Betrayed from Birth – Alpha’s Unvalued Daughter
Chapter 159

Raven's

POV

I was proud of Brandon for standing up to Blake at the gate. I was very happy with how the night went, for both Cheryl and me as well. I was happy and relaxed when I finally went to sleep. I was glad I got at least a few hours of sleep because the Goddess gave me a visit in the middle of the night. I have not seen her since she came to me that one time when I was pregnant with Jaxon. So when I woke up in my own dream and saw where I was, I was hoping for good news, like due to the changes we have made, there was no further danger to our pack.

I approached her through the meadow and this time she had a blanket spread out, and we sat together overlooking a stunning field of flowers. I was happy to see her again, and I didn't hesitate to ask her if everything was OK now. With our cooperation with two packs that had been some of the packs that we suspected the threat might come from. I am truly hoping that we do not have an issue with them anymore. I was pretty sure that Blood Tracker was not against us anymore, as we helped them end a very serious issue with their pack. Aaron told us that he was going to help us if we ever needed him to. I honestly thought the relationship that Reagan and I had now was a great one. We spoke to each other often, and our children were friends now too. Especially Trevor and Jaxon, they were going to both be great Alpha's when it was time to take over their packs. Both were compassionate and caring, but excellent fighters and great judges of character. They are the best of both of us and their fathers, being passed down to them to make them successful in becoming the best leaders that they could be. That was definitely done by the Goddess herself. I could not be more proud of my son, and I know Reagan felt the same way about hers.

"I am sorry to tell you that there is still a fight coming, Raven. Things are about to change at Black Moon, and the threat is changing and growing. Thankfully, the choices you all have made will prevent it from being 2 packs against you. Blood Tracker will not join them when the war starts. They will not agree to what is about to happen or participate in it. These changes will be put in place in less than 2 years. The original plan has indeed changed, but a serious threat remains for you all. The danger is much more than you will expect to have from one pack. The wrong choices that Blake has made, have him in a very bad place right now. He is unfocused as he is furious at losing Cheryl when he is the one who made the very issue come about. He is angry and in pain now, and he is making bad decisions about who he can trust. He will be betrayed by people that are close to him, and he will be hurt in the process. Things will be changing very suddenly for him, and his power will be stripped from him" the Goddess, Selene, told me. She seemed sad, but I am quite sure that this is the punishment that he earned for what he did to Cheryl, and Kevin, for all those years.

"He blames Cheryl for abandoning him, and of course, the pain he felt last night from Cheryl and Anton, is making him react badly. I want to warn you that he will be here in the morning to accept her rejection. Do not let him into the pack, only open the gate wide enough for them to see each other for him to accept the rejection. He is dangerous to both of them. He wants to kill Anton, and hurt Cheryl. He is not thinking rationally right now. He will be here a little after 8 in the morning. You all need to be prepared, he did not have a good night. He also wants to hurt Brandon too, for not giving Cheryl up to him when he demanded it. Blake still wants her back, and he will make her pay dearly if he is ever able to get his hands on her. He needs time to accept that he has lost her and that his punishment is what he deserves. I will make sure that he gets that when he is placed into his own cells. I will make sure he survives the punishment coming until he can be rescued from it. That will be part of the message that I will have for Reagan. She will need to make sure that Clive and Aaron are on the same page when she tells them what is to come. You have a little over a year and a half to make sure that you are prepared for this threat. Even though they will only have about 6 months to get up to speed, they will have the funds to make it work. I will also have Reagan help you out with it, she will know what to do, and she will need to put that part of it into play as well before they take the account back over. I will make sure she knows what to do with the money." the Goddess told me.

She went on to tell me that she knew what plans had already been made, and what plans were about to be made. The second part of it was actually very scary and made me very thankful that we still had time to prepare. Apparently, Forest is much more devious than we ever gave him credit for. His laziness in training had been a good thing for us. We honestly thought that the threat was going to come from Blake. But Forest had already started putting his plans in motion and used his own father's weakness against him. I almost felt bad enough to want to warn Blake, but I knew I couldn't. Warning him would change how it was supposed to play out, and it was the Goddess's will. Tampering with her will, results in you being punished as well, and I will not be signing myself, or my pack up for that. She went into detail about what she was also going to speak to Reagan about and have her start paving the correct path at Blood Tracker as well. She let me know that Reagan would also be funneling money to help us be as prepared as we could be before they arrived.

