Chapter 30 Who Is That Baby?
Austin stepped out with a towel draped loosely around his hips, letting droplets of water trail down his hard abdominal muscles. He ran his hand through his wet hair, gazing at Seara, who sat frozen on the edge of the bed.
The girl looked as if she’d seen a ghost, her eyes fixed on Austin’s phone lying on the nightstand.
“Austin,” Seara’s voice trembled slightly. “You’ve got a new message notification on your phone.”
Austin merely glanced at the flat device without interest. “Ignore it. It’s probably just Alex reporting another broken fence caused by some rogue.”
“It’s not Alex. It’s from an unknown number,” Seara continued, trying to steady her breathing. “There’s a photo. An old photo.”
Austin moved closer, but instead of picking up the phone, he knelt between Seara’s legs. He took her hand and gently kissed the palm of her hand.
“The world could explode right now and I wouldn’t care, Seara. I just almost lost you because of a silly misunderstanding.”
Without looking at the screen, Austin held down the power button long enough for the phone to shut off completely. He placed it face down on the table.
“Austin, but that looked important,” Seara protested weakly, though her heart was already racing from his closeness.
“What’s important is right in front of me now,” Austin whispered. His voice was low, hoarse, and full of a magnetism that melted Seara’s defenses.
Austin pulled Seara into his embrace, letting the masculine scent of his freshly showered body envelop her senses.
Austin’s large hands began tracing the curve of Seara’s back, slowly unzipping her dress.
Seara no longer resisted. Her fears about the past and the vision of the Wolfe family seemed to evaporate, overwhelmed by the desire channeled through their permanent bond.
Austin effortlessly lifted Seara onto the bed, positioning himself on top of her without leaving her any room to breathe.
His kisses were no longer gentle like before; this time they felt hungry and demanding, as if he were reclaiming what had nearly slipped from his grasp.
Seara responded with equal intensity, her fingers clenching Austin’s sturdy shoulders, pulling him deeper into her own passion.
Every touch from Austin felt like an electric current burning the surface of Seara’s skin. The air in the room felt increasingly thin, replaced by the sound of ragged breathing and stifled moans.
Under the dim glow of the bedside lamp, Austin proved his words—that his desire to claim Seara could not wait. They were submerged in an ocean of intense sensations, where only the two of them existed.
Alpha and Luna, united in an inseparable bond of mind and body.
The clock on the wall read three in the morning when Austin suddenly woke up. The room was silent, with only the sound of Seara’s steady breathing beside him.
The image Seara had mentioned earlier suddenly resurfaced in his mind like a nagging thorn.
With an extremely slow motion, Austin reached for his phone and turned it on. The bright screen made him squint for a moment. As soon as the connection came through, he immediately opened the message from that mysterious number.
Austin’s body tensed.
On his phone screen, he saw a much younger version of himself, perhaps only five years old standing tall in front of an old iron gate that he recognized as the Wolfe family’s former residence before the coup.
Beside him, a beautiful woman smiled gently at the camera. She wasn’t his mother. She was holding a baby wrapped in silver velvet.
“Who is this woman?” Austin murmured, almost inaudibly.
He felt something being forcibly pulled from the depths of his locked-away memory. He immediately took a screenshot and sent the image to Alex.
Alex, find out the identity of the woman next to me. Keep this a secret from everyone. Even from the council. NOW!
Alex hadn’t replied yet; his status was still on night patrol at the outer border.
Austin turned off the screen and turned to look at Seara. Her hair was spread across the pillow; she looked so peaceful.
Austin felt an overwhelming wave of protectiveness. If the baby in the photo really was Seara, then their connection had begun long before they met in the forest.
“Austin?” Seara blinked, waking up because she sensed Austin’s anxiety through their bond. “Why are you awake? It’s still too early.”
Austin quickly tucked his phone under the pillow and pulled Seara into his embrace. “My nose was itchy, so I woke up. Go back to sleep, sweetheart.”
Seara mumbled something indistinct and drifted back to sleep against Austin’s chest. But Austin couldn’t close his eyes again. His thoughts raced wildly among the facts that were beginning to interconnect.
Until finally, those thoughts were overcome by sleep.
