Chapter 197: Aunts

Azura’s POV

I stood right where I was and stared at the two women. I never knew I was going to meet them one day in my life.

The shock of it hit me like a physical blow, locking my joints and making my blood run completely cold.

I felt tears roll down my cheeks like an uncontrollable rain.

My body trembled.

My chest ached as my blurry gaze remained on them, my vision swimming so badly that their figures began to blur together.

Then, the silver training sword in my hand slipped from my numb fingers, landing with a sharp thud on the dusty floor of the clearing.

The sound seemed to snap everyone out of their trance.

Axel and Torin were already so close to me, rushing to my side with their faces tightening with worry.

They looked at the dropped weapon, then up at my face, completely helpless against the breakdown they didn’t understand.

"Please, Azura, say something. You’re being scary right now," Torin muttered, his voice laced with panic as one of his hands hovered around my shoulder, wanting to comfort me but too afraid to touch and make it worse.

"Yes, anything at all," Axel added, his brown eyes darting between the two strange weavers and me. "Just tell us what’s wrong."

My legs shook violently, threatening to give out beneath me right into the dirt.

But before I could even move a single inch, the heavy sound of hooves came right through the entrance of the pack house, rattling the iron gates.

I shifted my face toward the sound to see what was coming.

It was Rhydor and Silas.

They were on horseback, fresh from handling pack business, making their way right to where we were in the middle of the courtyard.

Before his horse could stop completely, Rhydor was already mid-air, jumping down from the saddle with wild urgency.

A loud thud echoed as soon as his heavy leather boots hit the dusty ground.

Silas dismounted his horse right behind him with an expression that looked like an elder brother ready to kill.

He immediately sensed the thick, suffocating tension in the air.

His fingers wrapped tightly around the hilt of his weapon, his knuckles going white, but he didn’t pull the blade yet.

He just kept his deadly brown eyes tracking the merchants.

Rhydor’s Alpha aura flared instantly, heavy and suffocating, wrapping around every single person in the clearing as his gaze landed on my wet cheeks.

The sight of my tears destroyed his calm.

He strode three powerful steps toward me, his massive boots tearing up the grass.

When his massive body reached me, it blocked my view of the two people my heart was racing for.

The two women my tears wouldn’t stop pouring down for.

His towering frame became an absolute wall between me and my past.

"What happened, Pumpkin?" Rhydor asked.

His tone was soft and gentle, meant only for my ears, his brows pulling together in pure worry as he reached out to cup my face.

"Who made you cry?"

I shook my head, wanting to push him away, wanting to scream at him for disrupting the only important view that ever mattered to me right now.

I needed to see them. I needed to look at their faces to know it was real.

But all my strength was drained by the intense emotions pouring out of me, leaving me completely weak against his chest.

I tilted my head a little bit, trying to look over his broad shoulder just to catch a glimpse of them through the small gap.

But this jerk wouldn’t stop being a mother hen, moving his body to block me again as he tried to inspect me for injuries.

I was about to tell him to stop, to tell him to move out of the way, but his own voice beat me to it.

The softness vanished in a split second.

"Who made my mate cry?" He snarled, his teeth together as his amber eyes bled out, completely replaced with a dark, deadly red.

The pure Alpha aura was taking over.

He turned deliberately, his bloody gaze scanning every single person present in the yard, making the guards lower their heads in fear.

Before his terrifying eyes stopped dead, right at my aunties.

The air became so heavy it was hard to breathe.

Axel quickly stepped forward, holding his hands up in the air to ease the sudden tension before Rhydor tore the courtyard apart.

"Rhydor, calm down. These are the specialized weavers I hired from..."

Before Axel could even finish his sentence, he was cut off by a sharp, feminine voice cutting through Axel’s voice.

It was my Aunt Alisa.

Everyone shifted their gaze to her, shocked by her boldness to speak at this point, waiting to hear what she was about to say.

"I was just..." Before she could finish her sentence, Aunt Ellisa cut her off, grabbing her arm tightly.

"Enough of your nonsense, Alisa."

Aunt Ellisa gave her twin sister an ugly and irritated look, a silent warning clear in her eyes, before turning around to face Rhydor and me.

"You see, Alpha, we just came to deliver a craft this young man bought from us," she said, her voice turning tight and formal as she tilted her head back and pointed her jaw towards Axel.

"My sister just has issues with getting emotional when she sees people that remind her of someone. It is a foolish habit of hers."

Aunt Ellisa turned to her sister, moving her eyeballs back and forth from us to her twin, indicating to her to shut her mouth and confirm the lie she had just told.

Aunt Alisa tore her gaze away from her sister, her chest heaving.

She looked down at her hands that were clasped together so tightly that her fingers were trembling, before moving her eyes back up to us, to me especially.