She was going to reach out to let Reagan know the signs right before the attack was imminent and that Trevor would have a big part in it. Trevor would be the savior to let everyone know when the plan would be coming into play. He and Forest were cousins, and good friends, for now. Their friendship would end with Forest's bragging about what he was about to do. Trevor could be trusted to continue to go over to visit, once he was driving on his own at 16, which was in a few short months. The Goddess said that she would be quite clear with the signs for both Reagan and Trevor, to look for when the end is near. She was going to go and speak to Reagan right after she was through with me. I knew that the situation was absolutely serious when the Goddess told me what was about to happen. I also knew that Reagan would be as scared as I was, as we cannot allow evil to win.

It is our children, mates, and innocent pack members at stake here. I know that she loves and protects her children, and her mate as much as I do. This will be new to her speaking to the Goddess. I knew she was amazed at how prepared we were to help them with their vampire issue. They didn't ask, and we didn't mention it ourselves. We have been funding this on the side for over 16 years now. But we didn't have the kind of money Graham did. They need to get their packlands secured from rogues and let them know if they had danger coming from Black Moon. They need to get up to speed quickly and the Goddess could feel my concern over it.

"I will tell her Raven. I will also mention how concerned you were for her. I know that she is glad that you were willing to give her a second chance, but she worries that you still have anger in your heart. She knows that it would be fair for you to still be upset about it, as she was absolutely vicious to you, I had to do what I did to save you, and Jaxon. She just doesn't know what a blessing that was to you. I know that you love both your mates, very much. I hated that you had such a hard time with it at first. I am glad that they came to realize that they both matter to you and learned to get along without jealousy. I knew Brandon got it first because I reminded him years ago when things were still rocky that you would have died that day, if not for Justin. It would have all been lost if you tit had died. That was why I was happy to make sure that they were able to both mark you as theirs, and you were able to mark them back. I wanted the path to be easier than it was for you, but you are all in a great place now. Sometimes the things you have to fight for, become the most valuable of all. I know that they would both die for you and you for them, I am proud of the strong team that you have become by working together to protect your children" the Goddess told me.

I am so proud to hear her say that to me. We have been very successful with our blended family. I am so proud of all of my children. I am proud of my mates who get along because they knew how hard it was for us all at the beginning. I had two very alpha male mates. I could not be more proud of each of them, as although they had similarities in strength and fighting skill, that was where the similarities ended. Brandon is harder to read, as the Alpha here he needs to make good decisions. So even though what he did to me was bad, he has not made another rash decision since then. He likes to look at it from different perspectives, and then make his decision. He will include Justin and me in it as well when he is faced with a tough decision. He cares about his pack, and it has only become stronger since he found me.

I can remember how thrilled he was at finding me, as he had called my dad to inform him that I was his mate. How patient he was to allow me to stay with my family until after the party that my father threw to introduce me as his daughter. I know how hard that was for him. I also knew that it was what drove him to banish Cheryl and her family was worrying about what was going to happen to me if Cheryl was still here. He knew that she would try something, and decided to go ahead a deal with the issue head-on. They needed to be punished, but they found out later that it had been Silas to make all the decisions about it. He told her what to do and had her use her code so if it was found out, then it was on her, and not him.

Brandon trusts his team of ranked wolves to help him make his decisions, and that I am the tie-breaker when he needs me to be. He is so proud of me, all the time, and he makes sure that when he does get free time, it is valuable for the whole family. He is so proud of all of our children, not just his own. He makes my heart melt with the love he has for me, and our children. He does so much for his family and his pack, and he does it without protest or complaint. He is the protector of all of us and the pack, and he means a lot to us as well. Justin is special to me, in a different way. Brandon makes sure that Justin's job is protecting us, and that shows a huge level of trust for him to be able to do that. Justin did take a demotion, but Truitt has been Brandon's best friend his whole life and took the job over from his father, who was Brandon's father's Beta. Truett is a strong Beta, and Justin is fine with the lowering of his rank. He did it for me and the children. He wanted to be with us and train us to become the strongest fighters that we can be. He is there to protect us each and every day, as he trains each one of us to be the strongest fighter that we can be.

