I didn’t sleep the first night after Ashford, and I didn’t sleep much better the six nights that followed it.
I told myself I was giving Maeve space, that whatever composure I’d shattered in that square deserved at least the courtesy of time before I pushed further.
I lasted a week believing that particular lie before I found myself standing outside Roman’s private study instead of my own, having ridden to the Dreadmoon border under the thin pretext of discussing patrol logistics that could easily have been handled through the formal channel Maeve had already cut me off from once.
Roman received me with a coolness that told me he already understood exactly why I’d come.
“Alpha Darius.” He didn’t invite me to sit.
“I assume this isn’t about patrol schedules.”
“I need to speak with you about what happened in Ashford.”
“I know what happened in Ashford.” Roman’s voice carried none of the careful diplomacy I’d grown used to from our formal meetings, something harder underneath it instead, the same steel I remembered from the accord when Killian had first stepped between me and his sister.
“You cornered a terrified child during a rogue attack and announced, in front of witnesses, that he belonged to you. I’d have thought even you might recognize how that looked.”
“I didn’t corner anyone. I recognized my own son.”
“You recognized a resemblance that upset you badly enough to frighten two children who’d already survived a rogue attack that day.” Roman’s eyes didn’t waver.
“Whatever you believe you saw, Darius, it isn’t your place to demand confirmation from a five-year-old, or from his uncle, or from anyone in this family who isn’t Maeve herself, and she’s already told you what she intends to tell you.”
“She lied to me.”
“That’s not something I’m willing to discuss.” Roman’s tone made clear the conversation had reached its natural end.
“If you have pack business, bring it through the formal channel. If you don’t, I’d suggest you leave before this visit becomes something I have to explain to my daughter as another violation of the terms she set for you.”
I left without getting anything further, and the ride back to Hellfang territory gave me too much time to sit with the growing, undeniable certainty that every part of me, wolf and man both, refused to release. Read the latest chapters at novelping.com.
I tried Killian next, three days later, catching him at the edge of the disputed corridor during a routine patrol coordination that gave me at least a legitimate excuse to be standing anywhere near him at all.
“I’m not going to tell you anything,” Killian said, before I’d gotten more than a few words out.
“Save both of us the trouble.”
“I just want to understand.”
“No.” Killian’s voice was flat, final.
“You want confirmation. There’s a difference, and I’m not in the business of giving you either one.” He studied me for a long moment, something almost like reluctant sympathy crossing his expression despite the hardness underneath it.
“I’ll tell you this much, because I think you need to hear it from someone who isn’t going to soften it. Whatever those boys are to you, biologically, doesn’t matter as much as you think it does. They have a family. They have four people who’ve raised them, protected them, and loved them every single day since before they could walk. You weren’t there for any of it. That’s not something a blood test undoes.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t ask.” Killian’s voice hardened further.
“You rejected their mother in front of your entire pack and let her walk into rogue territory bleeding. You didn’t ask what happened to her afterward. You didn’t send anyone to check whether she’d survived. Five years, and the first time you went looking for answers was after a rumor reached you that she might be more than you’d assumed. That’s not a man who didn’t know. That’s a man who didn’t think it mattered enough to find out until it became convenient.”
I didn’t have an answer for that, because he was right, and hearing it stated so plainly cost me more than his silence on the actual question ever could have.
“I need to know,” I said finally, quieter now, some of the desperation bleeding out of my voice and leaving something closer to exhaustion in its place.
“Not for leverage. Not to take anything from her. I just need to know if I have sons.”
Killian studied me for a long moment before he answered, something calculating behind his eyes that told me he was weighing exactly how much truth I’d earned the right to hear.
“Ask Maeve,” he said finally.
“If she ever decides you’ve earned an honest answer, it’ll come from her. Not from me, not from Bastian, not from anyone else in this family standing between you and a truth that isn’t ours to give away.” He turned back toward his patrol without waiting for a response.
“Until then, stop asking everyone except the one person who actually has the right to tell you.”
I tried the formal channel next, the one Maeve had cut down to communication through Roman alone after Ashford, and I used every ounce of restraint I had left composing a message that stayed entirely within the bounds she’d set, addressing only pack business, nothing personal, nothing that could be read as another violation. Follow the newest chapters on novelping.com.
Buried at the very end, after three paragraphs of legitimate patrol logistics, I allowed myself a single line I knew crossed the boundary anyway.
*I’m not asking you to forgive me.
I’m asking you to tell me the truth.
I think I’ve earned at least that much, even if I haven’t earned anything else.*
The response came back through Roman two days later, formal and cold, addressing the patrol logistics in full detail and ignoring the personal line entirely, as though it had never been written at all.
I understood the silence for what it was.
Not confusion.
Not an oversight.
A deliberate refusal to engage with the one question I actually needed answered, delivered with enough precision that I couldn’t even claim she’d misunderstood what I was asking.
I sat with that silence for a long time, turning over everything Killian had said, everything Roman had refused to discuss, the memory of a boy’s pale gray eyes watching me with careful, assessing calm even while frightened.
I didn’t have proof.
Nobody in that family was going to hand it to me, and I understood, with a clarity that cost me something new every time I let myself sit with it, that I hadn’t earned the right to demand it from them either.
But I understood something else too, something I hadn’t fully articulated even to myself until that exact moment, staring at a formal response that had carefully, deliberately avoided the only question that mattered.
They weren’t denying it because it wasn’t true.
They were protecting something they were afraid I’d take from them if I ever got close enough to confirm it, and no amount of careful denial from Maeve, no amount of Killian’s warnings or Roman’s cold formality, was ever going to be quite enough to make that fear feel unfounded to me.
I didn’t know yet what I intended to do with that understanding.
I only knew I wasn’t capable of letting it go, no matter how many times this family closed ranks against me, no matter how many boundaries I kept finding new ways to violate in the desperate, undignified pursuit of a truth everyone around me seemed determined to keep buried.