Chapter 30 Edmund's Breakdown (Edmund POV)
The silver blade feels heavier tonight, like it's absorbed all the weight of seventeen years and finally decided to crush me with it.
I'm sitting in room 237, surrounded by equipment I can't bring myself to use and weapons that suddenly seem pointless. The surveillance monitors show empty forests. The hunters I hired are staged at their positions, waiting for my signal.
A signal I'm no longer certain I can give.
Because last night, I watched my daughter transform into the thing I've spent seventeen years trying to prevent her from becoming, and she was beautiful.
God help me, she was beautiful.
The same silver fur. The same impossible size. The same eyes that looked at me with recognition and grief and something that might have been forgiveness before she chose them over me.
Chose him. Chose that pack. Chose being a monster.
Just like her mother chose being a monster over being my wife.
My hands shake as I pour another whisky. The third? Fourth? I've lost count. Doesn't matter. Nothing matters when your entire life's work reveals itself as the elaborate self-deception it always was.
"Mr. Ashford?" A knock at the door. Marcus, my lead hunter. "Sir, we need final confirmation. Do we proceed with the operation tomorrow night as planned?"
I should say yes. Should give the order and let years of preparation play out. But when I open my mouth, different words emerge.
"Give me thirty minutes."
"Sir, the teams are positioned. Equipment is active. If we delay…"
"Thirty. Minutes." I inject enough authority to stop the argument. "Dismissed."
His footsteps retreat down the hallway.
I look at the blade again. The same one I used seventeen years ago when everything went wrong.
When I murdered my wife.
The memory surfaces despite my best efforts to suppress it, pulling me back to that delivery room, to the worst moment of my life.
Seventeen years ago
"Something's wrong." The midwife's voice was tight with panic. "Her contractions are erratic. Heart rate spiking. I need to get the doctor…"
"No time." Lyanna's voice came out strained, wrong somehow. "Edmund, you need to leave. Get Gabriel out of here. Now."
"I'm not leaving you…"
"NOW!" The word exploded from her with inhuman force.
Four-year-old Gabriel was crying in the corner, holding his stuffed wolf. "Mama?"
"Take him," Lyanna gasped. "Please. Before…"
Her back arched impossibly, bones cracking audibly. The midwife screamed and bolted for the door. And I watched, frozen in horror, as my wife began to change.
Fur spreading across skin. Face elongating into a muzzle. Hands becoming clawed paws. Her entire body growing, expanding, tearing through the hospital gown.
"Lyanna?" My voice sounded distant, disconnected. "What's happening to you?"
She tried to speak but only managed a whimper that was half-human, half-animal. Her eyes…God, her eyes were still hers even as everything else transformed. Terrified. Pleading. Trying to communicate something I couldn't understand through the shock.
The baby. Our daughter. Still being born while her mother transformed into a creature from nightmares.
"No," I breathed. "No no no. This isn't real. This isn't…"
Lyanna reached for me with clawed hands, and every instinct I had screamed danger. Monster. Threat.
The silver letter opener was on the bedside table. I'd brought it from home, a gift from my father. Sterling silver, sharp enough to be dangerous.
I grabbed it without thinking.
"Stay back," I warned. "Don't come closer. Don't…"
She moved forward anyway, still trying to speak through a throat that couldn't form human words. Making sounds that might have been my name or might have been warning or might have been begging.
I struck.
The blade went into her chest, just left of center. Deep enough to pierce something vital.
She looked at me. Really looked at me with those silver eyes that were still Lyanna's eyes despite everything else being wolf.
And I saw the moment she understood what I'd done.
Not anger. Not hatred. Just infinite sadness.
She collapsed, transforming back to human as she died. Naked and bleeding and somehow still beautiful even in death.
The baby cried.
Our daughter. Vivienne. Covered in her mother's blood but alive. Breathing. Human.
I'd saved her.
Hadn't I?