He even took on putting Kevin with our children to train him too. Cheryl wasn't strong enough to properly train him, and our oldest boys just love him to death. The best times are when Brandon and Justin can both be there for training. That is when we do our best to shine for both of them. Brandon is happy that he can trust Justin to protect us, and that frees him up to be able to focus on his work, and not worry about us while he makes sure the businesses, and the pack, are all taken care of. Their care for all of us makes me so thankful for them both. I have to tell her that before I go, as I don't think that she is aware of him much I have appreciated all the thought that she put into my mates.

"I do know, my child. I knew exactly how this would work out before you were even born. You had a lot to overcome, and you deserved double the love for all the times that you suffered alone. You had no one in your corner, no one to protect you like you should have had" the Goddess said, and she had a faraway look in her eyes. She then looked over to the field in front of us. I see someone heading our way and when she gets closer, I see that it is Cassandra. I don't know if I want to speak to her or not, actually. The Goddess put her hand out, held my hand in hers, and said, "She begged me to allow her to speak to you. I can see her heart. She is still tormented by what she allowed Graham to do. She realizes now that she should have taken you to Cole, but she did want to speak to you for a minute. I was going to allow it. Her stepping up to save Cheryl, and Kevin, from what would have been certain death, restored my faith in her. You do know that Cheryl was on death's door that day. If she had stayed at Black Moon, she would have died, and Kevin would have been killed right after her. Cassandra saved them both that day. I was going to allow her to speak, as I know how badly she felt for her not protecting you all these years. Just give her a few minutes of your time"

I nodded at her, as I do not really have much control here over this, but I have to say I am interested in what Cassandra was going to say to me. I had heard from Reagan that Cassandra felt bad, but feeling bad about what she allowed to happen to me, doesn't really mean much. I can feel bad for what happened to Cheryl, but if I didn't have empathy because I suffered as well, then I don't understand it at all. I stood up to receive her with Selene. She turned to look at me and said, "You have that empathy because you needed it to help run Black Adder. Remember, I have already told you I had allowed it for a reason. That reason was for you to be able to understand when your people came to you with their problems. So you could help them with what they went through, and find the right solution for them. If you hadn't experienced it, you would not be able to be so compassionate, and loving to them. To know that they needed that from you, just as much as they need your help."

I am ashamed of my judgment of Cassandra now, I should have realized that Selene would be able to feel my anger and frustration. I am not perfect, and I have made mistakes too. I will let go of it, to hear what she has to say to me, but I already know that this is going to be hard. The closer she gets, the more my heart hurts remembering that she always picked Reagan over me. She never loved me, and soon I am overwhelmed with my feelings. This is where my inadequacy came from. To know that I looked just like Reagan and Cassandra, but she preferred my sister over me. Because Reagan was Cassandra made over, and I was the odd one out. She came right to me and just took me in her arms to allow me to cry out all my pain, frustrations, and anger over the sheer unfairness that I received growing up.

After I stopped crying she wiped the tears from my face and gave me a smile. "I am so sorry that I failed you, Raven. You deserved so much better than me, as your mother. I was so glad that Olivia stepped right up to take care of you, even if it was over 18 years too late. I allowed Graham to control me and didn't even think to try to take you where you needed to go. I cared more about me having a safe place to live than you having one. I owed a debt to pay that back, and after the Goddess came to me in my dream and told me what had happened at Black Moon. I knew I needed to help right the wrongs that Graham had done. He lied about wanting to do it for Reagan. I saw all that he had done, and the truth behind what he actually wanted. He wanted to be Alpha again, he wanted the respect that came with the title. He thought that he could bully Blake into it, and found out quickly that was not going to work. That was the reason he came after Blake and Cheryl, instead of the two men responsible for Reagan being hurt so badly. He kept messing up, over and over again. Thinking that I was too stupid to figure out what he was up to, but I knew. The Goddess even showed me what he had done to me" Cassandra said to me and she motioned for us to sit down on the blanket again. She gazed out at the field of flowers and I can tell that she tried to calm down before she spoke again.

