Chapter 72 A Child's Truth
Freda found Lucian in their room sometime after midnight.
The fire had burned low in the hearth, leaving the space wrapped in soft amber light. Lucian sat near the edge of the bed with a book open in one hand, though from the way his eyes lifted the moment she entered, it was obvious he had not been reading for long.
“You’re still awake,” Freda said quietly as she closed the door behind her.
Lucian set the book aside. “You disappeared with my mother for almost an hour. I assumed something important happened.”
Freda loosened the pins from her hair and placed them carefully on the nearby table before crossing the room toward him.
“She went to find Daniel’s grave.”
Lucian went still at once, and for a moment the room fell completely quiet around them.
“She told you that herself?”
Freda nodded and sat beside him on the bed, close enough for their shoulders to brush lightly. “She said she kept waiting for the right time to face it.”
A faint breath left him. “That sounds like her.”
Freda rested her hands loosely in her lap. “She told me there is never a right time for grief. Only postponed ones.”
Lucian lowered his gaze briefly toward his hands as if turning the words over carefully in his mind.
“She actually went,” he murmured.
“You didn’t think she would?”
“I didn’t know.” His voice stayed calm, though tiredness lingered quietly beneath it. “For a long time, I think she convinced herself that surviving it was the same thing as healing from it.”
The fire shifted softly behind them while Freda rested her hand over his.
“She seemed lighter tonight.”
Lucian sat quietly for several seconds before finally giving a small nod.
“She has not smiled like that in as long as I can remember,” he admitted, and something in his expression loosened slightly as he said it. It was not happiness exactly, but something close to relief.
“I think she’s going to be all right.”
His fingers curled gently beneath Freda’s hand before he added more quietly, “I think we all are.”
Freda leaned lightly against him, feeling the steady warmth of him beside her while the silence settled comfortably around them.
Not everything was fixed, and some things never would be, but the constant fear that once lived inside Silverpine no longer ruled every room it touched.
Beyond the windows, the pack rested in a stillness that no longer felt fragile.
Six months later, Silverpine no longer felt like a place waiting for disaster.
The change had happened gradually enough that most wolves barely noticed it at first. Then one day, the tension that used to follow every interaction was simply gone.
Omegas no longer lowered their eyes automatically in crowded spaces, younger wolves spoke openly during training discussions without checking rank first, and patrol groups mixed naturally without anyone treating it as unusual.
The pack had finally stopped behaving as though peace was temporary.
Liam changed with it.
He no longer woke screaming in the middle of the night, and the shadows beneath his eyes slowly disappeared along with the constant tension that used to sit tightly across his shoulders.
Some mornings, Freda woke to the sound of him laughing somewhere down the hall before sunrise had fully reached the windows.
Most of the time, he was with Eli and Nora.
The three children moved through Silverpine with the kind of energy that exhausted nearly every adult around them, though the pack tolerated it with growing affection.
“They stole food directly from the kitchens this morning,” Thomas said flatly during breakfast.
Across the table, Liam immediately pointed at Eli. “It was his idea.”
“It was your idea,” Eli argued.
Nora took another bite of bread without the slightest shame. “Technically it became all our idea.”
Thomas stared at the three of them with visible disappointment. “You know the kitchen staff would have fed you willingly.”
“That’s not the point,” Liam replied.
Lucian lowered his cup slowly, clearly trying not to laugh.
Thomas noticed immediately. “Don’t encourage them.” he said
“I’m not encouraging them.”
Thomas looked personally betrayed by the answer while Freda quietly hid her smile behind her tea.
Later that evening, the western training grounds glowed gold beneath the setting sun. Most wolves had already finished their sessions for the day, leaving the center ring nearly empty except for Lucian and Liam while Tobias leaned nearby with his arms crossed.
Freda sat along the wooden railing with Evelyn beside her, watching the field below.
In the center ring, Liam bounced lightly on the balls of his feet with barely controlled frustration.
“Again,” he said immediately.
Lucian crossed his arms. “Your balance breaks during the turn.”
“I almost had it.”
“You almost launched yourself into the dirt.”
“That only happened twice.”
Tobias let out a low laugh from nearby. “It was three times.”
Liam shot him a deeply offended look.
