MATED TO THE SECRET ALPHA-Chapter 247: Forgiveness
"Older Sister!" he cried again, louder, as if daring the world to silence him. As if each word was a hammer against the chains Katherine had wrapped around him all these years.
Reana’s body gave way to emotions, even though she didn’t want to. She’d been quite an emotional wreck ever since Ryder disappeared and now, she couldn’t even hold herself in public.
Her lips parted, breath caught between disbelief and heartbreak. Her hands trembled at her sides. The last time Karl had called her that, he’d still been a boy with soft chubby cheeks, little fat fists, and starlight in his wide, large eyes.
Among all of Katherine’s children, Karl was the closest to Reana, and the one she loved the most and treated like a little sibling. He was two when their parents re-mated and from that moment, he and Reana were inseparable.
Growing up, he was a leech. He loved Reana, clung to her, even shared her bed, her meal, and everything. He was that annoying, yet sweet kid you can’t see get hurt. His fat cheeks didn’t stop storing food he stole from Reana, like a hamster.
His small hands were always wrapped around Reana’s fingers, tugging at her robes, her patience, and her heart. He’d followed her everywhere, no matter how much trouble it got him into. Even when Vivian mocked him, even when Kael shunned him, even when Katherine hissed cruel warnings behind closed doors and hit him a couple of times, Karl had never strayed far from her side.
He watched her practice from dawn to dusk, snuck snacks to her when her brothers and father would put her on a diet. He was the first to call her Luna, grinning from ear to ear, and boasted of how he’d travel the Mainland with the Luna’s special guards protecting him.
He was a good boy, until he stopped.
Until Katherine tore him away, plucked him from Reana’s arms with cold fury and sharper words. Until the day he was forbidden from calling her sister, genuinely, forbidden from even looking at her like she was more than a stranger who stole their life.
Even though Reana grew cold, hated their mother, Reana didn’t hate the children. Yes, she wished them death, planned revenge, marked them as her enemies, it wasn’t because she hated them, but because they deserved everything she did and would do to them.
Even so, even after Karl’s shenanigans, even after his participation in trying to bring her down, in hurting her, Reana couldn’t accept the thought of him dying.
Reana had no problem convincing herself that she felt nothing for him anymore, that the boy who once snuck sweets into her skirts, who once whispered secret plans from his mother to her in the dead of night, no longer existed. She’d rehearsed that belief like a mantra, wrapping it around her like an armor.
Until she added him to the list of delegations. Until she saw him looking lost and scared in the midst of battle-hardened men. He was barely twenty, a spoiled and pampered adult-child, who’d never fought a real battle in his life, or left the pack before.
Even though Reana had uttered the permission to leave him behind if he caused trouble on the way, even though she looked like she meant every single word, she hadn’t meant it.
She’d reached out to Yaz behind closed doors and asked him to watch over Karl, to keep him alive. Made sure he came back. That was all she said.
And Yaz, who rarely asked questions, had simply nodded.
Reana couldn’t afford to look soft, couldn’t afford to show that she missed the good old days; before Katherine poisoned their relationship. Not after everything. Not after what they did to her.
But in the silence of her chambers, when the candles burned low and the cold bit into her bones, she had prayed, silently, shamefully, that the boy who once followed her like a shadow would survive.
She preferred him as an enemy she could taunt, bully, than a corpse.
And now he has returned alive.
Karl stood trembling, half from cold, half from the weight of what he had done to Reana over the years.
He’d learned a butter lesson from this mission. He finally realized all the things he’d been blind to – kinship, loyalty, and the twisted love that had never truly left his bones, no matter how deep Katherine had tried to bury it.
Karl’s lips quivered, but he didn’t look away. Not this time. Not anymore.
He dropped to his knees.
"I’m sorry," he whispered. The words didn’t travel far. But Reana heard it.
Reana stared. Her default cold, expressionless face remained on him. But her heart squeezed. She didn’t expect this. She didn’t prepare for this kind of surrender. She was too vulnerable and emotional right now. And she feared she wasn’t strong enough to hold her walls from crumbling.
"Karl! What are you doing?!" Katherine panicked, pulling desperately at her son to get him to stand up, but Karl wouldn’t listen.
"I’m so sorry for what I’ve done to you over the years, for how I’ve treated you, for believing the worst of you," Karl said, voice cracking under the weight of shame. "I was stupid. I let lies and ambitions become my truth. I let my love for you turn into hate because it was easier... because I thought I had to choose."
The air was thick with silence, every word echoing like thunder. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮
Everyone watched. Some confused, others shocked.
The relationship between the Luna and her stepfamily was believed to be good. No one, except a handful, knew the true nature of their relationship.
Reana didn’t move. She couldn’t. Her body was still frozen, caught between past and present, between the sister who once cradled a baby boy and the woman betrayed by that same boy’s blind loyalty.
Katherine’s voice was shrill now, unhinged. "Karl, get up! You don’t owe her anything! She sent you to die, killed your sister, and banished your brother!"
