The Return of the Fallen Luna: Rise of the Heiress-Chapter 14 What Blind Guilt Brought Her

Yet even as the tears kept falling, a bitter thought kept circling her mind. She wanted someone to blame, something to rage against, some outlet for the pain tearing through her, but the harder she thought about it, the more she realized she could not entirely deny the truth.

She had taken someone else’s place.

She had lived a better life that was never truly hers.

And maybe those people had only been reclaiming what they believed belonged to them.

Their love, their attention, their loyalty... perhaps none of it had ever really been hers to begin with.

But still... did they really have to be this cruel?

Did they really have to break her like this?

"Wait... my mother... my biological mother..." The thought struck Ashley like a bolt of lightning.

It was not that she had completely forgotten about her. But for the past month, every time she asked Nathan if she could see her mother, he would always respond as though he understood, always acting compliant, only for her to be buried beneath mountains of work afterward, forcing her to postpone the visit again and again.

She had only seen her mother once during that time, and even then, her mother had looked hurried, distracted, and strangely out of place. Ashley had assumed it was because her mother knew how busy she was and did not want to burden her.

But now...

Now that she understood what Nathan and the York family had been doing, a cold dread began to settle in her chest.

What if they had been controlling her all along?

If they were willing to go so far as to destroy her reputation and ruin her future, then it was not hard to imagine that the source of all this, the one who had brought her into their lives, might not be safe either.

What if her mother was suffering too?

What if she were being held, mistreated, or forced to endure something far worse than Ashley had ever imagined?

Ashley’s face turned pale at the thought.

She had never once considered it before. She had believed Nathan, after taking her in, would at least care for her mother as well, especially after going against Alpha Derek’s wishes to bring them both away.

But what if that had never been his intention?

What if he had only taken them back to make their lives even more miserable?

If his plan for Ashley was to crush her reputation and strip away everything she valued, then what about her mother?

The thought sent a wave of goosebumps across her skin, while cold sweat gathered at the nape of her neck.

"No... I need to find her... and get out of here..."

Ashley murmured as she struggled to her feet, but the moment she tried to stand, pain shot through her injured knee. Her breath caught sharply, and she nearly collapsed again.

Unlike the others who had awakened their wolves, she had nothing to rely on now. No wolf to accelerate her healing. No strength to dull the pain. She was left to endure it all like a helpless human, forced to push through even though every step would be agony.

She would have to walk for kilometers before she could reach the packhouse again.

But even then... where was she supposed to find her mother?

Ashley racked her brain desperately, trying to think of any place her mother might be held or forced to stay. With shaking hands, she tore a clean strip from her clothing and wrapped it around her bleeding knee. Tears and mucus blurred her face, making her look utterly miserable, but she could not bring herself to care.

Her only remaining blood relative.

The thought alone made something inside her ache.

No matter how broken she felt, no matter how much pain she was in, she had to try.

For her mother, she had to keep going.

"Right... if they truly don’t want me here, then..." Ashley choked out, pain threading through every word. "Then I’ll leave with my mother. As for everything that happened before... I’ve already returned all the shares in my possession. I even made business models for them, along with future plans and ventures that would surely take their pack business to another level. They can count that as my repayment for everything they spent raising me."

Her voice trembled, but she forced herself to continue.

"But if they dare ask for my life..." she whispered, her expression turning cold with resolve, "that... I cannot give. This life was not given by them. It was given by my real parents."

Ashley braced herself against the tree beside her and tried to stand. The moment her weight shifted, pain tore through her injured knee so sharply that her breath nearly broke.

Still, she clenched her teeth and forced herself forward.

Step by step, she began to limp away.

She knew she had to leave as soon as possible, while Nathan was still occupied with Maddison. Once he returned, getting out of the pack would only become harder. And if she failed to follow the script he had prepared for her tomorrow, who knew what he might do next?

And so, Ashley limped her way back to the packhouse for three long hours. Sweat soaked her skin as though she had been caught in the rain, and the cloth wrapped around her knee was already stained with blood. Her face had gone pale from the blood she had lost, while her body burned with fever and her mind felt heavy and muddled.

The only thing keeping her moving was sheer willpower.

Each step was torture, but she kept going.

Along the way, her wound had begun to fester, and the pain only grew worse. If this continued, she might lose even more blood and collapse before she made it back. But Ashley no longer cared about that.

All that mattered now was finding her mother.

She had to make sure she was safe.

The moment Ashley emerged from the forest, the pack members saw her, but none of them so much as gave her a second glance. They simply went on with what they were doing, as though her appearance had been nothing more than a minor interruption. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Even with the strong scent of blood clinging to her, no one cared.

Not one of them.

Not if she was hurt. Not if she was dying.

That indifference struck her like a stone to the chest.

Ashley had been blind to it all along, brushing off their coldness and disrespect because she believed she deserved it. Because she thought guilt made her less worthy of kindness.

But now that she looked at it clearly, she realized the truth.

No matter what she had done, if she was meant to be their Luna, then this should never have happened. They should have shown her at least basic respect. They should have sworn loyalty to her. They should have sworn to protect her for as long as they lived.

And yet here she was, treated like she was beneath them.

Because of her blind guilt, she had never fought it. She had never questioned it.

Now, all she could do was laugh bitterly at herself for letting things fall this far.

She knew it now.