Alpha's One Night Bride
Alpha’s One Night Bride – Chapter 99

A few days had passed since Willa and Greggory were defeated and locked away. Ronnie and Erick finally felt safe enough to return to Ironclaw full-time and stay in the house they took from Rock. Jessica and Spencer stayed in our guestroom because Jessica didn’t feel comfortable returning to the home she shared with Greggory.

She says there are too many painful memories that took place in that home in such a short time that she couldn’t bear going back there anytime soon. I couldn’t blame her. That was the house he was once married to Rachel in. That was the house where he nearly killed Jessica and she was trapped inside.

Spencer was glad to be anywhere, as long as he got to be near Jessica. I think she was still conflicted and confused about her own relationship with Spencer. She doesn’t remember anything from when she lost her memory; so whatever connection she once had with him, was completely gone. Except for the connection, she felt when she first met him.

She no longer trusted her own instincts when it came to her mate. She thought Greggory was her mate at one point and she was wrong. She didn’t know what having a mate actually felt like, but I knew my mother brought him to us because he’s Jessica’s mate.

Although, the way she looked at Ronnie as well when she said that part about family, I think there was more to him being here. Maybe it was the reason she was watching over him for so long in the first place.

Jonathan came into the living room with Emee who was saying “mommy” more consistently now.

“I just got word from Boris,” he told me, sounding sad. Nikini had recently passed away at the hands of Willa. I felt sad that I couldn’t protect her. “The funeral for Nikini will be held tomorrow.”

I nodded; we were all planning on attending. We needed to pay our respects. I hoped that where Nikini ended up next, was at least nice like where my mother was. I hoped they could see each other again finally after all these years.

“I’ll let everyone know,” I told him.

“Boris said we can spend the night at the manor if we want. He’ll set up some of the guest rooms. That way we don’t have to come back right away tomorrow night. Considering we’ll have Emee, it’ll probably be better if we drove,” he suggested.

I nodded.

“That sounds good,” I told him.

…

There must have been thousands of wolves around Silverside that were at the funeral for Nikini. The turnout was amazing and that just showed how well respected and liked Nikini was after all. When we first met her, she had a hardened exterior. She was intimidating and a bit mouthy; regardless of how beautiful she was, she was also very scary. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t liked. Everyone around Silverside obviously knew who she was and everyone in the surrounding towns knew who she was.

The bonfire was bigger than any bonfire we could imagine in Sabrebite. Boris held it at the center of town; he wore a dark suit. I noticed how sad he looked and how broken down he was.

My heart went out to him.

Nikini was inside a light brown wooden casket with some of her favorite flowers looped around the top of it. He kept it closed which was surprising considering typically we would have an open casket. Then we would place the body of the deceased in the open flames, without the casket, burning it until it was nothing but ashes, then we would put the ashes into either the casket, an urn, or just plant it in the dirt around their favorite areas.

My mother’s ashes we planted next to the large Oaktree in the center of Ironclaw. I wasn’t sure where Nikini’s favorite spot was.

“Thank you for coming,” Boris said before the ceremony actually began taking place.

There were light murmurs of wolves around us as they spoke amongst themselves; I could hear the light crying of some of the women as they paid their respects to Nikini’s casket. None of them could believe she was actually gone. She was still so young and had a bright future ahead of her. She had so many hopes and dreams. She was opening an art gallery and everything.

My heart broke thinking about all the things she will never be able to do now. It was all because of Willa.

I felt sick just thinking about it.

Behind Boris I saw his children standing near the casket; they were also crying. I’ve only met Makenna once when I was taking photos of her birthday party, but I had never seen her looking so distraught and broken before. I could tell she was really upset and confused as to what happened to her mother.

They must have been close.

“Of course,” Jonathan answered for all of us. “We wouldn’t miss this.”

Boris gave him a tired smile and nodded.

After a brief pause, Boris looked at Jonathan with questions in his eyes.

“You said last time that Melissa wasn’t who I thought she was,” Boris began. He was right; we didn’t exactly tell him the full story because we weren’t really sure what to tell him to begin with. But we did mention that Melissa wasn’t who she says she was and that there’s a good chance that she’s actually Willa, the sister of Naomi the Witch of Perception. “You mentioned something about her name being Willa?”

