Chapter 174 174
Dominique POV
“You haven’t even started yet,” Delphine groans beside me. Her colouring page is almost completely filled in bright, neat, finished. Mine is still blank.
I stare at it anyway, the white space feeling heavier than it should. I don’t want to colour. It feels pointless. My hands won’t move.
“Everything okay, Dominique?” Miss Lambert asks, lifting her eyes from her book.
“Yes,” I say quickly, though it’s not quite true. “I might go to my room for a bit.”
I just want to be alone.
“Alright,” she smiles gently. “I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.” She slips my unfinished picture away, like it’s something to be saved for later.
As I head upstairs, Alpha Maurice opens Mum’s office door. Inside, I catch a glimpse of Mum seated at her desk, deep in conversation with Uncle Fabrice, Damien, and Lucas. The door closes again, solid and final.
I spin around instantly and creep back down the stairs, my heart pounding.
Mum thinks her office is soundproof and it mostly is. Except for one thing.
The air vent.
It connects directly to the small cloak closet down the hall. No one ever uses it for more than a few seconds. It’s just coats and umbrellas. No reason to linger.
Except I have.
Once, when I was throwing stones and accidentally cracked Mum’s car window, I hid in there. She was furious. I didn’t come out until I was sure she’d cooled down.
I ease the door shut behind me now, pushing past the coats and crouching down by the skirting board, right beneath the vent.
“Wonderful news,” Alpha Maurice says, his voice light, amused. “I think we could all use some happy news right now. What do you say, Damien when are you marking Aurélie?”
My breath catches.
Marking?
Does that mean… mates?
Excitement bursts through me so suddenly it makes my chest ache, like when I’m playing hide-and-seek and I think I’ve won. My heart races, loud in my ears. I force myself to breathe quietly. I can’t miss anything.
“You really can’t help yourself, can you?” Damien mutters with a sharp tut.
“What?” Maurice replies innocently.
“We have a lot to sort out first,” Mum says firmly. “Two packs. Two alliances. And we need to tell Dominique and Delphine first. They deserve to know the truth.”
My name.
Truth?
Something stirs deep inside my chest my wolf shifting, rumbling uneasily. That strange feeling returns, the one I keep getting lately. Like I already know something but can’t reach it. Like my thoughts are trapped behind heavy curtains.
My wolf knows.
He’s hiding it from me.
“Are you sure about this?” Damien asks, his voice closer now, chairs scraping against the floor.
They’re standing. Leaving.
I panic.
I scramble out of the closet and manage to slip halfway up the stairs, turning just in time to make it look like I’m walking down when the office door opens.
“Dominique, darling can we have a chat?” Mum calls out.
Then, “Delphine?”
“I’m here, Mummy!” Delphine comes flying out of the kitchen, bunny clutched under her arm.
“We need to talk, sweetheart. Shall we sit in the front room?”
“Okay!” she chirps, skipping ahead without a care in the world.
I used to be like that.
Once we’re seated, Mum positions herself deliberately between Delphine and me, taking Delphine’s hand. Uncle Fabrice and Damien sit opposite us, stiff and tense.
This is it.
This must be the truth she meant.
Aurélie POV
This was ridiculous. I was nervous far too nervous.
My heart won’t settle as I look at them, sitting there so unsuspecting. Would they be angry? Hurt? Would they hate that I hadn’t told them sooner?
Their lives are about to change. Completely.
Not only will they learn that Fabrice is marking Florence and moving out but they’ll also discover that Damien is their father.
How do you even begin a conversation like that?
Start small.
The smallest bombshell first.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” I begin carefully, “but Fabrice and Florence have been spending a lot of time together. They’re mates. And when mates choose to be together, they mark one another.”
“Daddy and Florence are mates?” Delphine blurts out immediately. “What about you?”
I wince.
“Well… you know Daddy and I aren’t mates,” I say gently. “That he’s really Uncle Fabrice…”
The conversation is already slipping away from me.
“So Florence will live here permanently?” Dominique asks, shifting in his seat and turning fully toward me.
“Well, Fabrice is the Darkvale Beta,” I explain. “When he marks Florence, she’ll become the female Beta. Traditionally, the Beta family has their own house”
“Beta family?” Delphine interrupts, her grip tightening on her bunny. “Will you have new babies? Will you forget about me, Daddy?”
Her bottom lip trembles. My chest tightens painfully.
I could cry.
This isn’t how I wanted this to go. How do you explain something so complicated without breaking their hearts?
“Never, princess,” Fabrice says immediately, his voice thick. “You’ll always be my baby girl. I’ll still see you every day. I’d just sleep at my own house at night. And you’d have a room there too… if you wanted.”
I glance at him. His eyes are just as watery as mine. Delphine has always had him wrapped around her finger, and I know that bond won’t ever change.
“So then,” Dominique says quietly, his gaze flicking briefly to Damien, “it’ll just be the three of us?”
Damn.
It’s a fair question.
And I have no idea how to answer it.