Chapter 82 THE TRUTH IN BLOOD
Ginnie
For one long, suspended heartbeat, the world narrows to the sound of Ginnie’s ragged breathing and the frantic thud of my own pulse in my ears.
What the actual fuck did she just say right now?
Lily?
The little girl with dark curls and big, uncertain eyes who hugged my leg and thanked me for saving her mother.
The child who looks nothing like me—and everything like me in the shape of her stubborn little jaw, the way her brows furrow when she’s thinking, the gold flecks I sometimes catch in her eyes when the light hits just right.
My daughter?
Shock slams through me so hard my vision whites out at the edges. Six years. Six fucking years she carried this secret alone. While I pretended the emptiness in my chest was just the price of being Alpha.
I want to ask Ginnie so many questions about why she kept this hidden from me, I want to drag her closer and never let her go.
But there’s no time.
Ginnie is still shaking—wild, her small fists pounding weakly against my chest like she’s trying to push me away and pull me closer at the same time.
“No—no—no—” she gasps. “I have to…I have to—”
She twists in my grip, reaching blindly for the fallen dagger. I react on instinct and spin us instantly, pinning her beneath me on the bed in one fluid motion. My hands clamp around her wrists, forcing them above her head, not hard enough to bruise.
“Stop,” I growl. “Look at me. I said look at me, Ginnie!”
Her eyes are wild—pupils blown with terror and grief. Tears stream sideways into her hair.
“I can’t,” she sobs. “She’ll kill her. She’ll kill Lily if I don’t—”
“Who?” My voice is lethal and calm. “Who has her?”
“Kenna.” The name comes out like poison. “Kenna took Lily! She said if I don’t kill you…tonight…and confess to the pack that I did it… She’ll send me Lily’s head.”
Rage ignites in my veins like wildfire.
Kenna.
That fucking bitch!
I should have smelled the rot on her years ago. But before I can open my mouth to speak, Ginnie thrashes again—desperate.
I lean down until our foreheads touch. “Breathe,” I whisper, “Breathe with me. In. Out. You are not killing me tonight, and no one is touching our daughter, do you hear me?”
She shudders underneath my weight, then the fight drains out of her like water through cracked stone. I release her wrists slowly, she doesn’t move. Just lying there beneath me, her chest is rising and falling heavily now.
“Tell me everything, from the beginning. I don't want any more lies, Ginnie. No more secrets between us.”
Her lips tremble.
I wait.
Minutes pass.
Then, in a voice so small it nearly breaks me, she starts.
“Six years ago… the night at the club when you requested to be with me in the VIP chambers. That night when you fucked me like I was nothing, you rejected me as your mate right there on that filthy couch…it was weeks later I discovered I was pregnant with your child.”
My stomach turns to stone.
I remember that night.
I remember the shame that came after.
I remember telling myself it was better that way.
“I had to keep it hidden,” she continues. “If anyone found out—that the Alpha’s rejected human mate was carrying his heir… they would have killed her.”
“Halflings are nothing but abominations in Bleeding Rose and you know it. They would have ripped her from my arms and drowned her in the river before her first cry.”
Her voice cracks.
“I hid Lily all these years while working every dirty job I could find. I kept her secret. I told her her father was dead, that it was better that way. That if you ever found out, you’d take her, raise her as a weapon, and turn her into another version of you.”
“And then?” I ask hoarsely.
“Tonight… Kenna cornered me in the staff quarters she knew about Lily. I don’t even know how the hell she found out, but she gave me until the end of the night to bring her the Alpha’s seal. She said if I didn’t, Lily would die.”
Her breath hitches.
“I couldn’t think. So I… I came to you. I seduced you. I rode you until you were spent, until you trusted me enough to fall asleep. Then I took the key from your trousers. I went to your study, and I stole the seal and gave it to her.”
Her voice drops to a whisper.
“She said it wasn’t enough, I was going to kill you and confess to the entire pack for doing it…or Lily dies anyway.”
For a tiny second, silence crashes down between us. I can feel my wolf clawing beneath my skin—furious, protective, murderous.
Kenna has my daughter.
Kenna has fuckin daughter?
I’m going to rip that bitch’s heart out!
I roll off Ginnie and sit up, dragging her with me so she’s cradled against my chest again, she’s shaking so hard her teeth chatter.
I press my lips to her temple.
“I’m going to get her back,” The words are like a vow as they roll off my tongue. “I’m going to tear this city apart brick by brick until Lily is safe in your arms. And then I’m going to make Kenna beg for the mercy she’ll never receive.”
Ginnie lifts her head.
Her eyes are red-rimmed, swollen.
“You’re not angry?” she whispers. “That I lied to you all these years?That I stole from you? That I almost—”
“I’m furious,” I admit. “At Kenna. At myself, at every single person who ever made you feel like you had to carry this alone. But I promise it won’t happen again.”
I cup her face.
“You protected our daughter when I wasn’t there to do it. You kept her alive and safe. You did what any mother would do.”
“I love you,” she breathes. “I love you so much it hurts.”
Before she can say much more, I press my lips against hers—slow, deep, claiming. When I finally pull back, my voice comes out darker.
“We end this tonight.”
I stand, pulling her up with me.
“Get dressed,” I tell her. “We’re going to get our daughter back. And when we do… Kenna will learn the hard way what happens when you mess with what belongs to me.”