“I don’t think here and now is a good place to talk about this” Jonathan tried to say but Boris shot his hand up.

I could see there was a trace of anger lingering in his eyes; he must have been replaying the events repeatedly in his mind of what happened but kept coming up empty. There wasn’t an easy answer to his questions. The fact that he was one world’s greatest and first detectives, it must have been even more difficult for him to process everything that was going on under his nose.

“I need to know how my luna died,” he said, his voice cracking slightly.

Jonathan sighed and nodded slowly; he wasn’t going to argue with an Alpha in mourning.

“Willa is Naomi’s sister,” Jonathan began. “I’m sure you’ve heard the old tale of Naomi traveling the worlds to come to find the flower that saved Willa’s life from death by poison.

Boris thought about it for a moment, but then eventually nodded as he recognized the story.

“Well, the story itself was true. But what they left out was that the flower had some strange side effects for Willa,” he explained.

Boris frowned.

“Side effects?” He asked. “What kind of side effects.”

“It gave her darkness. It turned her against her family and everything Naomi wanted to do and accomplished, Willa would do the opposite and use it as a counterattack against her sister. She would wreak havoc everywhere, in different worlds and realms, in their world. It was a mess that the witch’s council constantly had to clean up,” Jonathan continued explaining.

“Magic in their world hits differently than it does in our world or any other world or realm,” I chimed in. “it’s not as powerful. They can easily manage it and quickly clean it up. This is why Willa often traveled outside their world to wreak the havoc.”

Boris listened patiently for us to get to the point of how she ended up here and why.

“Because of that, the witch’s council put a lock on their magic and the portal to get to any world of their desires. The witches were no longer allowed to travel outside their own world for their own pleasures. Unless they were summoned during the red moon,” Jonathan said

“Greggory,” Boris breathed. “That’s why he was sent to my prison because he summoned Willa.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Not exactly,” I said in response. “It was his father. Many years ago. His father wanted to be the next Overseer and to do that, he needed to be part of the Davis bloodline. It was said to be impossible, but Willa had away. They need to cast a spell and for the spell to work, they needed a sacrifice. Someone from the Davis family who was born from purity and love. The child has to be pure in itself as well. It can’t know what true love is, it can’t have impure thoughts. It literally had to be a newborn.”

“I was the next born that they could have used, but by the time they realized they needed a sacrifice, it was too late. I had developed a love for Arina that I thought was a sisterly/brotherly type of love, but it turned out to be more than that. They realized it before I did, but once they realized they couldn’t use me, they had to wait for the next born,” Jonathan explained.

“Greggory’s dad died and passed the reigns to Greggory. They came up with a plan to plant themselves everywhere. Willa, being a powerful dark witch, not to mention the Witch of Trickery, was able to do just that. She disguised herself as Melissa, to keep me close and to push me towards Moon-Valley where I met Greggory,” I finished explaining.

“She also disguised herself as the head maid at Nikini’s parent’s manor,” Boris breathed.

I had forgotten about that. she must have been trying to keep Nikini close as well because she too was part of the Davis bloodline. Which meant her children could have been used when they were born as well.

I looked over at Jonathan; now I was confused.

“She was trying to keep Nikini close too?” I asked.

He nodded once.

“It looks that way,” he answered.

“Why didn’t they use her children?” I asked.

After a few minutes of thinking about it, Jonathan answered.

“They needed to be born from purity. Which means they needed to be conceived and born from true love…” Jonathan answered, staring at Boris.

Realization struck him and he sighed in defeat.

“We weren’t in love,” Boris said softly.

I don’t know why that surprised me; I already knew that information. But it made sense. Once Nikini proved to be useless, Willa marked her to die.

“Well…” Boris said in another sigh; he looked pale as he tried processing all that we told him. “That’s certainly a lot of information. A lot that went under my nose that I didn’t even know about…” after a pause he added, “Some detective I am.”

I opened my mouth to protest but one look at Jonathan and I closed it. Boris cleared his throat and turned to the crowd around him.

“Let’s get this ceremony out of the way,” Boris announced as he went to join his children over at his late luna’s casket.

I looked at Jonathan, confused.

“It’s not our place,” he answered my unspoken question. “There’s nothing you can say right now that will help him. Trust me.”

I nodded.

I did trust him.