Chapter 164
Blake
Victoria's lily and cedar scent spiked with something I'd never smelled from her before—pure, unadulterated panic. Her usual composure shattered, revealing the woman beneath the Luna mask.
"How dare you bring him here," she hissed, her eyes snapping to Asher. "Do you have any idea what you've done? He's—"
"Kara's grandfather," Asher cut her off, his voice arctic. "The man you've kept from his granddaughter for a decade. The man whose gifts you returned unopened every single year. Sit. Down."
The Alpha Command in those last two words wasn't a request. Victoria's knees buckled, depositing her onto the leather sofa. Marcus moved to stand behind her, one hand on her shoulder, his oak scent trying to project authority he no longer held in this room.
"You had no right—" Marcus started.
"We have every right." I stepped forward, letting my gunpowder scent fill the space. "Our mate is missing. Kidnapped by the same organization that murdered her parents. And we're done with secrets, done with lies, done with you deciding what information we're allowed to have."
Dmitri moved from the corner, his aged wolf scent carrying notes of vodka and something sharper—vindication. He pulled a weathered canvas bag from his shoulder and upended it onto the floor between my parents and us.
Gifts spilled out. Ten snow wolf plushies, sized from infant to adult. Biology textbooks with handwritten encouragement in the margins. Winter clothing with tags still attached. And letters—dozens of letters, bound with rubber bands, each envelope stamped with "RETURN TO SENDER."
Victoria made a sound like she'd been punched.
"Ten years," Dmitri said quietly, his voice carrying more weight than any shout. "Ten birthdays. Ten Christmases. Ten years of trying to reach my granddaughter, and every single time, you sent it back."
"We were protecting her," Victoria whispered, but her voice lacked conviction.
"Protecting her?" Dmitri's laugh was harsh. "From what? From knowing someone loved her? From having a family member who gave a damn whether she lived or died?"
I watched Mother's face crumble, watched her scent turn acrid with shame. Through the mental link, I felt Cole's shock and Asher's cold satisfaction. This was what we needed—truth, raw and bloody.
"The Eclipse Court was hunting you," Marcus said, his voice hard. "If you'd made contact with Kara, they would have tracked her. Used her to get to you. We made a choice—"
"You made a choice to isolate an eight-year-old child," Asher interrupted, his black ebony scent pressing down like a physical weight. "To let her believe she was completely alone in the world while her grandfather desperately tried to reach her."
Victoria's hands trembled as she stared at the pile of returned gifts. "I thought... I thought it was better if she forgot. If she moved on."
"Moved on?" Dmitri's voice cracked. "She was eight years old, Victoria. Her parents had just abandoned her on your doorstep in a snowstorm. She didn't need to 'move on.' She needed to know someone still cared."
I picked up one of the snow wolf plushies—the smallest one, sized for a young child. The tag read: "To Kara, Happy 9th Birthday. You are loved. Grandfather."
"She told us she never received a birthday present," I said quietly, my gunpowder scent mixing with the grief flooding through the mate bond—Kara's grief, even though she was miles away. "Not one. In ten years. She thought no one cared enough to remember."
Cole moved to the pile, picking up the letters. "How many of these did you read before sending them back?"
Victoria's silence was answer enough.
"All of them," Dmitri said flatly. "She read every single one. Had to, to make sure I wasn't revealing anything that might compromise her precious secrets. And then she sent them back, year after year, while my granddaughter grew up thinking she was worthless."
"That's not fair—" Victoria started.
"Fair?" I rounded on her, my wolf surging so close to the surface that my eyes must have flashed gold. "You want to talk about fair? Let me tell you what's fair, Mother. Fair is a little girl doing backbreaking labor to pay off a debt she didn't incur. Fair is being locked in a storage room and called 'Carrot' by everyone in the pack. "
Victoria flinched.
"And through all of that," I continued, my voice dropping to something lethal, "she could have had one person—just one—who loved her unconditionally. But you took that from her. You decided she didn't deserve even that much."
"We gave her food, shelter, education—" Marcus tried.
"You gave her survival," Asher cut him off. "Barely. She lived in a storage room until her eighteenth birthday. She worked from four in the morning until midnight. She was called a debt slave by everyone in this pack, including us. That's not care. That's exploitation."
Through the mental link, I felt Cole's mint scent turn sharp as broken glass. His voice, when he spoke, was quieter than ours but somehow more devastating.
"You let us torture her. For ten years, you watched your sons bully and abuse an orphaned child, and you did nothing. Worse than nothing—you encouraged it. You told us she was just here to work off a debt. That she wasn't family. That she didn't deserve our compassion."
Victoria's face was white. "I... Connor was my brother. Seeing her every day, seeing Celeste's face in hers, it was—"
"So you punished an innocent child for her mother's sins?" Dmitri's voice could have cut stone. "You became exactly what you claimed to hate about Celeste—someone who hurt others to ease their own pain."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence. Victoria's carefully constructed justifications crumbled, leaving her exposed and raw. Her scent had gone sour with self-loathing, and for the first time in my life, I saw my mother cry.
"I didn't know how to love her," she whispered. "Every time I looked at her, I saw the woman who destroyed my brother. I saw everything I'd failed to protect him from. And I... I couldn't separate Kara from that."
"Then you should have let me have her," Dmitri said, his voice breaking. "If you couldn't love her, you should have given her to someone who could. Instead, you kept her like a prisoner and made damn sure no one else could reach her either."
I thought of the legal documents Dmitri had shown me—the restraining order Victoria had filed through human courts, painting him as a violent drunk. The lies she'd told to ensure Kara remained isolated and alone.
"You didn't just refuse his gifts. You went to human authorities. Filed a restraining order. Lied under oath about Dmitri being dangerous. Made absolutely certain he couldn't even see her from a distance."
Marcus's hand tightened on Victoria's shoulder. "We did what we thought was necessary—"
"Necessary?" Asher's laugh was devoid of humor. "Necessary for what? To maintain your perfect image? To avoid dealing with the inconvenient truth that you'd failed your brother and were taking it out on his daughter?"
Victoria's sobs were the only answer.
Dmitri's scent carried a note of grim satisfaction, but also profound sadness. "I want you to understand something, Victoria. I don't expect forgiveness. I don't even expect understanding. But I need you to know—truly know—what you took from both of us."
He picked up one of the larger plushies, his hands gentle despite their tremor. "This was for her thirteenth birthday. The year she started high school. I imagined her nervous, maybe lonely, needing something to hold onto. So I bought this, wrote a letter telling her about her mother at that age—how smart Celeste was, how brave, how she'd been scared too but found her way. I wanted Kara to know she came from strength."
He set it down, picked up a biology textbook. "Fifteenth birthday. I heard from a contact that she was excelling in sciences. This book—it's college level. I wrote in the margins, explaining concepts I thought would challenge her, encourage her to push further. I wanted her to know someone believed in her potential."
Each item he touched carried a story—a moment of connection Victoria had stolen. The beautiful silver necklace for her eighteenth—engraved with words in Russian: You are worthy of love.
"Every single gift was chosen with care," Dmitri finished, his voice raw. "Every letter written with love. And you sent them all back. Made her believe she was forgotten."
Victoria's face was buried in her hands now, her whole body shaking. "I thought I was protecting her. The Eclipse Court—"