The silence in the healer's den was heavy, smelling of dried rosemary and the sharp, clinical tang of antiseptic. Clara had retreated to her office, leaving me alone in the dim light with the steady, stubborn thrum of my pup’s heartbeat. I lay flat on the narrow cot, my hand resting protectively over my lower abdomen. The physical pain had dulled to a deep ache, but my mind had never been sharper.
I closed my eyes and pushed my consciousness outward. Reaching past the borders of the Shadowpine territory required a guarded, long-distance mind-link. In my weakened state, it felt like dragging my mind through broken glass, but I didn't stop until I found the frayed, distant mental thread I was looking for.
Elias Berry.
He answered slowly, his mental voice brittle and weighed down by years of unspoken shame. "Luna?"
"Tell me about your granddaughter, Elias," I commanded quietly through the link. No pleasantries. No hesitation.
The old wolf let out a shuddering breath that vibrated against my mind. The floodgates opened. He didn't try to defend the child. Burdened by his own guilt, Elias confessed the ugly, jagged truth of Aviana's wolfhood. She wasn't just a grieving orphan; she was deeply disturbed.
"She was obsessive, Luna," Elias revealed, his voice trembling. "Territorial to the point of violence. If another pup touched something she had claimed, she made them bleed. Katalina couldn't control her. My daughter indulged the girl out of guilt, and worse... she told Aviana exactly whose blood ran in her veins. She raised that child on the ghost of a man she couldn't have."
The implication hung heavy in the psychic space between us. Katalina had never named the father publicly, but she had made sure Aviana knew. She had protected a man powerful enough to demand her silence.
Neil.
The final puzzle piece clicked into place, locking with a cold, absolute finality. I severed the link, opening my eyes to the shadowed ceiling. I didn't shed a single tear.
By mid-morning, I walked back into the packhouse. I wrapped my Luna aura tightly around myself, projecting nothing but an icy, impenetrable calm. Neil was in the foyer, zipping up his jacket. Aviana stood beside him, her small hand gripping his pant leg. She looked up at me, her dark eyes flat and completely devoid of the terror she had faked the night before.
"The storm upset her," Neil said smoothly, not quite meeting my eyes. "I'm taking her for a pack run to burn off the anxiety. You should be resting, Melanie."
"I am fine," I said, my voice perfectly measured.
He didn't argue. He just nodded and ushered his daughter out the heavy front doors. The moment the deadbolt clicked shut, I moved.
I went straight to the basement and found the young Omega. The dark purple bruise on her jaw had faded to a sickly yellow, thanks to my healing, but the memory of the kitchen floor was still fresh in her eyes. I didn't have to explain much. She knew the stakes, and she knew who the real threat was.
Together, we moved through the empty packhouse like ghosts. I had ordered the tiny, high-definition cameras days ago, and now, with the Omega's quiet efficiency, we installed them in every blind spot Aviana had exploited. We tucked one into the ornate corner molding of the grand staircase. We hid another in the shadowed archway of the kitchen pantry. We placed three more along the upper hallways, their lenses perfectly angled to capture the doors of the Alpha suite and Aviana's bedroom.
"Thank you," I whispered to the Omega as we finished the last one.
She kept her eyes on the floor, but her voice was steady. "For the pack, Luna."
Two hours later, the front doors swung open. The scent of damp earth, pine needles, and rain rushed into the foyer. Neil bounded up the stairs, looking vibrant and energized. He walked into our bedroom, where I was sitting quietly by the window with a book in my lap.
"She's incredibly fast for her age," Neil said, a genuine, bleeding pride in his tone. He stripped off his muddy jacket, oblivious to the frost radiating from my side of the room. Then, his expression shifted. He arranged his features into a mask of practiced, authoritative concern and walked over to me.
"Clara mind-linked me about your visit to the den last night," he said softly, leaning down to place a hand on the arm of my chair. "She said you had a scare. You need to be more careful, Melanie. A clumsy fall in the dark during a thunderstorm... it's dangerous. You could have hurt yourself, or the pup."
A clumsy fall.
I looked up at him. He stared back, holding my gaze. One second. Two seconds. Three.
There it was. He held eye contact a beat too long. It was the tell he never knew he had, the one I had learned to read over years of loving him. He was testing my compliance, feeding me the lie Aviana had undoubtedly spun for him, and waiting for me to swallow it.
I didn't yell. I didn't defend myself. I didn't tell him that his "orphaned" ward had kicked his unborn heir. I just gave him a dead, emotionless stare.
My silence unnerved him slightly, his jaw tightening under my empty gaze, but his Alpha arrogance quickly smoothed it over. He patted my shoulder, assuming my quietness was submission. He thought he had won. He thought the narrative was his to control.
I sat perfectly still, my hand resting gently over my womb, and watched the man I once loved eagerly dig his own grave.
