Chapter 543: The missing part

"What did you do, Vaelor?" Sebastian muttered to himself, massaging his temple. "Did you kill her for her powers, just to be stronger than your brother, just to take the pack for yourself?"

Was that the reason Sebastian had always been stronger than Alex? The reason the Alpha blood ran thicker in him, despite being twins, because somewhere back in their bloodline, one brother had killed a mermaid and forged a Supreme Alpha line, something entirely separate from the regular Alpha blood everyone else carried?

Sebastian had hoped to find a clear answer for why Vaelor had stabbed Azmira, but all he’d found instead was a man hopelessly in love, and a man insane enough to kill her with his own two hands regardless.

Sebastian flipped through Vik’s diary next, but unlike Vaelor’s, this one he couldn’t read at all, the language entirely incomprehensible to him. Unwilling to give up there, he moved on to the official history books, but what was recorded in those was impersonal, formal, none of it revealing anything close to Vaelor’s private thoughts.

Sebastian found himself wondering how the diary’s missing pages had been lost in the first place, and at what point, which generation, they’d disappeared. He rubbed at his temple and glanced toward the window, where the sky had already begun brightening into morning, and realized he needed to head home to his wife before she woke up to an empty bed.

As Sebastian rose to his feet, gathering the diary to return it to its proper place, a half-torn page slipped loose from the pile, fluttering to the floor. He bent down and picked it up, finding a single line written across it.

*[The love of my life made me kill her...]* Sebastian’s eyes narrowed down at the note.

---

In the High Tower, in a part of the building opposite from where Viola was just waking to an empty bed, Gilbert, who had an appointment to check on the Luna every morning now, since Sebastian had assigned him to it, stirred awake to a weight pressing against his chest and the faint scent of roses, something that made him smile and want to drift back to sleep, until the chime of his door reached him.

The woman sleeping against his chest stirred at the sound too, just as he opened his eyes to find himself face to face with Laila’s sleepy gaze, her hair rumpled from sleep. For a moment she stared at him in open confusion before realization slowly dawned on her.

"Shit, I fell asleep here." She muttered, trying to push herself up off his chest, the two of them still cramped together on the couch, but Gilbert’s hand at her waist didn’t loosen, holding her steady against him, and she shot him a soft glare for it.

"Someone’s at your door, Rodrigo. I can’t be seen here, or you’ll be the next person caught up in rumors." She mused, well aware that most people had already distanced themselves from her lately, and the doctor’s reputation had stayed clean up until now, his girlfriend only having died a few months ago.

People knew Laila well enough, she didn’t exactly sleep innocently beside a man without something wild following it, even though it had been an innocent sleep this time around.

"I know." He smiled, his voice so thick and deep with sleep that Laila felt herself melting a little, the hand still pressing weakly against his chest losing its resolve entirely. His morning voice alone was far too lovely for her own good that her heart shuddered down to her lower abdomen.

"Are you worried about me, Serrano?" He asked, sliding his hand to the small of her back, knowing full well that courting a she-wolf like Laila meant he’d have to be just as bold as she was, or she’d never give him the chance with her.

Of course, she was worried about his clean reputation, but she would be dead before she ever admitted it.

"Fat chance. I’m not worried about you; I’m worried about myself. I don’t want to be seen with you. You’re far too boring for my type." She flashed him a teasing smile, but it faded the moment his own smile fell away and his hand released her, as though her words had genuinely hurt him.

She quickly pushed herself up from him and stood, but before she could move any farther away, he caught her wrist, stopping her.

"Serrano..." he murmured, looking up at her with an unusual seriousness that Laila rarely saw on his gorgeous face.

She glanced down at him, still lying on the couch with one leg bent and the other sprawled straight. His eyes were heavy-lidded as she let her gaze trail over the length of him, until it caught on the obvious evidence of his morning arousal beneath his trousers.

She realized, with some surprise, that simply sleeping against him had been enough to affect him like that. Yet he hadn’t tried to use it to seduce her, the way most men would have if her closeness had aroused them. That alone was something entirely new to Laila.

Normally, with any man she was with, the moment she so much as made him aroused, he would try to use it to his advantage somehow, even if it meant resorting to manipulative tactics. Her eyes drifted back up to his face, where his gaze had never left hers.

"I’m serious about you, this time. Will you let me try again, once a proper mourning period has passed? I want to court and date you properly."

Before Laila could answer, the door chimed again, pulling her attention away from him toward the sound, then back to him. He sat up, still holding her wrist, running his free hand through his deep brown hair before standing, gently guiding her back down onto the couch.

"Don’t leave yet. We’ll talk, once I see who’s at the door, okay? Will you wait for me?" He asked, and Laila, who was rarely treated with this kind of gentleness by any man, found herself nodding along almost mindlessly, like some obedient doll, the moment he used that same gentle tone on her. His face broke into a wide smile, and he released her wrist to answer the door.

Gilbert was still smiling to himself as he padded barefoot across the cold winter floor toward the door, though his smile fell away the instant he saw who was standing there.

"Oh, for goodness’ sake, Gil, I’ve been standing out here for over five minutes." Came the complaint of his mother, already making her way inside before he could even think to stop her, which, honestly, was just how she operated, always arriving whenever she pleased.

His mother, the strawberry-blonde Quinn Rodrigo, bundled up in her winter coat, stepped into his apartment and said, "Your sister tells me you’ve been sulking alone in here far too much lately. I understand losing a girlfriend is hard, son, but life moves on, you know. You—"

Her words trailed off as she walked farther into the dim living room, pulling the curtains apart to reveal the fat snowflakes falling steadily outside and allowing the natural light to wash into the room.

"Even your room is depressingly dark," she complained.

Gilbert closed his door and followed her into the living room, just as his mother turned around and finally noticed the she-wolf sitting there. She arched a brow at the unexpected woman she had somehow failed to notice until then.

"Good morning, Mrs. Rodrigo," Laila greeted the woman, suddenly feeling a cold sweat prickling along her back.

There had been a time, not so long ago, when Laila would have treated her as though she were nothing but air. She had been raised by her uncle to hold no respect for any Rodrigo whatsoever, and yet now, standing in front of Quinn, she felt a flicker of genuine shame and nervousness. This was the first time she had ever greeted Gilbert’s mother.

There had even been a time when Laila had shoved past the woman’s shoulder while openly mocking her with her friends. And it hadn’t been just Quinn, either. She had made fun of both of Quinn’s daughters too, more than once, on more occasions than she cared to count now.

Laila wouldn’t have been surprised if the woman had simply ignored her greeting entirely, but Quinn merely gave her a nod in response.

"Morning. What exactly brings you to my son’s apartment, Miss Serrano? Last I recall, you called our family name trash, people who took a position they didn’t deserve." Quinn remarked, a smile on her face that never once reached her eyes, since she had absolutely no interest in this disrespectful she-wolf being anywhere near her son.

Laila flushed with shame, finding herself, for the very first time in a long while, genuinely at a loss for words, until Gilbert stepped in, taking his mother’s hand and gently guiding her to sit.

"Would you like some tea, Ma? Your hands are freezing." He said, steering her attention away from making Laila any more uncomfortable than she already was.