Stripped from the lies, being forced to see, I sat in the company of my former friend, my mentor and a vampire who had so many secrets he kept it was a miracle he didn't burst from all the knowledge.

We all had our secrets it seemed. Sasha who had lived in both fear and misery for years, Oracle who knew things no ordinary person would, Michael who always played some kind of a game and had an agenda to follow and I, the girl who finally knew what laid in the path of her destiny but didn't know where she stood right this moment.

The spotlight had switched from Sasha to the vampire and he was the one who spoke now. Words that dug a steeper grave for my heart.

"He was a healer. Rumor was he could raise a man from the grave and bring him back to life and he could. I've seen him do it." The vampire was talking about my father, the one I never got to know because my mother's mate had acted out of jealousy and murdered him if what they'd said was to be believed.

Strangely though, I did believe it. Not because they managed to persuade me but because I'd seen my mom's look countless of times during the years she was alive. I'd seen the desperation in her eyes, the bleeding wounds and the madness in the end.

And I remembered what she'd told me once. Words that had come to mind from the depths of my childhood memories but now made so much sense my head hurt just thinking about it.

'I hope you never meet the kind of man Jaxon is,' she had said during one of her breakdowns and I had frowned at her declaration but blamed it on the momentary insanity. Now, I knew that my mom hadn't been crazy.

She just knew.

"Schuyler had to restore his strength, though. He'd need to feed for days just to restore his strength, the life he had given to others," Michael went on while I listened with half an ear.

I couldn't help but wonder how this man knew so much about my father. It almost sounded like my father was more to Michael than just a friend, like a family, and I told him that.

He smiled at me. "I knew you're going to figure it out eventually. Schuyler is family—my brother, and you are my—"

"Niece?" I gasped.

He nodded.

"You're really not the kind of family I expected to find," I commented.

"Yeah, I guess I'm much more prettier." He winked. I chuckled but didn't say anything. Indeed he was.

"Anyway, I was saying... Ah, there was a price your father had to pay to use his gift—"

"And she's paying a price too, Michael," Oracle joined in. "She's lost her strength and she must complete the bond with Regan so she can draw from his and his pack's life."

Draw from their life?

"Is that something you saw or is it just your speculation, Oracle?" Tilting his head sidewise, Michael gave her a peculiar look. "You're rarely wrong with your presumptions, but I think this time you are. We don't know much about Scarlet's ability and how it works so all we can do is to wait and see."

"We don't, but we know what she must do," Oracle insisted.

"True," Michael agreed, silver eyes flickering to me for a split second before they settled once more at the older woman. "So, what it is that Scarlet must do for us to win this fight, Oracle. What did you see?"

Perched on the sofa next to Sasha who was quietly watching and listening, Oracle shuffled uncomfortably in her seat, her face mirroring her distress as she peered up from her place opposite me.

"You must use that gift of yours in reverse, Scarlet," she told me, eyes unblinking.

"In reverse?"

"Instead of giving life, you must take it into yourself. It's the only way to kill the soulless. They do not have souls. They don't have corporeal bodies that could be harmed. All they have is life and you must take that life into you."

I frowned at her. I understood what she was trying to tell me and in a way, it made sense, a horrible kind of sense. Yet it sounded just like what the soulless were doing, in their case though it was souls they took instead of life, but what was it going to make me if I did as Oracle suggested, considering it was even possible for me to do that? Was I going to turn like them?

Maybe she saw my fear or maybe she just guessed the direction of my thoughts just then, because she reached across the coffee table, palm up as she held her hand for me to place mine in it and I did seek the comfort of her touch.

"Do not fear the future, child," she told me as I placed my palm on top of hers and squeezed gently to reassure me.

"I just don't understand how it's going to work out without me turning like them," I told her truthfully. "What you are suggesting is similar to what the soulless are doing and I'm really not sure if I can do it. What happens to them? Where do they go once I take their life into myself?"

"You must not worry about this. You already have your vessel and once you restore the damaged connection, it's all going to fall into place so--"

"We need to go to the meeting," Michael interrupted, after flicking his wrist to check the time on his watch. "It's time. And Scarlet... if Regan or anyone asks you what we talked about, tell him we discussed your father. The same goes for you, Alexandra."

He was asking us to lie. Keep yet another secret to ourselves.

Sasha nodded, her gift as a seer probably helping her understand the need to keep the knowledge from others while nothing could edify the reason for me. Besides, I didn't know if I could ever trust the man.

"Scarlet?" he prompted.

"And why do I need to do that, Michael? How do I trust you knowing you're involved with Cole? You might be family, but we barely know each other."

He ran a hand through his golden locks, exhaling a breath in frustration, then locked his silver eyes with mine. "Then trust your mate's judgment, Scarlet, or is that too much to ask?"

I had to bite my tongue not to sneer at him just then. My mate's judgment? The male who wouldn't give me the time of the day? Was he serious?

"Let's go, shall we?" he urged, mistaking my silence for compliance.

"We shall," I mumbled, remembering that none of them knew about what was happening between Regan and I, or rather what wasn't happening. No one but Lucas and he had his own reasons to keep the knowledge to himself.

