The safehouse sat at the end of a gravel drive so choked with weeds it looked abandoned from the road.
That wasn’t just neglect, I realized when Lucian killed the engine and we both sat there for a moment, the weight of the place settling in.
Old stone and ivy, windows locked up tight against a world that wasn’t supposed to remember this place even existed.
“Wards go up as soon as you cross the tree line,” Lucian said, steadying Dorian as they hobbled toward the front door.
“Nothing gets in or out.
No signals, no pack scent crosses the boundary, wolf or otherwise.
No one who’s after you would think to look here.” Inside, the house felt still, not the kind that comes from emptiness but from a place kept in waiting.
Most rooms held furniture covered in dust sheets, but the kitchen was stocked with actual food, and a study lined with books that looked older than anything I’d seen in Sal’s archives.
Dr.
Voss would have to be called in for Dorian’s wound, Lucian told me.
There was someone who could reach the house without breaking the wards, but for now, all we had was a rough field dressing.
An hour later I ended up in the study, too wired to rest even though my whole body ached.
I ran my fingers along cracked old book spines while Adrian and Sal talked in the kitchen.
I could hear their voices, low and tense, talking security and what the hell to do next.
“Looking for anything in particular?” Lucian stood in the doorway, his face careful, like he wasn’t sure if I actually wanted him there.
I wasn’t sure myself.
“Just… something that explains any of this,” I said.
“A book.
Some record.
Anything that isn’t someone giving me their version of my story.” He came into the room slowly, taking the chair across from me but keeping some distance.
“Most of what matters isn’t here.
The Sovereignty’s real archive was never physical.
Too risky after the Court fell—keep it all in one place and someone can just burn it to the ground.
What’s left is in pieces.
Oral history passed between Keepers more than anything on paper.” “Then what good is any of this?” I swung a hand at the shelves.
“If nobody ever wrote down the answers, how does anyone learn the truth?” “Some of it survived.” His tone softened, just a little.
“It’s enough to start understanding what you’re carrying, even if the Court took a lot of it with them.
I could tell you what I know.
If you want to hear it from me, not just a book.” I watched him for a long minute.
This stranger with a face I’d grieved for nearly twenty years, offering up everything he’d kept from me and my mother.
“Why now?” I asked.
“You could have told my mother.
You could have explained why you left instead of letting her die with nothing but questions.
And you could have found me—before Redthorn decided to test a ritual you knew would fail.” Something cracked open in his expression, raw and unguarded.
“I kept telling myself every year I stayed away, you were safe from what I really am.
And every year, I hated myself a little more for letting you live in the dark just to keep you safe.
I can’t justify the years I took from you, Wren.
I only have what’s left, and that’s everything I actually know.” I sat down, every part of me tired.
Too tired to keep all the fury burning as hot as before, even if I wasn’t able to let it go.
“Start with the Moon Court,” I said.
“What was it like?
Before everything fell apart?” Lucian’s eyes went somewhere far away—a look like he was thumbing through memories that weren’t even all his.
“One authority for every pack.
Not one Alpha ruling by force like it is now, but a Queen’s line that held legitimacy nobody could fake—bloodline and old magic, deeper than anything science could measure.
Packs didn’t answer to her out of fear; it’s because the bond with the moon went beyond anything an Alpha could claim.” “What ended it?” “Betrayal.” His jaw tensed.
“Accounts disagree on the details, but the core is always the same—a group of Alphas, tired of answering to one bloodline, conspired to kill the Queen.
They burned most of the records.
Everything else scattered.
The Keepers were left to guard what little memory survived, just in case someone from the line ever surfaced again.” “And if an heir does come back?
What happens?
Does everyone just kneel?” “That’s what the fighting’s been about for sixty years,” Lucian said.
“Some people want things restored—no more endless territory wars—because only a Court could stop what Redthorn did to you from happening again.
Others think bringing it back just hands all the power to one family, and there’s no guarantee the next Queen would be any better than the Alphas running things now.” “And the ones hunting me?
The ones who killed Marcus?” Lucian’s gaze turned dark, something almost haunted behind it.
“They don’t want the Court or anything like it to ever come back.
If they know you’re real, they aren’t trying to catch you for leverage like Rocco.
They want to make sure the bloodline ends—with you.
Forever.
Quietly.” That landed hard.
Heavy.
I felt Adrian arrive before I saw him, the shadow of him at the study door, his face set in lines I’d come to know meant something was about to get serious.
“Then we make sure that doesn’t happen,” Adrian said, voice low and certain.
Lucian glanced between us, measuring everything.
“You realize what you’re signing up for?
This isn’t something you outlast with patience.
If this faction is in motion, you’re standing against people who’ve spent sixty years making sure nobody like Wren survives.” “I’m aware.” Adrian crossed to me, settled on the arm of my chair—close like he needed the contact more than he needed to make a point.
“I’ve been underestimated by people who’ve had decades to prepare before.
It doesn’t usually work out for them.” Something changed in Lucian’s look.
Maybe respect, maybe just surprise.
“You care for her.” “Completely,” Adrian said.
No hesitation, no calculation.
“If that’s a problem for this alliance, I want to know that right now.” Lucian didn’t answer straight away.
He looked at me, the way you look at someone you regret not knowing better.
“It’s not a problem,” he finally said.
“Honestly, it’s the first thing about all this that’s given me real hope.” Outside, the day slid toward evening.
Somewhere past the wards around this place, I knew the enemy was waiting—older, more patient, and still counting on finishing what this morning’s ambush didn’t.
But here, for now, inside these old stone walls, I let myself breathe.
[End of Chapter 15]