Chapter 30: Parents Return

POV: Aria Blackwood

The guard finds her in the war room.

"There are two wolves at the border requesting sanctuary," he says. His expression is confused. "They say they're family. They say they need to speak with you directly. They're desperate. They're begging."

Aria doesn't look up from the map she's been studying. The one showing Council positions. The one showing where the final battle will happen.

"Turn them away," she says.

"They won't leave," the guard says. He shifts uncomfortably. "They keep saying they're your parents. They keep saying they need help."

The words stop her.

Parents.

Marcus and Elena.

The people who sold her like she was property instead of their daughter.

"I'll handle it," Aria says. She stands up and moves toward the gates before she can change her mind.

Cade follows her without being asked.

When they reach the border, Aria sees them immediately.

They look broken. That's the first thing she notices. They look nothing like the people who sold her. Marcus is gaunt and worn. Elena's hair is streaked with grey she didn't have before. They're wearing clothes that are torn and dirty. They smell like desperation and failure and the kind of poverty that comes from making terrible choices repeatedly.

They see her and their faces transform.

"Aria," Marcus says. He steps forward like he's about to embrace her. "Thank the gods. We've been looking everywhere for you. We heard the rumors but we didn't believe—"

"Stop," Aria says. Her voice is flat. Dead. Like she's speaking through a void.

Marcus stops moving.

Elena steps forward instead. "Sweetheart, we need your help. We made mistakes. We made terrible mistakes and we need—"

"You sold me," Aria says. Each word is carved from stone. "You sold me to be tortured. To be raped. To be destroyed. And now you come here asking for help?"

Marcus's face goes pale. "You don't understand. The debts were crushing us. The underground operations came for us and they were going to kill us if we didn't pay. We did what we had to do to survive."

"You had a choice," Aria says. Her power is rising in her chest now. Hungry. Wanting. "You could have come to me. You could have told me the truth. You could have let me help. But instead you sold me like I was a possession."

Elena reaches out toward her. "We were scared. We were desperate. We didn't know what else to do."

"You didn't know?" Aria's voice is ice. "Or you didn't care? Because there's a difference. You could have cared. You could have looked at your daughter and decided that her life was worth more than your debts. But you didn't. You looked at me and saw currency."

Cade watches from a few steps away. He doesn't interfere. Doesn't try to stop what's about to happen. Just stands there and bears witness.

Marcus tries again. "The money we got for your contract. We used it to pay down the first debt. But the interest kept growing. The debts kept expanding. We couldn't control it. We were trapped."

"So now you come to me expecting what?" Aria asks. "Forgiveness? Help? Did you think I was going to see you standing there and just forget that you sold me?"

Elena is crying now. "We heard what you've become. We heard you're powerful. We heard you're a blood witch. We thought maybe you could help us. Maybe you could save us the way we couldn't save you."

The words are poison.

They want her to save them. They want her to use the power that came from her torture to fix the choices they made. They want her to be their redemption story.

Aria reaches out with her power.

She doesn't kill them. Doesn't destroy them. Just touches their blood and opens a door.

She lets them feel what she felt.

Just for a moment. Just a fraction of the cold stone against her skin. The hunger that wouldn't stop. The fear that she was going to die in that basement. The knowledge that no one was coming to save her. That her own family had decided she wasn't worth saving.

She lets them experience the helplessness.

Marcus screams.

Elena collapses to her knees, clawing at her own skin like she can tear out the feeling. Both of them are crying and gasping and completely broken by the brief moment of understanding what Aria endured.

Aria releases them.

They fall to the ground, shaking and sobbing and terrified of the daughter they created but never actually knew.

"Guards," Aria says. Her voice is completely calm. "Remove them from Blood Moon territory. Make sure they understand they're never welcome here again."

The guards move forward immediately.

Marcus tries to speak. "Aria, please. We're your family. We made a mistake but we're still—"

"Family doesn't sell family," Aria says. She doesn't look at him. Doesn't acknowledge the tears streaming down his face. "You stopped being my family the moment you sold me. You made your choice. Now live with it."

The guards drag them away. Their pleas echo across the courtyard but Aria doesn't hear them. She's already turned away. Already walking back into the compound. Already compartmentalizing what she just did.

She didn't kill them.

But she made them understand. Made them feel a fraction of what she felt. And the satisfaction that gave her is almost as dark as the hunger.

Cade catches up with her before she reaches the inner walls.

"That was mercy," he says quietly.

"That was punishment," Aria corrects. "I enjoyed it. I enjoyed making them feel what they did to me. I'm becoming exactly what the Council fears."

"No," Cade says. He stops her by taking her arm gently. "You could have killed them. You could have broken their minds the way you almost broke Korin's. You chose restraint. That's not a monster, Aria. That's a sovereign."

Aria looks at him and sees something shift in his expression. He's watching her like she's something precious. Something worth protecting even when she's at her darkest.

The mate bond pulls toward Dominic in the distance.

But something else pulls toward Cade right here.

Before either of them can speak, an alarm sounds from the perimeter.

Not the Council this time.

Something worse.

The guards who dragged her parents away come running back, panic in their eyes.

"The underground operations that her parents owed money to," one of them says, breathing hard. "They followed her parents here. They saw the sanctuary. They've realized what Blood Moon is. And now they're attacking. They're coming from the south. They want blood price for what you just did to the Blackwoods."

Aria's blood goes cold.

She didn't just create enemies for herself.

She created enemies for the entire compound.