That morning, the atmosphere in the main dining hall of the pack house felt formal. The long table was filled with high-ranking Lycanisius officials, including Elder Stroud and Alex, who had just returned from patrol with tired faces.
Seara sat next to Austin, feeling slightly uncomfortable under the stares directed at her. Due to the intense hunger after a long night, she piled her plate high with a generous portion of bread, eggs, and sausage.
Delcy, sitting across from them in a striking purple silk gown, let out a small snort. “Goodness, I didn’t know our new Luna etiquette standards included eating like a wolf that hasn’t seen food in a decade.”
Seara continued chewing her bread calmly. She merely glanced at Delcy briefly before refocusing on her plate. In her eyes, Delcy was nothing more than a chatty parakeet who only knew how to primp.
“Maybe out in the forest they weren’t taught how to hold a fork properly,” Delcy sneered again, this time louder so Elder Stroud could hear.
“Delcy, shut your mouth and eat,” Austin scolded without turning around, his voice cold and sharp.
Annoyed at being ignored, Delcy pretended to reach for the coffee pot in the middle of the table. With a deliberately clumsy movement, she knocked over the hot coffee cup near Seara, spilling its contents onto the satin pajamas Seara was wearing.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. My hands are so slippery this morning,” Delcy said in a very fake tone.
Seara flinched as the hot liquid hit her skin. But before she could react, Austin was already on his feet. He grabbed a napkin and quickly wiped the spill off Seara’s thigh, his face flushed with anger.
“Are you okay?” Austin asked anxiously, ignoring everyone else in the room.
“Just a little hot, Alpha. I’m fine,” Seara replied calmly.
Austin turned to glare at Delcy. His Alpha aura erupted, causing the vase of flowers in the center of the table to tremble slightly. “Get out of here, Delcy!”
“Alpha Austin, I didn’t mean to,” Delcy said fearfully.
"I don’t like repeating myself. Get out, or I’ll fire you from your teaching position at the academy and banish you to the borderlands today," Austin hissed with emphasis.
Delcy turned pale. She saw no defense, not even from Elder Stroud. With a face holding back tears, she stood up and ran out of the dining hall without a single word.
“Thank you,” Seara whispered to Austin. Austin simply squeezed her hand under the table in response.
“Ahem.” Elder Stroud cleared his throat, trying to reclaim his authority. “Alpha, regardless of the drama just now, there’s something more important. Regarding Seara’s background. We can’t allow Luna’s coronation to proceed without clarity on her family lineage. Who exactly are your parents, Seara? Which pack are you from?”
Seara fell silent. That question was a black hole in her memory. Austin could sense his wife’s anxiety. He set his fork down with a loud clang on the porcelain plate.
“Elder Stroud,” Austin called out in a defiant tone. “Why are you so obsessed with her past? Do you want me to ask you the same thing? About what you were doing when the Wolfe family coup took place twenty years ago?”
Stroud’s face stiffened. “I was merely carrying out the council’s orders, Alpha.”
“The council’s orders or fear?” Austin narrowed his eyes. “Don’t press her any further. If you have questions, direct them at me. I’m the one who brought him here, so I’m responsible for every drop of blood that flows through his body.”
Stroud seemed to swallow hard. He bowed his head slightly, though the glint in his eyes betrayed his insincerity. “Forgive me, Alpha Austin. I didn’t mean to offend.”
After finishing breakfast, Austin walked toward the back porch with Seara. The phone in his pants pocket vibrated. He saw a notification from Alex.
\[Alpha, I found something. That photo wasn’t taken in our territory. It’s an old gate on the northern border that’s been destroyed. And that baby...\]
Austin was eager to read the rest. However, just as he was about to open the full message, his hand—still slightly damp from spilling his drink earlier—made the phone slippery. It fell, slamming onto the marble floor with the screen facing down.
Austin quickly picked it up, but the screen was already shattered into a thousand pieces and completely black. He tried pressing the power button repeatedly, but there was not a single sign of life.
“Damn it!” Austin muttered under his breath.
Seara approached, staring at the broken phone. “What’s wrong?”
Austin looked at Seara, then back at his dead phone. The answer to Seara’s identity had been right at his fingertips, but now it was swallowed up once again by technology that had failed at the worst possible moment.