ELENA
“Because of… you?” I said, unable to keep the confusion out of my voice.
Maggie’s face crumpled. Tears fell silently down her cheeks, leaving glistening trails on her pale skin.
She nodded once. A tiny, broken movement.
“I’m Logan’s fated mate,” she said.
The world tilted sideways.
I just stared at her, stunned into numbness. The words didn’t make sense in my ears.
“What?” I croaked. “How? When-?”
I scrambled for understanding, grasping at any piece that might make this make sense.
“Did you… did you meet when you were living at Moonstone? Like Erin and Mason?”
Maggie shook her head slowly.
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“No,” she whispered. “No. We met long before that. Right after you disappeared. Right after…” She swallowed thickly. “Right after I saved you. After you came to live with me and Carly and Erin!”
I blinked at her, barely able to breathe.
The room felt too small, too bright, too sharp.
“Tell me,” I said, my voice almost mechanical.
Maggie sucked in a shaky breath and closed her eyes for a moment like she had to gather every scrap of courage left in her battered body.
“I was out gathering supplies,” she said. “Food. Medicine. We couldn’t risk going into towns often, not with my father still hunting you. I was careful. Always careful.”
Her hands twisted in the chains.
“And then… I ran into him. Logan.”
She said his name like it tasted bitter.
“He was out looking for you. He said he was searching for a family friend who had gone missing.”
She opened her eyes, looking straight at me.
“I didn’t know it was you he was looking for, not at first,” she said. “He didn’t say your name. But… the timing. The description.
It had to be.”
I sat frozen, my heart thudding painfully against my ribs.
“So I told him,” she said. “I told him I could take him to you.”
Her voice broke.
“I thought it was fate,” she whispered. “Finding him like that. I thought the Goddess had blessed me. Him. Both of us.”
“But what happened?” I asked hollowly.
Maggie laughed–a jagged, ugly sound.
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“I’m a rogue,” she said simply, “I was born in a pack, but by then it didn’t matter. I was nothing but a rogue in his eyes. A liar. A threat.”
She flicked a glance at Derek–who stood tense, arms crossed, jaw clenched–and I could see the hurt flash across her face.
“He didn’t even give me a chance,” Maggie said. “Ten minutes. Not even that. We felt the bond snap into place—and then he rejected it. Broke it. He accused me of trying to trick him. Said I was probably part of the reason you disappeared.”
The devastation in her voice carved through me like a blade.
“And after that?” I asked.
Her shoulders sagged.
“After that, he was determined to erase me,” she said. “Erase everything that didn’t fit the story he wanted. He didn’t want anyone–especially you–finding out we were mates. So he went to Dr. Emmerich. Paid him to help keep your memories fragmented. To keep you close to him… and far from the truth.”
Behind me, I heard Derek growl low in his throat. Erebus snarled under his skin.
I knew exactly how he felt, because rage burned so hot in my chest it almost stole my breath.
Maggie wiped her eyes roughly.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “He’s been conspiring with Emmerich for years, Elena. Since the beginning.”
I sat there, numb, struggling to hold myself together as the weight of her words sank into me.
The betrayal. The manipulation.
All the times I had doubted myself, questioned why healing felt impossible. It hadn’t been my fault. It had been Logan’s choice.
I barely registered it when Derek’s hand found mine, squeezing gently, grounding me.
A few beats later, one of the guards finally shuffled over with a paper cup of water. I took it with shaking hands and sipped, trying to will some strength back into my limbs.
I stared at Maggie across the table.
“You knew?” I asked, voice rough. “You knew this whole time?”
Maggie sat up straighter, urgency flashing across her face.
“No,” she said quickly. “No, Elena. I didn’t know everything.”
Her chains clinked softly as she leaned forward.
“I only found out about Dr. Emmerich recently,” she said. “Logan told me himself—not very long ago.”
I frowned.
“What do you mean, ‘not very long ago‘?” I demanded. “You’ve… seen him?”
Maggie nodded reluctantly.
“After my father died,” she said. “When I took over the rogue faction… when I tried to turn it into something better…”
She looked down at her hands.
“Logan stepped forward. He offered to bankroll us.”
For a moment, I was sure I must have misheard her.
Surely she didn’t just say-
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Derek stiffened beside me.
“You mean to tell me,” he said carefully, “that Logan was financing your operation?”
Maggie nodded.
Her face burned with shame.
“He offered funding,” she said. “Resources. He didn’t say why. And I… I didn’t ask.”
I sat back hard in my chair, the breath knocked from my lungs.
“Was he funding your father too?” Derek asked sharply. “Before you took over?”
Maggie shook her head vigorously.
“No,” she said. “Never. He hated Pierce. Said he was reckless. Dangerous. He didn’t get involved until after… after you two- she glanced between me and Derek “–reunited.”
Derek swore under his breath and shoved away from the table, pacing to the far side of the room.
I watched him go, feeling like there was a bomb ticking inside my chest, waiting to explode.
Maggie wiped her cheeks again, sitting small and miserable in her chains.
“Elena,” she said, her voice breaking. “When you and Derek found each other and he took you away from us… I was so angry. So lost.”
She twisted her fingers in her lap.
“I’ve done things I’m not proud of,” she whispered.
I closed my eyes, trying to hold onto the pieces of myself that felt like they were shattering under the weight of her confession.
Across the room, Derek finally turned back toward us. His arms were crossed, his face carved from stone. His posture screamed: What else? What could possibly make this worse?
And then Maggie said, “There’s something else you should know.
Derek’s lips pressed into a hard line.
“Both of you,” she clarified, her voice almost apologetic.
I braced myself.
Maggie drew a shaky breath.
“Elena,” she said softly, “the day of your wedding. When there was an attempt to take you… an attempt on your life…”
The room fell into a sudden, breathless silence.
I felt Derek stiffen from where I sat.
I heard the faint buzz of the security camera whirring quietly in the corner.
Everything else the guards at the door, the air in my lungs–vanished.
—
Maggie went on, her voice shaking but steady.
“That was me,” she said. “Me and some of my father’s men.”
Derek growled low, the sound feral and deadly.
I threw out a hand and grabbed his arm without thinking, trying to anchor him before he launched himself across the table. His
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muscles were rigid under my palm, every inch of him screaming for blood.
But Maggie didn’t flinch.
She sat taller, met my gaze head–on.
“We were hired,” she said. Her voice dropped to a whisper, barely audible, as she leaned forward so that the microphones and cameras wouldn’t catch her words.
“Hired by Cassandra Laurent.”