"Graham had hurt me repeatedly over the years. To him, his opinion is the only worthy one. Living like that for many years, I believed it. I only interjected when it was serious, like when Reagan tried to kill you. You need to understand that Graham put those thoughts into her head. Your dying was the only thing that would allow him to ever be safe again. He knew that if Cole had even an inkling that you existed, he would attack us until we gave you up. He put ideas into Reagan's head, that you were a threat. I know Selene warned you of what was to come. I just wanted to remind you to never underestimate Graham. He loves to make plans, he loves to think of any way out of situations. He can never be trusted. You need to remember that as you go forward in this. I want you to know that I did love you, you were just as special to me, as Reagan was. I hate that I never could be brave enough to call you and tell you that. But I knew that you would have hung up on me, the second you knew it was me speaking to you. I am so proud of the woman you are, despite not being able to claim any part of your upbringing. I am glad that the Goddess forgave me for going ahead and stepping up to agree to do this. Losing me, hurt Graham, he is not at the level he needs to be because of it. Hopefully, this will help make it play out even more in your favor. Please tell Cheryl that I am well. That she can stop the guilt that she feels over what she did. The alternative was for her to die three days later because no one lifted a finger to help her. Kevin would have been dead the next day with Graham blaming Cheryl's death on the stress she felt for cheating on Blake. The worst would have been that Blake would have killed his own son, in his fury. I saw the plans he had made, there was no other choice in the matter. I knew when I told Cheryl the night before that I was coming with them. I knew that I would not be returning. I knew it, and still made the choice to do it" Cassandra paused and I could tell that she was overcome with emotion. I can only imagine how hard it would be to go, especially when you knew that journey would be your last. It had to have been so hard for her to do it, even to save Cheryl and Kevin. I waited for her to calm herself, I reached out to hold her hand, I wanted to show her support. I was proud of her for saving them both. "Raven, please tell Cheryl to live her life to the fullest now. To love on her new mate, as he was sent to her. The Goddess allowed it, as Cheryl had suffered much more than any of you will know. Anton prayed to Maacah, the Vampire God, for a mate. Someone for him to love, that will love him back. They are perfectly suited for each other, as both Selene and Maacah have blessed this union. Anton is descended from royalty, on his mother's side. Anton's line needs to continue, so he and Alexei both needed a mate. He and Alexei, along with their coven will be a big help to you in the coming war. You need to be able to protect them as well. Make sure that you keep them from getting access to the vampires, as Graham has plans for them too. The vampires will be invaluable to you, hopefully, we will get the proper heads up to bring them here safely before the threat is at your door" Cassandra stopped speaking and looked at the Goddess.

They seemed to be communicating with each other for a short time before Cassandra nodded. "I am sorry, I have said more than I should have, Raven. I am just worried for you, my precious girl. I didn't get to take care of you as I should have. I was too weak to protect you. I am so sorry for every injustice that you have suffered. Just know this, I did always love you, even if I didn't show it. I was just as proud of you, as I was of Reagan. More so actually, because you were dealt several hard blows in your life, and you still excelled. Your Emerald is so beautiful, and I was so proud of you when you phased and surprised everyone that night you managed to get to where you needed to go. I knew the Goddess sent you there herself" Cassandra told me and fresh tears started again as I knew that this would probably be the last time I saw her.

She placed her hand on my cheek, and I could see the tears coming down her face too, as she knew that this was it. I was actually glad that I got to see her again. I felt my own hot tears at her telling me that she loved me and was proud of me. It meant more than I thought it was going to, to me. I guess toughening your heart to keep it from being hurt again, doesn't really work when they give you a heartfelt apology. I gave her a hug and I didn't want to let her go. This was the best interaction that we have ever had together. I knew that I was going to feel the pain from the loss now, as I felt bad for her now too. I could tell by what she didn't say that she had to deal with a lot from Graham. That she was scared of what would happen if she got caught taking me from Silver Blade. I know that he was probably watching her all the time. She didn't have much of a chance either I guess. She made bad choices and then had to live with them. She got what she earned in the end. Sometimes it happens like that. Sometimes the punishment is swift in coming, and sometimes you have to suffer in silence for a lot longer than you thought you ever would.

I watched them walk away from me after I had hugged them both goodbye. I knew the Goddess probably wouldn't be coming back to me again in my dreams again unless that was a large change in what she had just told me. I am trying to figure out what Cassandra said that was not supposed to be mentioned. I have to admit that I am anxious now, much more so than when I went to sleep. I don't want to deal with Blake today, and knowing that he is coming expressly to cause problems worries me even more. I don't want to be there for it, but as soon as we get up I will make sure that Brandon and Justin are both there with me, as we support Cheryl and Anton. I will not allow Blake to hurt anyone here at Black Adder. I already know what we need to do to get around it, just in case. We will deal with Blake tomorrow, and then we will make plans for the coming attack.