Chapter 15 What Was Always Mine
Levi:
The city hums beneath me, unaware that everything I thought I knew has already changed.
I have seen them.
Two small shadows framed in the glow of Aurora’s apartment window. Her arms around them, her voice soft, carrying through the glass like a song I had forgotten the words to.
For a long time I told myself I was imagining it. That the bond, newly awake and merciless, was making me see what I wanted to see. But the scent, sweet and unmistakable, proved me wrong.
Not one heartbeat. Three.
Koda has not stopped pacing since. Ours, he keeps saying. Ours, and you left them alone.
I do not answer him. There are no words heavy enough to carry what I feel. Every breath hurts and yet feels necessary, like breathing for the first time in years. The rain smells sharper, the air heavier, and the city lights blur into something too bright to look at for long.
I stand on the edge of the roof until the wind begins to sting my eyes.
Footsteps approach from behind. Luca’s scent, rain and leather and loyalty, cuts through the fog before he speaks.
“You are going to dig a hole in that roof,” he says quietly. His tone carries a tired amusement, the kind born from years of surviving my moods.
“I saw them,” I murmur.
“I know,” he answers, stepping beside me. “You stayed long enough for me to catch up.”
He sets a small folder on the railing. “Their names are Aria and Lior. Three and a half. Born a little over eight months after you left. She kept them off every record she could. No digital trail. No paper trail. Smart woman.”
The names hit harder than any blow.
Aria. Lior.
I say them aloud once, quietly, tasting them like a secret prayer.
“They look like her,” Luca adds, then hesitates. “But the boy, he has your eyes.”
My throat tightens. “I know. I saw him smile.”
“She did well,” I whisper. “She raised them alone. Kept them safe.”
“For now,” Luca says carefully. “But the Council’s trackers are getting closer. They have already flagged the apartment. You staying this near will not help.”
I turn to him, voice lower. “I am not leaving them unprotected again.”
“Levi...”
“No.” My control snaps like thin glass. “For years I told myself that walking away kept her safe. That if I severed the bond, she could live free of our world. But that bond never broke, Luca. It went quiet, not dead.”
Koda pushes forward, restless. We were never done. The blood calls to blood.
Luca exhales slowly. “You always said you did not want a family under the shadow of this curse.”
“I said that before I knew what family meant,” I answer.
He studies me for a long moment, then nods once. “Then we make a plan. Quiet. Clean. No Council, no trackers.”
I nod, but my gaze is fixed on the far-off glow of her window. “She will not trust me.”
“She does not have to,” Luca says. “Not yet.”
When he leaves, the night settles around me again.
The folder lies unopened beside me, but I do not need to see what is inside. I already know.
I remember the way the little girl’s hair caught the light, the faint curl at the ends that mirrors Aurora’s when she laughs. I remember the boy pressing his face against the window, curious, fearless. I remember the shape of her arms around them, protective, strong.
Three and a half years. Almost four. Almost the exact amount of time since I told the woman I loved that she was not mine.
Koda’s voice is softer now. You know their names. Say them again.
“Aria. Lior.”
The sound steadies me. The ache in my chest changes shape, still pain, but threaded with something lighter. Pride. Wonder. Regret, yes, but not the kind that crushes, the kind that rebuilds.
I picture their faces again, the tiny hands, the way they clung to her shirt as she spoke. A part of me wants to run down the street, to knock on her door, to fall to my knees and promise that I will never leave again. Another part knows she would close the door in my face. I have earned that silence.
I close my eyes, letting the city fade. My senses reach for the bond. Aurora’s heartbeat flickers faintly at the edge of awareness, calm but not untouched. Beneath it, two smaller rhythms, steady, bright, unknowing.
“They are strong,” I whisper.
Like their mother, Koda replies.
“Like both of us.”
The wolf’s growl turns softer, almost fond. We will protect them.
“Yes,” I say. “Even if she hates me for it.”
I imagine the twins asleep, safe in her arms, unaware that the storm that made them is still circling above. I imagine them growing up never knowing what lives in their blood, never knowing why the moonlight might one day feel too loud.
They deserve more than secrets.
They deserve the truth, and I will give it to them, even if I have to burn bridges with the Council and face every consequence I once ran from.
Time drifts. The world becomes smaller, narrowed to the rhythm of rain and breath. I think of the first time I ever dreamed of being a father. It was not something I planned, not something I thought I was allowed to want. Yet now, that single dream has turned into two lives with Aurora’s smile and my scent in their blood.
I imagine teaching Lior to ride a bike, hearing Aria laugh as she runs through the park. I imagine Aurora watching from the porch, pretending not to smile. For the first time in years, the images do not hurt. They heal.
Koda’s energy shifts inside me, steadier now, protective. They are small, but they are ours. She kept them alive when you could not. You owe her everything.
“I know,” I whisper. “And I will make it right.”
The bond hums at those words, as if agreeing.
The sky begins to lighten, a faint gray brushing the horizon. The city looks softer in the pre-dawn glow.
I stay where I am, the folder still beside me, untouched. I do not need the words it holds. I have already written my own vow.
Tomorrow I will find a way to speak to her. Not as the Alpha. Not as the man who broke her. But as the father who just found his children.
The wolf inside me exhales, calm for the first time in years.
Then we go home, he says.
“Yes,” I murmur. “Home.”
The city below is wide and merciless, but for the first time in a long time, I do not feel alone.
Somewhere beyond the rain, I hear a faint laugh, high and light, the sound of a child.
It may be memory.
It may be bond.
It may be both.
I close my eyes and let the sound stay.
“Soon,” I whisper. “Soon I will come home.”
And for once, the word home does not hurt. It feels like a promise finally ready to be kept