many things were left unspoken. She needed answers. She needed solace. She needed Eltanin to calm her nerves. Wiping her tears, she swept her feet off the bed and started afresh in her search to find the hidden passageway. After almost an hour of touching every surface with her fingers, she came across a door that seemed to meld with the wall. Its giveaway was a small dent in the wall. When she pressed the dent, a door creaked open. She was so happy at the discovery, at the possibility of meeting Eltanin, that she almost squealed with joy.

Picking up a candelabrum from the table, she burned its candle and entered the passageway. The entire path was riddled with thick cobwebs. She chanted spells to burn away the webs and clear her path. As she neared the exit, she was suddenly surrounded by a familiar woody and male musk scent. "Eltanin!" she called him.

"Tania!" He called back to her.

She squealed and ran the rest of the distance to him. Dressed like an ordinary soldier of the Pegasii army, he was standing at the entrance, adorning a dagger that dripped with blood in his hand. She froze in place, drinking his features in, not believing her eyes, lips quivering and then… her feet moved on their own accord. "Elty!"