The Rogue King {18+} (Book 2)

55. A Moment to Grieve

"I promise."

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I found myself outside my mother's cave. Her favourite place in this whole world and because of her, it was mine too.

I thought back to the stories she'd whisper to me of a night, about the moon goddess and how powerful she was to create a place that we both loved. How every stone held just a trace of the moon goddess' magic compared to the unlimited power she possessed. And how her love for us was so strong, she wanted us to have a place to go and be surrounded by her power so we could feel closer to her. Closer to the power that placed us into being.

My mother really believed it too. It was because of her that I worship the moon goddess as much as I do. When I honour the moon goddess it feels like I'm honouring my mother too. It helps me feel closer to her.

And then something I could never comprehend happening did.

My father delivered the news to me personally that my mother betrayed him and left us. Left me.

He made me believe she did such awful things, and taught me that a mate was a weakness because they betrayed you. Abandoned you.

That day my father told me my mother left, it broke me.

It was the first time in my life I experienced heartache. And it was in the midst of that pain, in a time I was just a boy missing his mother, that my dad started to teach me how a mate could cripple you and spread weakness through you and your pack like poison.

And I was so hurt by what my mother had done that I believed every word of it.

I believed all the hate he spewed about how weak I'd become if I accepted my mate. Everything I'd put Asmara through in the beginning it was because of him.

And he had lied!

He lied to cover up what he had viciously done. What generations of Marx wolvens had done before him. And I felt sick to be blood-related to a family that kept a tradition like that for decades going like it was something to be proud of.

I wasn't proud.

I was angry, heartbroken, and hurt and I felt betrayed by a father who I thought was hurt by my mother's rejection and abandonment. I never imagined he could murder her in cold blood.

I mourned my father for years after he died. Made it my life's goal to avenge his death not realising how much of a monster he was. And the worse part is that he isn't here. I can't scream all of this at him and receive the answers... anything to receive the closure I now feel I deserve.

It hurt me when he died. When I saw Adrenous kill him while I was watching from afar. But now all I keep thinking is where would I be now if my father had survived? Where would I be if he had raised me into the alpha, he intended me to be?

Would I be the vicious monster he was?

Would I do to Asmara what my father did to my mother?

Now a part of me is relieved he's not here now because I couldn't imagine hurting my mate like that and I can't even stomach picturing it.

Fury grumbled in my veins, wanting to be free but that would only lead to more pain and today I intended to let go of the past. To grieve what I had lost when I was just a pup and never had a chance to.

I walked into my mother's cave, and it felt like somehow, she was here with me. Watching me, like she had been waiting for this day since her death. Maybe now that I knew the entire truth, we could both rest peacefully. I kept walking until I was at the opening where blue light shone from every stone buried in the cave walls.

I sunk onto my knees as the cave walls pressed in, memories of me and my mother surfacing. I remembered the way her dark hair would always be braided down her shoulder. How her hazel eyes would fill with excitement whenever she got to bring me here and tell her stories. And how her voice sounded when she'd tell those stories.

For the first time in a long time, my eyes stung with tears as I stared down at the ground and placed my hand gently against it.

The moment my hand touched the ground, a hidden memory from when I was a pup surfaced. I remembered a time when I'd refused to come in here for months after my mother supposedly left. It hurt too much, and I couldn't bear it, so it was easier to avoid coming here. But there were times when I'd sit in the grass a distance away and try and persuade myself to come here.

That was when I spotted my father leaving the cave and he had a shovel with him.

I remember thinking how strange it was because he never went in there. It was just mine and my mother's but there he was, leaving our cave.

That was the day I finally forced myself to go inside and, in this spot, where my hand palms the dirt, it was disturbed like something had been buried beneath.

Now I knew why.

He buried my mother here.

Anger ripples through me. He turned our special place into her grave.

A tear fell onto the ground and my chest clenched. "I'm sorry—" My voice broke. All this time my mother had been buried here and I had hated her for leaving. She never would have left me. I should have known that. "I'm sorry I believed you'd abandon me. I should have questioned it."

Looking at how my father treated my mother; I began to realise the signs had been there all along. He never showed her any affection. Never spent genuine time with her. He just used her to have and raise me until he felt like she was no longer needed.

"Forgive me," I whispered.

I could go on and on, blaming myself but we both didn't deserve to suffer any more than we had because of my father.

"Now rest and I'll see you again one day. I love you, mum." I smiled and with the release of a breath, I let it all go. The hurt, betrayal... It all faded into nothing.

I left our cave feeling free of the burden of guilt and hatred I had harboured all these years and I felt lighter.

I made my way to my mate who would only ever have the best version of me that I could give her and not the monsters the males before me were.

With me, the Marx tradition would end for good.

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I feel like Torben's come a really long way since I began this book and to see him get closure feels good.

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