FORTY NINE

FORTY NINE
DARRAGH'S POV

The road blurred in front of me. My hands gripped the steering wheel a little too tight, knuckles pale. I should've been thinking about how warm Ciara's kiss had felt. The way she looked at me right before she stepped out of the car. But all I could think about was the lie.

I had told her she was the one who died. That her daughter... Erin... wasn't part of that bloodbath.

But it wasn’t true.

In my first life, Erin O'Donoghue was just as much a casualty. No one really knew what happened. They called it suicide. An accident. Ronan had shrugged. Brigid hadn’t shed a tear. And Ewan... the melancholy brother had the audacity to say maybe it was for the best because a daughter couldn't do without its mother.

My throat tightened. The wheel in my hands blurred for a second. I blinked hard and pulled the car over to the side of the road. My foot hit the brake too fast, and the car lurched before coming to a halt.

I leaned forward, resting my forehead against the wheel. Inhale. Exhale. The slow rhythm of breath grounded me. I wasn’t back there. I wasn’t watching Ciara bleed out. I wasn’t listening to Erin scream until her throat gave out.

I was here. And this was different. It had to be.

My phone buzzed beside me. I didn’t look at the screen. Just reached out and picked it up.

"Yeah?" My voice came out gruff.

"Something just happened," Eamon said.

I straightened. His tone was too clipped, too sharp. "What?"

"There was an accident."

My chest tightened. "Who?"

He hesitated. "Sara's grandfather..."

That threw me. I sat there, waiting for the rest. When it didn’t come, I frowned. "My father’s already dead?"

"What?" Eamon sounded confused. "No. What are you even talking about? It's Gamma Killian."

"Killian?" The word came out flat. "He died?"

"Yeah. An accident. He didn't survive. The pack's in chaos. People are whispering already. You should be here."

None of this made sense. Not even a little.

"Yeah," I muttered. "I'll be there."

I hung up, tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. My mind was racing faster than my pulse.

That wasn't how it happened.

In my past life, Gamma Killian went to prison. Not dead. Not an accident. He was caught trying to stage a power play by poisoning father... Bastien.

So what the hell had changed?

I started the engine again, my hand trembling for the first few seconds before muscle memory took over. The car roared back to life and I pulled onto the road, speed ticking higher and higher.

The drive to Moonveil usually took longer. But today, I didn’t even feel the time pass. Just the miles disappearing beneath my wheels and a gut feeling that something was unraveling before I could catch it.

Sara’s grandfather. Dead.

That wasn’t a deviation. It was a fracture. Something major had happened. Something that rerouted the path we were all supposed to be on.

And I had a sinking feeling it had a criminal's fingerprints all over it.

The moment I reached the outskirts of Moonveil, I could feel it in my chest. The tension. The static in the air. It wasn’t just grief. It was panic. People trying to adjust to a future they didn’t plan for.

I parked outside the main pack house, engine still running for a few seconds before I killed it. Sentinels stood near the gates, their stances too alert. One of them spotted me and tilted his head, already reaching for his comm.

I stepped out and shut the door behind me, my boots crunching on gravel. No one spoke, but eyes followed me as I walked toward the main building.

My thoughts kept circling back to Ciara. Her smile. The worry in her eyes when she talked about visions. Especially of my new death.

Now that Killian was gone. It made sense that it could happen. We were threading in new waters and memories of old wouldn't be enough anymore.

I didn’t know what game the gods were playing. But this time, I refused to be a pawn. I needed answers.

And I had a feeling the first one I needed to talk to was my father.

Because if Killian didn’t just fall... then someone must have let it look that way.

Something was wrong. Not just in the way the air carried tension or how the sentinels patrolled like they were expecting a war, but in my gut. A twist, a pull. I waved down another nearby sentinel.

"Where is Gamma Killian's body?" I asked, my voice low.

The sentinel looked startled to see me but answered quickly. "He fell from Lady Saraphina's balcony, sir."

I stilled. My brain stalled over the name. "Sara?"

The sentinel nodded. "Yes, Alpha."

"Take me there. Now."

