Chapter 32 32

Chapter 32 32
 Her hand felt delicate, almost fragile against my coarse black fur. I stayed perfectly still, breathing in her scent—strawberries, rain, and that faint, underlying smell of the kids inside that I was only just beginning to truly recognize.

“I may not know you, and I may never... but thank you for keeping me company,” she said, her voice dropping to a vulnerable whisper that tore at my soul. “I often feel very lonely, even though I take care of two children whom I love more than anything in this world.”

She went silent for a long time, the only sound the rustle of the wind in the trees and the distant, haunting hoot of an owl.

“...Unfortunately, they are pureblood wolves,” she finally continued, her voice trembling with a terror she couldn't hide. “And they are growing up very quickly. Too quickly. Soon they will be young adults, and the instinct will be too strong. They will have to go and present themselves to my old pack... to the Alpha who threw me away.”

I froze. The meat in my stomach felt like lead, heavy and cold.

Purebloods? The word echoed in my mind like a death knell. If Dante and Bruno were purebloods, that meant their lineage was royal. It meant they weren't just random rogue pups. It meant they were mine. My sons. My heirs. My blood.

A sudden, sharp snap of a branch echoed from the darkness of the woods. My ears swiveled instantly toward the tree line. My body went rigid, the fur along my spine standing on end.

“What is it?” Lyra whispered, her hand tightening in my fur. “Did you hear something?”

I didn't answer. I couldn't. But my wolf was already pushing for control. I sensed it—the faint, metallic scent of Wyatt’s scouts. They were lurking, prowling the perimeter of the neutral zone like vultures. They were looking for weaknesses, looking for her.

“Get her inside,” my wolf snarled in my mind. “If they see us together, if they smell the kids... it’s over.”

I stood up abruptly, nudging her toward the porch. I gave a low, urgent bark, my eyes fixed on the shadows.

“You’re scared?” Lyra asked, her own eyes widening with fear. “Is it a rogue? Or is it... them?”

She looked toward the town, toward where Wyatt and the other Alphas were staying. I pushed her again, more firmly this time, my muzzle pressing against her hip to move her toward the safety of the wooden door.

“Okay, okay! I’m going,” she said, her voice shaking. “Will you stay? Will you protect us?”

I gave a single, solemn nod. I would stay until the sun burned out if it meant she was safe.

Panic flared in my chest as I watched her retreat toward the door. If those children returned to the pack without her protection, or if the Council—or worse, Wyatt—discovered that two pureblood heirs were living as rogues in a border village, they would be hunted like prey. 

They would be used as political pawns, married off for alliances, or simply eliminated to prevent any challenge to the throne. They were in grave danger every second they stayed here.

Every word she spoke was like a sharp, poisoned dagger piercing my chest, twisting with every breath I took. I sat there, motionless, feeling the crushing weight of her loneliness and the looming shadow of the danger I had brought to her door.

I had been the one who failed her. I was the reason she felt like a "puppy." I was the reason my sons were living in the dirt while vipers like Wyatt circled them.

“You idiot, this is all your fault!” my wolf growled sharply, his voice a jagged blade of lightning in the dark theater of my mind. 

He was pacing, claws unsheathed, stirring inside me with an agony that physically took my breath away. “Look at her! Look at what we did! We broke our mate, and now our pups are in the crosshairs! This is on us, Silas! All of it! Every tear she shed, every night she froze—that’s your legacy!”

He was right. Every word my wolf snarled, and every word she had whispered into the cool night air, felt like a jagged stone being added to the foundation of my guilt. I was the Alpha—the man who was supposed to be her shield—yet I was the one responsible for that haunting glimmer of sadness in her eyes.

I had made her an outcast in the very world she should have ruled by my side, draped in my furs and protected by my name.

My wolf paced in the cage of my ribs, his fur bristling against my conscience. I wanted to throw back my head and howl until the moon itself cracked under the weight of my remorse. 

I wanted to shift, to feel the brutal snap of bone and the stretch of skin as I returned to human form, just so I could fall at her feet. I wanted to press my face into the dirt and beg for a forgiveness I knew I didn't deserve.

But I remained a beast. A silent, black shadow rooted in her garden, trapped in the silence of my own cowardice.

Seeing that I didn't move—that I stayed as still as a stone sentinel in the grass—Lyra gave me a smile. It was sweet, but so deeply melancholy that it made my heart ache. It was the kind of smile that never reached the eyes, a mask born from too many years of surviving the winter alone.

Without another word, she reached out. Her fingers stroked my back one last time. It was a gentle, fleeting touch, but to my wolf, it was a brand of white-hot fire against my fur. I shivered under her hand, my soul vibrating with the simple, devastating proximity of her.

“It's getting late, little wolf. You'd better go back to the forest,” she hinted, her voice dropping to a protective, melodic hush. “If you're not a rogue, the visiting Alphas might hurt you. They’re cruel, those men. They don't see the beauty in things they can't control... and I don't want anything bad to happen to you. Not you.”

She stared at me for a heartbeat longer, her eyes searching mine as if she were looking for a sign, a ghost of something familiar. For a second, my breath hitched.