Chapter 23 Are There Others?

Chapter 23 Are There Others?
Sierra

The servants are allowed one call a week.

It’s a mercy, they say. A kindness. Proof that the Draven estate isn’t the prison it so often feels like. The rule is enforced gently but firmly—names written on a slate, time measured by a clock mounted high on the wall, calls placed in a narrow room off the servants’ corridor where the stone muffles sound, and the windows are set too high to look out of.

I’ve avoided it until now.

Not because I don’t miss my family. Not because I don’t ache for the sound of my father’s voice, steady and familiar. I’ve avoided it because I know—deep down—that once I speak to him, I won’t be able to pretend anymore. I won’t be able to keep the questions folded neatly inside my chest.

But the documents I found won’t let me rest.

They sit in my mind like stones, heavy and cold. Dates. Names. Records written in careful script, preserved by the very pack that destroyed mine. Evidence that the fall of the Larks wasn’t sudden, it wasn’t accidental, and it wasn’t fate.

It was a hunt.

So when my name is called, I rise before I can change my mind.

The room smells faintly of mildew and furniture polish. A single chair faces the desk where the phone rests, black and solid, its cord coiled neatly beside it. I sit, my hands folded too tightly in my lap, and wait as the servant on duty dials the number I know by heart.

It rings twice.

“Sierra?” My father’s voice comes through the line, warm and strained all at once. “Are you all right?”

The question almost breaks me. Almost.

“I need you to tell me the truth,” I say instead, my voice steadier than I feel. “About the Dravens. About what happened to our pack.”

There’s a pause on the other end. Not long—but long enough.

“I was hoping,” he says carefully, “that you wouldn’t continue to carry this.”

“I found records–in the estate. They weren’t even hiding them.”

Another silence. This one heavier.

“They hunted us,” I say, the words burning as they leave my mouth. “For years. You knew.”

“Yes.” His voice is quiet now. “We knew.”

Anger flares sharp and sudden, cutting through weeks of confusion and fear. “Then how could you send me here? How could you send me into their house and tell me it was for my own good?”

“I sent you there because I couldn’t protect you anymore,” he says, and the raw honesty in his tone steals my breath. “Because every path I saw ended with blood. Yours. Your mother’s. The Remnants of our pack scattered or dead.”

“You still had a choice,” I say. “You always told me that pride matters. That we never bow.”

“I chose survival,” he says simply. “And it has cost me my pride every day since.”

I press my fingers to my temple, trying to hold myself together. “They didn’t just attack us once, did they?”

“No.” He exhales slowly. “They chipped away at us. They pressured our allies to betray us, alienating us. They made examples of those who wouldn’t fall in line. We ran when we could, hid if we couldn’t run. But wolves like the Dravens don’t stop until what they fear is gone.”

“And they feared us,” I whisper.

“They feared what we represented,” he corrects gently. “Unity. Bloodlines that weren’t obsessed with purity. An Alpha who believed strength came from loyalty, not domination.”

Tears sting my eyes, but I blink them back. “You still haven’t told me everything.”

I hear it in his breathing. The way he hesitates, searching for the right words—or deciding which truths to keep buried.

“There are things,” he says finally, “that knowing would only endanger you more.”

“Endanger me more than living among the people who destroyed us?” My voice cracks despite my effort. “More than wondering if every kindness is a lie?”

“I wanted you alive,” he says. “Even if it meant you hated me for it.”

I swallow hard. “You sent me here as payment.”

“Yes.”

The word lands between us, heavy and unavoidable.

“I bargained for time,” he explains. “For the safety of what remained of our people. For you. I believed—still believe—that as long as you draw breath, the Larks are not gone.”

I lean back in the chair, staring at the ceiling. The truth doesn’t bring clarity the way I hoped it would. It only opens more fractures.

“Are there others?” I ask quietly. “From our pack. Survivors.”

Another pause. Shorter this time.

“Yes.”

My heart stutters. “Where?”

“I can’t say.”

“Why?”

“Because if I know, and you know, then the Dravens may know, too.” His voice softens. “Some knowledge is safer unshared.”

I think of Kaelen, of the way he looks at me like he’s torn between instinct and obligation. I think of the documents bearing his family’s crest.

“Do they know who I am?” I ask.

“They know your bloodline,” he admits. “They always have.”

I close my eyes. That explains too much.

The call ends not with closure, but with a quiet understanding that some truths are still being withheld. My father tells me that he loves me. I tell him that I’m surviving. Neither of us says the word forgive.

When the line goes dead, I remain seated for a long moment, the phone still warm against my palm.

The Dravens hunted my pack, and then my parents sent me here to save me.

I rise slowly and leave the room, my steps measured, my thoughts sharper.

What frightens me isn’t just what I’ve learned but what I don’t yet know.