CHAPTER 182: QUESTIONS AND DOUBTS...

Rhett

"If you say so," Slater said, but he was smiling a little. "We’re here if you need us."

"I know. Thanks for coming."

My mother had approached during our conversation, hovering a few feet away, as if she wasn’t sure if she was welcome. I turned to her.

"Ele–mom," I said, testing out the word. It felt strange on my tongue. "These are my friends. This is Slater, and this is Charis."

My mother smiled warmly at them both. "It’s nice to meet you. Any friends of Rhett’s are automatically my friends. Thank you for being here for him."

"Of course," Slater said politely. "Rhett’s like a brother to us."

"We’re mates," Charis inserted, glaring at Slater before turning to my mother to flash her a smile. "Slater, Rhett and Kael, who is not here yet, are my mates."

My mom’s eyes widened as she turned to me as if she wanted further explanation, but I could only shrug.

"Oh," she turned back to Charis. "That’s unexpected, but I’m happy for you, dear and yeah."

Charis nodded while my mom turned back to Slater. However, I noticed Charis was studying my mother with an odd expression on her face. It was as if she were accessing her. My mother noticed and gave her a questioning look.

"Is something wrong, dear?" she asked.

Charis tilted her head slightly. "No, sorry. It’s just... You remind me of someone." She paused, then asked casually, "This might be a weird question, but do you know my mom?"

The question hung in the air. My mother’s expression shifted with surprise, then something else I couldn’t quite identify.

"I might," she said slowly. "What’s your mother’s name?"

"Eva Greye," Charis said.

And then, to everyone’s shock, Charis’s face crumpled. Just completely fell apart. Tears started streaming down her face, and her whole body began to shake with sobs. It was like saying the name out loud had broken something inside her.

"Whoa, hey," Slater said immediately, reaching for her. I moved forward, too, both of us flanking her on either side. "Charis, what’s wrong?"

Charis tried to speak but couldn’t get words out through the crying. She covered her face with her hands, and her shoulders started shaking. Slater put an arm around her, and I touched her shoulder, feeling helpless. I’d never seen Charis—strong, sarcastic, unshakeable Charis—break down like this.

My mother stepped closer, her face full of concern. "Oh, sweetheart..."

It took Charis a few minutes to calm down enough to breathe properly. Slater kept murmuring soothing things, and I just stayed close, not sure what else to do. Finally, she lowered her hands from her face. Her eyes were red and swollen, her cheeks streaked with tears.

When she looked up at us, the pain in her eyes was so raw it actually hurt to see.

"Turns out," she said, her voice thick and broken, "she’s not my real mother."

We were quiet for a few minutes. It was as if we were all waiting for her to call our bluff and say it was a joke, but when that wasn’t forthcoming, Slater broke the silence.

"What?" Slater breathed.

Charis laughed, but it was a horrible, bitter sound. "Eva Greye. The woman I thought was my mom my whole life. She’s not actually my mother. I just found out recently. Everything I thought I knew about my family, about who I am—it was all a lie."

Fresh tears rolled down her face, but she didn’t seem to notice. She was looking at my mother now, her expression desperate and searching.

"That’s why I asked if you knew her," Charis continued. "If you ever knew that she was pregnant at some point. Because I’m trying to find out who my real mother is. I can’t even face my mother. I don’t know what to do. I..." she trailed off, sobbing harder.

Something about the whole situation didn’t sit right with me. I watched Charis wipe at her tears, and a question formed in my mind that I couldn’t ignore.

"Wait," I said, raising my hands as if to stop her from crying more. "Who told you Eva Greye wasn’t your real mother?"

Charis froze. Her hand was still pressed against her face, but she slowly lowered it. The look in her eyes was guilty, like a kid caught sneaking cookies before dinner.

"I..." she started, then stopped. She looked between Slater and me, then let out a long breath. "I heard it from Isolde."

"Isolde?" Slater’s asked.

I frowned. "What do you mean, Isolde?"

