Chapter 154

“You seem to be thinking pretty hard there, Amy.” His voice, once again, made me jump. I hadn’t realized that the class was over. I was still fully absorbed in what I was reading, and this time I let out a squeak. He chuckled as he settled next to me with his laptop.

“Um, yeah.” I wiped my face. “This is all confusing.” I waved my hands at the screen, and he nodded.

“Yeah, but I don’t think it was hacking principles that made you make that face.” He turned to me. “So spill.”

“How old are you?” I blurted it out and then winced.

“What?”

“How old are you?”

“Why do you want to know?” He leaned back in his seat.

I raised my hands and shook my head. “Sorry. It’s none of my business.” I wiped at my face. “Just when you said that you have been at this for years, it made me think about your age. Wolves barely grow old, heck my parents look to be about thirty, and my dad is almost two hundred years old.”

“How old is your mother?” Rowan tilted his head.

“She is closer to sixty. They met when she was nineteen and stayed childless for a few years before they had me.”

Rowan nodded. “Most wolf pairings have gaps in age.”

I shrugged. “It makes sense. The goddess selects your mate, and we have to wait until the other is born or we find each other.” I closed my laptop and turned to face him. “Why are you avoiding my question?”

Rowan laughed and scratched behind his ear. “I’m not.”

“You’re doing it right now,” I pointed out.

He huffed out a breath. “I’m only thirty. I was twelve when my father was killed. Younger when the Lycans started to be hunted to extinction.” He leaned onto the table and propped his head up on his hand.

I repositioned on my chair, pulling my leg up and turning completely to face him. “What happened?”

“What?”

“I mean, you don’t have to tell me, but my father has always been vague, and my mother…well, she never wanted to speak about it. What happened to the Lycans?”

Rowan stared at me for a few moments before he closed his eyes. “They died.”

“I know that much. But why? What happened to them? You guys were the most powerful pack, and then everyone but you and your dad were gone. How did everyone vanish so quickly?” The questions tumbled from my mouth, and I couldn’t stop them if I wanted to. This was the first chance I had ever gotten to ask someone directly, even if he looked like he would rather die than tell me. I stopped the questions and waited. I waited for a very long time, with Rowan sitting silently beside me. He stayed silent for so long I was just going to turn back to my computer before he started.

“It was a dark night.”

“Huh?” But he didn’t answer me, and I realized he was reliving this nightmare…for me. The guilt hit first as he continued.

“I was about six, and the night was so dark. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, and I swore something was outside my window.” His eyes stayed shut, but I could see them dart back and forth. “I ran to my parents’ room and woke them up. My father, he told me to go back to bed, that no one was there. But I was certain. My mother said she would come check, and we walked back to my room.” He trembled, and without thinking, I reached my hand for his. He wrapped his hand around mine, threading our fingers together. “When we got back to my room, my mom went to the window to look, but when she goes there, a hand shot forward through her chest, ripping her heart out. I screamed. My mother turned to look at me, and I saw her life fade from her eyes. My father burst through the doors just to see her drop, and then the mind links came. There were rogues attacking. Too many to be a coincidence. A pack of rogues, something our world had never seen before. Within the night, most of my pack was dead. My father was badly injured, and the world found out that even the Royal Lycan pack could be defeated.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered as I squeezed his hands.

“That was just the start of the hunt. One by one, the remaining pack members disappeared. The rogues were blamed, but my father suspected that the pack of rogues was just hiding the truth.”

“What truth?”

His eyes met mine. “That some packs got together, banished their warriors for them to become rogue, just to attack us. My father was tracing everything down for years until he was murdered. And now, it’s been left to me…and your father, to find the truth.”