Chapter 29 Away from home
They drove for three hours straight with Adrian falling asleep against Elara's shoulder and Kai making phone calls to people he trusted, arranging safe houses and securing resources.
"Where are we going?" Elara asked when he finally put the phone down.
"A cabin about two hundred miles north," Kai said. "It belongs to a friend who owes me a favor, completely off-grid and hidden in the mountains."
"For how long?" Elara asked.
"As long as it takes," Kai said. "I've got lawyers working on building a case against my father, and investigators gathering more evidence about his connection to Mandivus."
"And when Mandivus realizes we're gone?" Elara asked.
"Then he'll have to find us first," Kai said. "And these mountains are thousands of square miles with no cell service and no roads, he won't track us easily."
The guard driving them pulled into a gas station and Kai got out to fill the tank while Elara stayed in the back with Adrian.
Her phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number;
"Running won't save you. I always find what's mine."
\-unknown
Elara deleted it but her hands shook because she suspects Mandivus was already hunting them.
Kai returned with snacks and water bottles, passing them back before they continued driving.
"You never answered my question," he said after another hour of silence. "Who you really are."
Elara looked down at Adrian sleeping peacefully. "If I tell you, you'll hate me."
"I've hated myself for two years," Kai said. "Nothing you say could be worse than that."
"You might be surprised," Elara said quietly.
"Try me," Kai said.
Elara took a deep breath and felt the weight of two years of secrets pressing against her chest.
"My real name is Elara Whitmore," she said.
The truck swerved slightly and the guard cursed before correcting course.
"What did you say?" Kai asked, his voice barely a whisper.
"Elara Whitmore," she repeated. "The omega you rejected two years ago, the one you exiled while pregnant with your son."
Complete silence filled the truck and Elara couldn't look at him, she just kept her eyes on Adrian's sleeping face.
"That's impossible," Kai said finally. "Elara had brown hair and amber eyes and a completely different face, even the accent."
"Theatrical makeup, fake accent colored contacts, hair dye," Elara said now talking with her real accent. "I spent two years learning how to disappear."
"The timeline matches," the guard driving said quietly. "Adrian's age, the pregnancy complications, the borderlands connection."
"Shut up," Kai snapped at him before turning to Elara. "Prove it."
Elara pulled out her phone and opened a photo album she'd kept hidden, showing him pictures of herself before the disguise—the real Elara Whitmore with brown hair and amber eyes standing in her old apartment.
Kai took the phone with shaking hands and scrolled through the images.
"Why?" he asked, his voice breaking. "Why come back after everything I did to you?"
"For Adrian," Elara said. "He's the legitimate Silvercrest heir and I wanted him to have what's rightfully his."
"So you came back for revenge," Kai said.
"I came back for justice," Elara corrected. "There's a difference."
"Is there?" Kai asked. "You've been lying to me for weeks, gathering evidence against me, planning to destroy my life."
"The way you destroyed mine," Elara said.
Kai looked at Adrian sleeping between them. "He's really my son."
"Yes," Elara said. "The son you deliberately conceived and then denied, the one your father wants dead to protect the bloodline."
"I didn't know," Kai said. "About my father's plans, about Mandivus, about any of it."
"You knew you rejected me at our mating ceremony," Elara said. "You knew you disguised yourself and got me pregnant without my knowledge or consent, you knew you falsified evidence to have me exiled."
"I know," Kai said and his voice was hollow. "I know what I did and I've been trying to fix it ever since."
"You can't fix it," Elara said. "You can only try to do better."
"How?" Kai asked. "How do I make up for destroying your life?"
"By protecting our son," Elara said. "By making sure he grows up safe and happy and never has to run the way I did."
Kai reached out slowly and touched Adrian's hair with gentle fingers. "I'm sorry, for everything I did to you, everything I put you through, I'm so sorry."
"Sorry doesn't bring back the two years I lost," Elara said. "Sorry doesn't erase Sarah and Marcus dying because of choices you made."
"I know," Kai said. "But it's all I have."
They drove in heavy silence until the guard pulled off the main highway onto a dirt road that wound up into forested mountains.
"Cell service cuts out in about five miles," the guard said. "After that we're completely dark."
"Good," Kai said. "Because the darker the better."
The cabin appeared after another thirty minutes of rough driving, a small structure built into the mountainside with solar panels on the roof and a stream running nearby.
"It's not much but it's safe," the guard said.
They unloaded supplies and Elara carried Adrian inside, finding a space that was basic but clean with two bedrooms and a main living area.
"I'll take the couch," Kai said. "You and Adrian take the bedroom."
"Where's the guard sleeping?" Elara asked.
"I'm not," the guard said. "I'm heading back to Crescent Falls to monitor the situation and report back when I can."
"How will you contact us?" Elara asked.
"Satellite phone," he said and handed Kai a ruggedized device. "Only use it for emergencies, your father has resources to track sat phone signals if he really wants to."
The guard left and Elara was alone with Kai and Adrian in the middle of nowhere.