A deep wave of pain crossed her features.

"I’m so sorry for all this," she said, her voice cracking as her face gave out a sorrowful expression.

"I didn’t mean to cause any problem. I just... I mistook her for someone else, and I apologize sincerely."

Immediately those words left her mouth, Aunt Ellisa nodded repeatedly, desperate to end the encounter and get away from Rhydor’s deadly red eyes.

"Yes, yes, we are so sorry for the problem. And we will be taking our leave now."

With that, she forcefully pulled Aunt Alisa towards the dark wooden carriage behind them, turning their backs toward the four men who looked extremely left out on what was going on and me.

Axel, Torin, Silas, and Rhydor were completely in the dark, watching the sudden retreat.

I watched them get closer to the carriage, their boots shuffling over the dirt.

Panic flared hot in my chest.

I knew deep down that if they left this compound right now, my chances of ever finding them again in this massive world would be really low.

They would disappear into the outer territories forever.

So I let the word flow out from where it had been trapped inside my throat for moments. ℯ

"Wait." I gasped.

The word alone froze both of them mid-step, their bodies locking up instantly.

Behind me, the men moved their heads to stare at me, their brows knitting together in total bewilderment.

Yeah, I know they all had multiple questions swimming in their heads right now.

I could feel Rhydor’s confusion hitting me hard through our bond, along with Silas’s heavy gaze.

But it would have to wait until I secured my family.

Nothing else mattered but the two women standing by the carriage.

"What... what if you ain’t mistaken?" My voice cracked as I whispered out the words, stepping forward into the open clearing.

The silence that followed was deafening.

Alisa and Ellisa slowly turned their bodies around to face me once again, their green eyes wide.

"What...?" Aunt Alisa whispered, her hand moving slowly to her chest as she stared at me through the distance.

But Aunt Ellisa let out a heavy sigh out of frustration.

She looked up to the sky and rolled her eyeballs annoyingly, completely convinced I was just an emotional girl playing a game.

"Look, girl, we’ve told you that this was a misunderstanding," Ellisa stated bluntly, her voice hardening.

"We truly have somewhere else to be, and we don’t have time for this. So let’s just end this right here and go our separate ways."

She turned back around, pulling Aunt Alisa with her, her grip tight.

One of her hands was already resting on the handle of the carriage door, ready to pull it open.

"Ellisa," I called out, my voice ringing out clear across the quiet yard.

I pointed my trembling finger directly at her, then moved it to her sister.

"Alisa. I know who you are."

Both of them stiffened completely, their shoulders rigid as the names echoed in the air.

Slowly, they let go of the carriage door.

"How do you know our names?" Aunt Alisa asked.

She stepped away from her sister and stared at me intensely, her eyes searching my face with a sudden, desperate hunger.

I took a deep, shaky breath, looking right into their eyes. "Because... I’m your niece."

A harsh, humourless laughter came from Aunt Ellisa as she looked at me, her face twisting into complete disbelief.

"If you are my niece, then I guess I’m the Moon Goddess. That child died a newborn girl. Don’t play with our dead."

"Watch it," Rhydor growled dangerously, stepping forward as a terrifying, low vibration rumbled from his chest, making the ground feel like it was shaking.

His red eyes flashed, a terrifying pressure dropping over the yard that made Aunt Ellisa take one sharp step back in fear.

"That’s not how you talk to my mate."

Aunt Ellisa lifted both of her hands in the air, refusing to back down completely, her eyes fierce.

"With all due respect, Alpha, your mate is overstepping her boundaries. She is mocking our grief."

Hearing her words, Rhydor shifted his gaze down to me, his red eyes softening just a fraction as he tried to understand the madness.

"Pumpkin, she is not wrong. You have to respect..."

"They are my aunties, sisters to my father and sisters-in-law to my mother," I interrupted, my voice rising to a loud and shaky pitch that echoed against the stone walls of the pack house.

I locked my eyes onto the twins, tears spilling over.

"Alpha Kealen and Luna Helen. The Alpha and Luna of the Zanzia Pack."

The entire courtyard went completely, utterly dead silent.

Silas froze. Axel and Torin gasped, their mouths opening as they gawked at me.

The name of the fallen, legendary Zanzia Pack felt like a ghost had just entered the clearing.

My sight became blurry as soon as those names left my mouth, the weight of my heritage crashing down on me.

Aunt Alisa’s eyes went completely misty as she stared at me.

Her face turned entirely pale, her mouth parting as a sob caught in her throat.

She took a slow, trembling step forward, her arms extending toward me, shaking slightly as her mind fought against the impossible truth.

"How do you know that?" she breathed out, her voice cracking into a million broken pieces. "There’s no way our niece could have known that... even if she is alive. She was only a three-month-old baby! How could a three-month-old know who her parents were?"