CHAPTER 180: THE TRUTH ABOUT MY MOTHER...

Rhett

Dr Maxwell cleared his throat and stepped between us, "Perhaps you two would like somewhere more private to talk? Not out here where everyone can hear you, and don’t worry, I’ll try to make sure no one repeats what they heard."

I swallowed hard and nodded. The woman claiming to be my mother nodded too, her eyes not leaving mine. "Yes," I said finally. "That would be good."

"Please," the woman also added, "thank you, Doctor."

Maxwell gestured for us to follow him and led us through the corridor to his office, a small but comfortable space with leather chairs and medical books lining the walls. He gestured for us to sit before quietly excusing himself, closing the door behind him with a soft click.

Silence filled the room. I sat in one chair, she in another, and for what felt like forever, neither of us spoke. I studied her face, looking for something—anything—that would tell me if she was telling the truth. Did I have her nose? Her eyes? I couldn’t tell.

"How have you been, Rhett?" she asked softly, breaking the silence.

I almost laughed at the question. How had I been? I was dying. My heart was failing. I’d just found out I was mated to a girl disguised as a boy in an all-boys academy. Right after that, I thought he was dead, but now she’s back, and she won’t accept my bond yet. So, my whole life was falling apart.

"So," I started slowly. "How do I even start with this? I don’t know you. I don’t trust you and I won’t believe a word you say," I told her flatly, "until you prove you’re actually my mother."

She leaned forward, her eyes pleading. "But I am your mother, Rhett. I swear it."

"Anyone can say that," I shot back. "You left when I was a baby. How do you expect me to know you’re telling the truth? I don’t remember you. I don’t remember anything about you."

She nodded slowly, like she’d expected this. "You’re right. Of course you’re right." She took a deep breath, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. "Let me tell you about the day you were born."

I waited, arms crossed, trying to look unmoved even though my heart was racing.

A fond smile crossed her face, soft and sad at the same time. "It was early morning, just before sunrise. The sky was turning pink and gold, and I remember thinking it was the most beautiful dawn I’d ever seen. Your father, Terry, was so nervous. He kept pacing back and forth in the delivery room, driving the doctors crazy."

She laughed softly at the memory. "You took your time coming into this world. Labour lasted fourteen hours. When you finally arrived, you didn’t cry right away. There was this moment of perfect silence, and then you let out the strongest, loudest cry I’d ever heard. The nurses all laughed and said you had the lungs of an Alpha."

Her eyes grew distant, lost in the past. "You had a full head of dark hair, which surprised everyone because in the next instant, like an hour or two after that, it became red, like your dad’s, like all the males in the Thatcher family. Your eyes were blue when you opened them—all babies have blue eyes at first, but yours were especially bright. You had tiny, perfect fingers that wrapped around mine so tightly. Your father cried when he held you. I’d never seen him cry before."

She paused, her smile fading slightly. "You had a small birthmark on your left shoulder blade, shaped like a crescent moon. I used to trace it with my finger while you slept. You were born at 6:47 in the morning, weighing seven pounds and four ounces. The nurse said you were perfect."

I didn’t say anything. I just nodded. The truth was, I didn’t know my own birth story. My family had never told me much about it. My father and I have never bonded so much that he would share stories like that with me. Even when I’d ask, they’d always been vague, saying it wasn’t important, that what mattered was who I was now, not how I came into the world.

But sitting here, listening to her tell it with such detail, such love in her voice—something in my chest tightened. Deep down, in a place I didn’t want to admit existed, I felt convinced. This woman was my mother.

But I wasn’t going to let her know that. Not yet.

"So," I said, forcing my voice flat. "What ploy was it then? What trick made Clara Luna? How did you lose the place that should have been yours?"

She inhaled sharply and looked down at her hands. For the first time, I saw shame flit across her face.

"I was an Omega," she said quietly. "Your father, Terry, fell head over heels for me before he realised what I was."

She stopped, took a breath, then continued in an even smaller voice. "Although that’s my fault too. He was such a good person, Rhett. The best Alpha male I’ve ever met, who didn’t treat me badly regardless of my status. When he wanted to know who I really was, I panicked and lied about my heritage. The more I wanted to confess, the more I fell in love with him."

A tear slipped down her cheek. She wiped it away quickly and gave a short, broken laugh. "Do you know what happens when an Omega mates with a pureblood?"

I shook my head.

"You understand that your father, the Thatcher family, they’re pureblood werewolves, yes? For generations, they’ve only married and mated with Alpha and Luna wolves. When you’ve preserved that gene for generations, and it meets with a weaker gene like mine, it fights it. The bloodlines clash. That’s exactly what happened with us."

She paused, taking a deep, shaky breath. Her hands trembled in her lap.

"When you were born, you were the perfect baby. So beautiful. Everyone was in awe. But then you came out all red and fighting for your life. You were struggling to breathe. That was when we realised you had a defect. A heart defect. And that was when the truth came out about what I really was. And Terry..."

She laughed, but it was another broken sound, and fresh tears streamed down her face. "Sweet soul, he tried to defend me. He fought his family. He was going to leave it all for me. But we needed the money, Rhett. If there was any way you were going to survive, if you had any chance at the medical care you needed, we needed the Thatcher family’s money. And your father had never been broke before. He’d never had to survive in the real world. He wouldn’t have known how."

My throat felt tight. I didn’t want to feel sympathy for her, but I couldn’t help it.

"I made a pact with your grandfather," she continued. "I agreed to leave quietly. But just leaving wouldn’t have been enough. Terry would have gone crazy. He would have come looking for me, abandoned his family, lost everything. So I told him I’d fallen in love with someone else. I broke our bond."

She was crying openly now, no longer bothering to wipe away the tears. "And the Thatcher family took it a notch higher. They framed me for cheating. They showed Terry pictures, fake evidence that I’d been unfaithful all along. They were determined to find another wife for him, someone appropriate. They forced his hand, forced him to let me go. Then, in the middle of the night, they dragged me out of Ravenspire with nothing but my nightclothes and a few coins. I wasn’t even allowed to kiss you goodbye."

The room fell silent except for her quiet crying. I sat there, frozen, trying to process everything she’d just told me. Part of me wanted to comfort her. Part of me was angry—at her, at the Thatcher family, at my father, at everyone.

"So what are you doing here now?" I asked, my voice rough. "Why come back after all these years?"

She looked up at me, her eyes red and swollen. "I’ve come to help you, my baby. These years staying away made me so miserable. I thought about you every single day. Then I saw the news, and everyone was talking about your heart condition..."

Her eyes slid down to my chest.

"I ran a test," she said. "We’re a match. And luckily, mine is healthier than yours. You can have—"

"No." The word came out before I could think about it. "No, I’m not taking your heart."

"Rhett, please—"

"I said no!"

Just as I was about to say more, the door to the office burst open with such force that it slammed against the wall. I jerked in my chair, my heart monitor beeping wildly in alarm.

My father stood in the doorway.

His face was red with fury, his eyes wild. Behind him, I could see hospital security looking uncertain about whether they should intervene.

"You," he growled, and his voice was so low and dangerous that it sent chills down my spine. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at the woman.

At my mother.

"You have some nerve showing your face here."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. I looked between them—my father in the doorway, radiating rage, and my mother in her chair, looking smaller and more fragile than ever.