Chapter 34: The Quiet Ones Lie
The next morning started weird.
Not tragic. Not chaotic. Just… weird.
I woke up with the taste of rain in my mouth, my muscles sore from the night before, and my mind replaying a kiss that had felt more like a promise than a mistake.
Aidan.
I could still feel the warmth of his hands on my waist, the way he’d leaned in slow, like he wasn’t sure I’d let him. And then I had.
And now?
Now I had to see him.
In public.
In daylight.
Without accidentally walking into a wall or blurting something humiliating.
Great.
\---
I stepped into the war room just as Ethan was arguing with Elena over surveillance coverage.
“I’m telling you,” he said, jabbing at his tablet, “the camera in sector three didn’t glitch—it was looped. Someone manually froze the feed for seventeen minutes.”
Elena snorted, leaning over his shoulder. “And let me guess—you think that ‘someone’ is one of my hybrids?”
Ethan glanced up. “I didn’t say that. But if the silver shoe fits—”
“Oh, it fits,” she said. “But not on any of mine.”
She turned just as I walked in.
And her eyes narrowed like a cat spotting movement.
“Ohhh…” she said slowly, dragging the sound out. “You’re glowing.”
“I am not glowing,” I said, heading straight for the map table.
“Girl, please. You’re practically sunbeam-wrapped. Did you sleep? Or was it something else?” She wiggled her eyebrows.
“Don’t start,” I muttered, flipping open the latest patrol log.
Ethan didn’t even look up. “Elena, can we focus? This isn’t a gossip circle.”
“Ethan. Darling. Your best friend kissed the Luna. This is the news.”
I froze.
So did he.
Elena gasped, eyes going wide. “Wait. WAIT. You didn’t know?”
Ethan’s voice cracked. “He what?!”
I sighed. Loudly. “Okay, great. Awesome. This is exactly the calm I needed today.”
Elena beamed. “So... how was it?”
“Elena—”
“Oh come on, give me something. Were there fireworks? A music swell? Did the wolves howl in the distance—?”
“ELENA.”
Ethan reached over and physically turned her chair away from me. “Boundaries.”
She whispered, “But like, on a scale of 1 to mating bond—”
“Boundaries!”
\---
Aidan walked in ten minutes later.
Of course he did.
He was wearing one of his worn, dark henleys and had that relaxed Alpha posture he always defaulted to when he was trying to pretend nothing was awkward. But his eyes found mine instantly. And held.
I blinked once.
He cleared his throat. “Good morning.”
“Morning,” I said, pretending to scroll through reports.
Ethan stared between us.
Elena made a dramatic choking sound and whispered, “Tension so thick I could braid it.”
Aidan gave her a look. “Please stop.”
“I will not.”
\---
But jokes aside, the day turned serious fast.
Ethan pulled up a decrypted file—buried in an unused subfrequency of the surveillance grid. Someone had used the estate’s own infrastructure to deliver it.
The audio began with static.
Then came a voice.
Gregory’s.
But not live.
Recorded.
Layered in distortion.
Like he was speaking through glass and fire.
“She’s not yours,” the voice said.
“She never was. She is the sum of everything you tried to kill and failed to bury. And she will become what you fear most: a Luna who chooses neither pack nor past—but power.”
Then silence.
And a line of code at the end:
{V:23.73 – sleeper active – inside}
\---
The room fell quiet.
No one moved.
Elena leaned in. “Sleeper?”
Ethan nodded grimly. “It’s a term from older infiltration ops. A deep plant. Someone living among us. Unaware—or pretending to be unaware—until activated.”
My voice came out colder than I expected. “So someone inside this estate is still working for Gregory.”
“Not working,” Aidan said. “Waiting.”
\---
That night, we locked down the west wing.
Every hybrid’s movements were monitored. Logs were double-checked. And the council convened an emergency session.
I stood outside the strategy hall, arms crossed, staring out at the rain-slicked training yard.
Aidan joined me quietly, his jacket slung over one shoulder.
“So,” he said, voice low, “do we talk about it?”
I didn’t look at him. “The kiss?”
“The kiss.”
I sighed. “It was a mistake, wasn’t it?”
He hesitated. “Only if we’re planning to repeat our parents’ history.”
I finally looked at him. “And if we’re not?”
He stepped closer. “Then maybe it was just... honest.”
A pause.
Then he added, “But if you’re asking me to pretend it didn’t happen, I can do that.”
“No,” I said softly. “I don’t want to pretend.”
“Good,” he said. “Because I really liked it.”
And just like that, I smiled.
Despite everything.
Despite everyone watching.
Despite the traitor we hadn’t found.
\---
Later that night, Echo came to my room.
She was tense. Nervous.
“There’s something you need to see,” she said.
In her hand was a torn scrap of paper, slipped beneath her door. Just one line, scrawled in sharp, frantic writing:
“I remember you.”
She looked up at me.
“They know who I am.”