Charis took a shaky breath, her eyes darting to the floor like she was ashamed of what she was about to say. "Last week, when we were in her house, she had a visitor and out of curiosity, I decided to search the room because you all were trying to convince me she isn’t what she seems. So I was there, and she came into the room. As I couldn’t leave, I hid in the bathroom and eavesdropped on the conversation she had with the person who had come in with her. I am guessing it was her so-called visitor."

Slater’s eyes widened. "You what?"

"I know, I know," Charis said quickly, her hands raised. "It was stupid. But I had this feeling that she was hiding something. And I was right. While she talked to that person, she said things I wasn’t supposed to hear."

"And?" I asked.

"They talked about a lot of things, but they mentioned Headmistress Vale’s name. Do you know that Vale’s middle name is Raina?"

"What?" I scoffed. "H-how is that even possible?"

"It’s a long story, but to cut it short, she mentioned Headmistress Vale gave birth to twins, and Isolde helped in giving them away. She also mentioned that her children were in Ravenshore... scratch that, one of her children and the other one she doesn’t know where the child is exactly, but she could find her."

I chuckled. "What the fuck did you just say? Headmistress Vale has children?"

Charis nodded. "And it seems Isolde is using it as some leverage against her, but she’s desperately searching for her children, from what I gathered. That was when Isolde mentioned that my mom wasn’t my mom and that a lot of Lunas in our world comes to her for children."

The room fell silent again, it was as if everyone was contemplating what Charis just said. After a while, I broke the silence again.

Running a hand through my hair, while trying to make sense of it, I turned to Charis again. "You’re sure about this?"

Charis looked straight at me. "I’m sure. I can still remember word for word of their conversation."

"You should have told us earlier, Charis," Slater queried. "What are we supposed to do now? Isn’t it a little too late to take any action?"

"I didn’t know if I should," Charis admitted. "I didn’t want to believe it. But the more I think about it, the more things don’t add up. My mother – Eva has always been my mother, it’s difficult to think she’s not one. She’s not the perfect mom in the world but she’s still my mom and now I’m not sure I want to know who my real mum is."

"Charis," Slater said carefully, moving closer to her. "You know Isolde can’t be trusted, right? We’ve talked about this. She’s dangerous."

"I know that," Charis said defensively. "But why would she lie about this? She didn’t know I was listening. She had no reason to make it up."

"Maybe not," I said slowly, working through the logic in my head. "But think about it. Isolde is smart. Really smart. What if she knew you were there? What if she wanted you to hear exactly what you heard?"

Charis’s eyes widened. "You think she knew I was hiding?"

"I think Isolde Knox doesn’t do anything by accident," Slater said grimly. "This could be part of some bigger plan."

"But what would be the point?" Charis asked, frustration creeping into her voice. "Why would she want me to think Eva isn’t my real mother?"

"To make you doubt everything," I suggested. "To make you question who you can trust. To isolate you from the people who actually care about you."

Slater nodded. "Exactly. Think about it—if you don’t trust Eva, who are you going to turn to for answers? Who’s been positioning herself as some kind of mentor or ally to you?"

Understanding dawned on Charis’s face. "Isolde."

"Isolde," Slater confirmed. "She’s creating a problem and then offering herself as the solution. It’s classic manipulation."

Charis looked stricken. "So you think Eva really is my mother? That Isolde was just messing with my head?"

I exchanged a glance with Slater. The truth was, we didn’t know. But I could see how much this was hurting Charis, and I wanted to give her something to hold onto.

"I don’t know," Charis cried, "Isolde has been nothing but good to me, honestly. She wouldn’t hurt me. She signed off every single part of her wealth to me, legitimately, why would she do that if there was someone else left to benefit. Her parents were killed as a child..."

"Hold up!" Slater interrupted her, "Isolde parents were killed at birth? How? Did she tell you how?"

Charis nodded. "Her mom was an Omega and her father human, back then they were strict about things like that and the community rose up against them and fought their union and a lot more. Bottom line is they attacked and killed her parents. She barely survived..."

I and Slater exchanged a look before Slater turned to Charis again.

"This solves everything, Charis... now we know Isolde’s clear motive."

"Clear motive? What are you talking about?" Charis asked.

"Believe it or not, Charis... Isolde came back for revenge. I can bet what is left of my feeble, dying heart that is what she came for."