Gabriel was still crying in the corner. "Mama? Mama, wake up. Papa, why won't Mama wake up?"
I stood there holding the bloody letter opener, staring at my wife's corpse, trying to construct a narrative that made sense. That made me something other than a murderer.
She transformed. She lost control. She might have hurt the baby. I had to act. I had to protect our child. It wasn't murder. It was self-defense. It was…
Gabriel stopped crying. When I looked at him, his eyes were different. Silver, like his mother's. Like they'd always been but I'd never noticed because I didn't want to see.
"You killed her," he said, and his voice was too old, too knowing for a four-year-old. "You killed Mama."
"I saved you. Saved your sister. Saved…"
"You killed her!" He was screaming now, backing away from me. "Monster! You're the monster!"
He ran. Just ran straight out of that delivery room, still clutching his stuffed wolf, and disappeared into the hospital corridors.
I should have followed. Should have explained. Should have done something.
Instead, I looked at Vivienne, this tiny infant who'd just entered a world that had taken her mother, and I made a decision.
She would never know. Never understand. Never become what her mother was.
Whatever it took.
Whatever it cost.
I drain the whisky, but it doesn't wash away the taste of that memory.
Gabriel ran that night and I never saw him again. Police search turned up nothing. They assumed he was taken or died somewhere. I knew better…the silver eyes gave it away. He was supernatural like his mother. And he'd fled from the man who murdered her.
Smart boy.
I spent the next three years researching werewolves, learning everything I could about the species that had infiltrated my life. The Silvermane family history. The transformation triggers. The ways to track them, trap them, kill them.
And I found the witch.
She was expensive. Demanded payment in gold and blood and promises I wasn't sure I could keep. But she gave me what I needed: suppression spells that would keep Vivienne human. Keep her safe from her own nature.
"The spells will hold until her late teens," the witch warned. "Maybe until twenty if we're lucky. But they can't last forever. Eventually, her wolf will wake up. And when she does, nothing you do will put her back to sleep."
"Then I'll strengthen the spells."
"You can't. The human body can only tolerate so much magical interference. More suppression would kill her."
"Then what do I do?"
The witch studied me with ancient eyes that had seen too much. "You could accept what she is. Help her learn control. Be her father instead of her jailer."
"She's not what she is. She's human. My daughter. I won't let her become a monster."
"Then you've already lost her." The witch packed her supplies. "When the suppression fails—and it will fail—she'll have no guidance, no preparation, no support. She'll suffer more than if you'd never suppressed her at all. But that's your choice to make."
She left me with seventeen years of borrowed time.
Time I used to hunt werewolves. To perfect my methods. To convince myself I was protecting humanity from dangerous predators.
But really, I was just trying to kill my guilt. And failing spectacularly.
A buzzing phone pulls me from the past.
Marcus again. "Sir, thirty minutes are up. We need your decision."
I look at the monitors. At the thermal imaging showing heat signatures in the forest. At the equipment schematics. At the operational plan I spent months perfecting.
"What's the hunter count?" I hear myself ask.
"Six in position. Three more on standby. UV equipment tested and functional. Silver rounds distributed. Gas dispersal systems ready. We can execute on your mark."
Nine hunters. Against how many werewolves? Seven? Eight? Including Vivienne.
Including my daughter.
"The targets," I say slowly. "We confirmed how many?"
"Thermal shows eight distinct signatures in the safe house location. All clustered. Perfect opportunity for containment before dispersion."
Eight lives. Most of them teenagers. Kids who probably didn't choose to be werewolves any more than Vivienne chose to be Silvermane.
"Sir?" Marcus sounds impatient now. "Yes or no? Do we proceed?"
I should say yes. Should let the operation move forward. Should eliminate the threat and protect my daughter from herself even if she hates me for it.
But when I close my eyes, all I see is Lyanna's face as she died. That infinite sadness. That recognition that I'd chosen fear over love.