And there it was, where the problem in their plan laid. I couldn't complete a bond on my own.

A few minutes later, we'd moved to the meeting chamber. Charged by the proximity, the bond between Regan and I flailed and hurt, and by the scrunched grimace on his face, I could presume he felt it too. The pain, the devastation, the torment. However, not even a grunt of protest would leave his lips, let alone a word as the lashes of the bond kept coming.

Michael didn't have a reason to worry about me disclosing the gist of our conversation to my male because that male wouldn't even bother to ask.

"First and foremost, we need to assure the pack' safety and then we'll assemble the teams for the raid." I was sinking into my anger as I listened to him and he wouldn't even look at me. In the room filled with people, wolves standing at all the important positions in the pack, wolves who were not a part of the pack, vampires who had no business to be here in the first place, my eyes were the only set he wouldn't meet but avoid. In spite of the pull, because of it?

"As for our strategy to defeat them..."

I wanted to scream at him, make him acknowledge me, have him console me when I needed him to do that... and I wanted to hurt him as much as his neglect did hurt me.

"Lucas," he called out and the man sitting a few seats from me rose up to walk to the stage and stand next to Regan.

Acting like they were friends or battle comrades, I wanted to punch them both, these men who played with me, these men who thought it was all a joke. One of them was on the retreat while the other was taking the opportunity and doing everything he could just to make me come to his side.

A place where I didn't belong.

"I suggest the wolves attack the wildlings while I, Scarlet and the rest of the magicals will take on the soulless. We'll need to time the attack so the wildlings are occupied while we are engaged with the soulless," Lucas explained.

A projector was flashing from the back of the room and delineating the map on the screen on the opposite wall as we laid our plans now that we knew where Cole and Leila were.

It was brazen of them to have settled back into Cole's territory and it looked like a trap. Both Leila and Cole were too smart to just offer us the access to them on a silver platter and no doubt they were luring us to attack now.

"Are you two just stupid or are you playing stupid and taking the bait?" someone said and a moment later, I realized it was I who had risen from my seat and voiced the thought. Anger was making me lose my wits and act headlong.

Every eye in the room turned my way, even Regan's espied me as a displeased look spread on his face, his jaw clenching with words I presumed he was dying to fling my way but refrained and then he looked away.

"We have no choice but to act before they run off the grid again, Scarlet," Lucas reasoned, his attention unwavering.

I winged up a brow and turned to the cluster of people in the room. They were nodding at Lucas' words, none seeing reason, none of them realizing that we couldn't just waltz into Cole's territory and expect to win a battle they expected.

"This is a mistake," I told them, seething with the feelings inside me.

"So what do you suggest we do, Luna?" Regan asked, turning to me for the first time in weeks. Cold, face blank, forest greens with no emotion inside them. It didn't evade my notice the way he addressed me.

Luna.

Heat infiltrated me with the knowledge that he could just openly distance himself from me like this, yet he expected my conformation, and it was an entirely different kind of heat. The one that scorched your insides and made you act not just out of character but out of reason too.

Abject insanity fueled by rage and frustration. Hurt.

"Is that what I am to you now, Regan?" Gliding through space, making my way through the rows of pews, looking at him as he kept his eyes on me for the first time in forever, I came to stand in front of him elevated on the stage, tilting my head up so I wouldn't lose my focus on him and the flicker of attention he was giving me.

Like a god who wouldn't step down from his throne to meet me half-way but pretended to tolerate me still.

"Why are you doing this to me?" I rasped, broken, bleeding, crumbling in front of him.

He had turned into the center of my universe but I... I was not enough for him... I could only dream to become his one day.

"Leave us!" His voice came out even, unaffected. The truth of what I saw collided with my heart to break it further, sear it dry until there was nothing left.

The sound of retreating steps registered somewhere in my mind but I barely paid it any attention now that I was inches away from him, breathing him in like I'd wanted to breathe him for weeks. Hand shooting up, fingers clasping around his own, I pulled him closer to me.

"Scarlet, please..." he gasped, shuddering, struggling to free himself from me. His face contorted in pain, an emotion I didn't recognize in his eyes. But once I looked down at his hand I knew.

His skin was red where I had touched him, burned him with my fingertips.

"This is why, isn't it? This is why you've been avoiding me?" I whispered.

He sucked in a breath, closing his eyes, then nodded.

"You should have told me," I said, swallowing the hurt from the knowledge it was all my fault, my poison that was keeping him away from me.

"How was I supposed to tell the woman I love that being close to her hurt me, Scarlet? How was supposed to admit that I was this weak man who couldn't even stand his own mate's touch?" The broken words tumbled out of him, his body raked by sobs he had been hiding from me.

"So you decided to keep it from me?"

"I just wanted to make it better, Scarlet. I'm looking for a way to make it better," he entreated, trying to make me understand, see his viewpoint on the situation we were in.

And I wanted to understand, but the same way he claimed he couldn't have told me, the same way I couldn't understand now when I knew I couldn't hold him to me to find comfort or give him even a fraction in return.

I was his poison.