He didn’t hesitate. We cut across the courtyard, the earth still wet from last night’s storm. My boots sank into the grass, but I barely noticed. We turned the corner toward the east wing, and I saw the caution tape. The scent of blood should have clung to the ground. But there was nothing.

The body had already been moved by the healer regimen.

Sentinels walked around snapping pictures, documenting angles, marking measurements, but the ground beneath the balcony was clean. Too clean. That told me one thing: the fall happened before or during the rain. Which meant this wasn’t today’s news. It happened yesterday.

I looked up, following the line of the building, and saw them.

My mother.

My father.

Eamon.

And Sara.

She stood at the edge, eyes rimmed red, staring down like she couldn’t look away. Like guilt had her rooted in place.

I clenched my jaw and started toward the building. My thoughts raced. Did my father find out about the wolfsbane? Was this his solution? Killian had never lacked for enemies, but this... it felt wrong.

My father liked to play power games. He wouldn’t have chosen something as quiet as a balcony tumble.

But then again, nothing showed weakness like slow death from a poison you didn't realize was in your system until it was too late.

I reached the top floor and stepped onto the balcony. Sara spotted me first.

She ran forward, wrapped her arms around me, and let out a sob.

"Can you believe it?" she cried against my shoulder.

I didn’t return the hug. I couldn’t. My eyes were on Bastien, who watched us with unreadable calm.

"No," I said. "No, I can't believe it."

Sara's grip tightened. Eamon looked away awkwardly, like he didn’t want to be in the middle of this. Which he was. There was also that feeling that he didn't like how touchy Sara was with me.

Ciara's words came back to me: "She loves you. Not in a brotherly way."

I pulled away. "You shouldn't be here, Sara."

She stepped back, confused. "What do you expect me to do? Pretend like I'm not shocked?"

"He died falling from your balcony. That can't just be ignored."

She shook her head, tears still falling. "It doesn't make sense. I swear, Darragh. I don't know what happened."

I looked at my father, whose expression hadn’t changed.

"Don't pester the girl with your questions," Bastien said, his voice sharp. "It’s not like you were close to the old man."

My mother proceeded to hit his bicep with the back of her hand. "That was mean."

Bastien rolled his eyes. "Oh, come off it. You want to talk about mean? What about our son acting like he's the only one with grief to process when he wasn’t even here last night."

He moved to walk past me, but I turned to face him directly.

"A werewolf with regeneration like his doesn't just die from a fall. That doesn't bother you?"

Bastien paused. Then turned, slowly.

"What are you suggesting, my dear boy? That the old man with regeneration just as old as him couldn't have finally met his match against gravity?"

"He was old, yes. But he wasn’t frail. And you and I both know how long it takes for our kind to break from a fall that short."

"We are not immortal, Darragh. Did I mention he was old too??"

My mother stepped between us. "Enough. Both of you. This isn’t about your back-and-forth. This is about Sara."

I looked at her again. Sara. Her eyes were wide, glassy, full of fear. Not grief. Fear. I followed the trail of her arm to a small bandage peeking out from beneath her sleeve.

Wound.

Probably a defensive one too.

"Do you think it was an accident, Sara?" I asked quietly.

Her gaze flicked to Bastien. Quick. Almost imperceptible. Then she turned back to me and nodded.

"Of course," she said. "An accident."

I didn’t believe her. And she knew it. She looked terrified and looking at my father for a silent approval of what to say? Something was definitely up.

I looked back toward the hallway. "I think we should call a Delicate."

Everyone in the room went still.

Even Bastien blinked.

Delicates were a rare kind of supernatural—sensitive not to sound or scent, but to memory itself. With the brush of a hand against an object, a person, or even the ground, they could feel what had happened before. Not just see it, but live it. The pain, the joy, the violence, the secrets. Nothing stayed hidden for long when a Delicate was involved. They were truth’s last resort. The perfect investigators.

"You want to bring in an investigator for this?" he asked, voice sharp with warning.

"Yes," I said, letting the word hang in the air.

Because I didn’t believe in accidents.

Not in this timeline.