And I see Vivienne's wolf form standing beside that Hartley boy, choosing him over me because I never gave her a choice at all.
"Sir?" Marcus again. "We need confirmation. Now."
"Stand down," I say.
Silence on the other end.
"Sir?"
"I said stand down. Cancel the operation. Send the hunters home."
"Mr. Ashford, with respect, we've spent months preparing. Equipment is positioned. Teams are ready. If we cancel now…"
"Then we cancel. Those are my orders." I hang up before he can argue further.
The phone rings immediately. I ignore it.
Rings again. Still ignore.
On the third call, I answer. "I said stand down, Marcus."
"Too late for that." His voice is cold now. Different. "You hired us to do a job. Paid us a considerable sum. We're contracted to execute this operation."
"I'm canceling the contract…"
"Contracts can't be canceled once operations commence. You should have read the fine print." I hear sounds in the background…weapons being checked, vehicles starting. "We're moving in tonight instead of tomorrow. Element of surprise. Your daughter will be collateral damage, but that's what happens when people hire professionals and then get cold feet."
"You can't…"
"We can and we will. Consider this your notice of termination. Effective immediately." The line goes dead.
No.
I grab my coat, my keys, the silver blade that's failed me in every way that matters. I don't know what I'm going to do. Don't know how to stop what I've started.
But I have to try.
Because seventeen years ago, I murdered my wife to protect my daughter from becoming a monster. And tonight, I need to protect my daughter from the monsters I created while hunting the monster I thought she was.
The irony isn't lost on me.
I'm halfway to my car when my phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number.
Father is coming. Not sure if to help or hinder. Pack preparing for defensive positions. Tell him we don't need his redemption. We need him to stay away. - Callum Reid
How did the Beta wolf get my number?
Doesn't matter. What matters is Vivienne's alive and aware and surrounded by people who will protect her.
People who are better for her than I ever was.
I should turn around. Should go back to the hotel and let this play out. Let the hunters attack. Let the pack defend itself. Let Vivienne survive or die without my interference.
But I'm already driving toward the woods.
Because maybe…just maybe…I can stop Marcus. Stop the hunters I hired. Stop the operation that was never really about protecting humanity.
It was always about punishing myself.
And Vivienne shouldn't have to pay for my guilt.
The roads are empty this time of night. I push the car faster, taking turns too sharp, heading toward the coordinates I know by heart. The safe house location. Where my daughter is preparing to fight for her life.
My phone rings. Marcus again.
I answer. "Call it off. I'll pay you double. Triple. Whatever you want…"
"We don't want your money, Ashford. We want the kill." The connection is poor, crackling with interference. "Always wondered what a Silvermane would fetch on the black market. Her pelt alone is worth six figures. Add in the genetic material? We're looking at millions."
Ice floods my veins. "She's a child…"
"She's a werewolf. And you hired us to hunt werewolves. Can't complain when we do our job too well." Gunfire in the background. Shouting. "Looks like the party's starting early. Thanks for the excellent intel, by the way. Made targeting much easier."
The line dies.
I drive faster.
The forest road is dark, winding, dangerous at this speed. I don't care. Because somewhere ahead, hunters I hired are attacking my daughter with equipment I provided using strategies I developed.
And all of it is my fault.
The sound of gunfire echoes through the trees. UV lights flare in the distance, visible even through dense forest.
I'm too late.
The attack is already happening.
But maybe…maybe I can still help. Can still do something to protect Vivienne from the consequences of my seventeen-year crusade.
I abandon the car at a trailhead and run.
Silver blade in hand. Hunting equipment strapped to my body. Moving through woods I know by heart because I've surveilled them obsessively for months.
Heading toward the sounds of battle.
Toward my daughter.
Toward the only redemption I might have left.
Even if redemption means dying to protect the monster I tried so hard to prevent her from becoming.
Because she's not the monster.
I am.
And I always have been.