For the past two weeks, Liam had been trying to master a controlled partial shift during combat movement. The strength came naturally to him. Patience did not.
Lucian stepped forward and demonstrated the motion once more with calm precision.
“You keep forcing the shift,” he explained. “Slow down before the landing and move with it instead.”
Liam exhaled hard through his nose. “I am moving with it.”
“You are attacking it.”
“That feels similar.”
“It is not.”
Even Freda laughed softly at that.
Liam groaned dramatically before resetting his stance again while the evening breeze moved through the trees surrounding the field.
Farther down the slope, younger wolves were still talking near the lower grounds, their voices carrying faintly upward through the fading light.
Lucian stepped back slightly and nodded for Liam to try again.
Liam moved too fast at first, throwing too much force into the turn the way he always did when frustration started getting ahead of patience.
But halfway through the motion, something finally clicked. Instead of forcing the shift, he adjusted instinctively and let the movement settle naturally beneath him.
Silver flashed briefly beneath the fading sunlight as the partial transformation completed cleanly, and this time his landing held steady without the stumble that usually followed.
For one brief second, the entire field went quiet.
Then Liam stared at himself in complete disbelief. “I did it.”
The words came out breathless with shock.
Pride crossed Lucian’s face first, followed immediately by relief and something even deeper that he made no effort to hide.
“You did,” he said quietly.
Liam’s shock vanished into excitement so quickly that Freda nearly laughed.
“I DID IT!”
He sprinted forward at full speed and crashed into Lucian hard enough to force him back half a step. Lucian caught him automatically while Liam kept talking over himself in excitement.
“You saw the landing?”
“I saw it.”
“It was perfect.”
Lucian considered him seriously for a moment. “Almost perfect.”
Liam gasped in outrage while Tobias barked out a laugh behind them.
Beside Freda, Evelyn shook her head softly. “He really is Lucian’s child.”
Below them, Liam had already started explaining every detail of the movement while Lucian listened with complete attention, one hand resting absently against the back of his son’s neck.
Freda watched them quietly from the railing.
Five years ago, she had accepted the possibility that Liam might grow up without stability, without a real sense of family, and without ever fully believing he belonged anywhere.
Now she watched father and son standing together beneath the fading light, arguing over foot placement like they had never lost years at all.
Lucian looked down at Liam as the boy continued talking excitedly, and the thought arrived suddenly with enough force to leave him briefly still.
This is what I almost lost.
Night had fully settled over Silverpine by the time they returned home.
Later, Liam lay sprawled across the rug in the sitting room attached to their quarters with his training journal open in front of him while Freda folded laundry nearby on the couch.
Lucian sat beside her with one arm stretched lazily along the back cushions, occasionally glancing toward Liam between pages of a report he clearly was not concentrating on.
Liam chewed thoughtfully on the end of his pencil.
“What are you writing now?” Freda asked.
“Training goals.”
Lucian looked over immediately. “That sounds dangerous.”
“I heard that.”
“You were supposed to.”
Liam narrowed his eyes suspiciously before returning to the page.
A few minutes later, he yawned so hard he nearly dropped the journal entirely.
Freda looked up immediately. “Bed.”
“I’m not tired.”
“You can barely keep your eyes open.”
“I’m thinking.”
“You’re fading.”
Liam ignored that with as much dignity as possible and scribbled down one final line before finally dragging himself to his feet.
“Goodnight,” he muttered.
“Goodnight,” Freda said softly.
Lucian reached over as Liam passed and ruffled his hair lightly. “Training tomorrow.”
Liam brightened immediately despite his exhaustion. “I’m landing it perfectly tomorrow.”
“We’ll see.”
After Liam disappeared down the hallway toward his room, quiet settled comfortably through the sitting area.
Lucian reached down absently and picked up the abandoned journal from the rug, but after only a few seconds his attention stopped completely on the page.
Freda noticed the shift in his expression at once. “What?”
For a moment, Lucian said nothing. Then he turned the journal slightly toward her.
Under the line labeled What I want to be, Liam had written carefully in uneven handwriting:
A good Alpha, like Dad. And also good at cooking, like Mom. And I want to not be scared anymore.
Actually I think I’m already almost there.