Chapter 213 Shut the Door
The days that followed dragged by in a heavy, suffocating blur.
On the surface, the Blackwood pack was healing. The physical scars of the bunker explosion were scabbing over, Magda’s betrayal was fading into the background of daily pack life, and the medical wing had finally discharged Elana, Leela, and Ginny back into the warm, chaotic embrace of the main packhouse.
But beneath the surface, a toxic rot was silently festering.
Fennigan and Jax were drowning in it. They carried the weight of the Weaver’s decrypted files like anvils chained to their chests, and the burden of the silence was beginning to tear them apart.
They still hadn't told their mother.
Every time Fennigan looked at Elana—watching her fiercely adapt to her wheelchair, watching her smile and direct the pack warriors with her unbroken, authoritative spirit—the words physically died in his throat. How could he possibly look the proud former Luna in the eye and tell her that her entire thirty-year marriage was a calculated, biological transaction?
The Weaver’s files had laid the agonizing truth bare. Damon hadn't loved Elana. He hadn't even wanted a family. He had chosen her, mated her, and bred with her for one singular, psychopathic reason: her bloodline. Damon had known that Elana carried a deeply buried, dormant spark of elemental magic. He had coldly calculated that forcing her to bear his children would finally coax that dormant magic to the surface, providing him with a living, breathing elemental test subject.
But Elana’s womb had defied him. She had given birth to Fennigan, and then Jax—two impossibly strong, massive, but entirely pure-blooded werewolf warriors. Not a single spark of magic between them.
So, Damon had simply kept their genetic material and built a slaughterhouse under the mountain to do it himself.
Neither brother had breathed a single word of the execution photos to their wives, either. The silence was building a thick, invisible wall of glass right through the center of their pack nest. Jax couldn't look Ginny in the eye when she asked him what the Weaver had found, deflecting her questions with vague murmurs about "financial ledgers" before quickly leaving the room.
But for Fennigan, the lie of omission was eating him alive.
Late at night, while Leela slept peacefully beside him with her hand resting over unborn Zephyr, Fennigan would lie flat on his back, staring blankly at the dark ceiling. The mate bond, usually a source of absolute comfort and shared strength, felt like a live wire of guilt.
Leela knew he was hunting the High Council’s money. She knew he was stressed. But she had absolutely no idea about the true horrors he had witnessed down in his father's lab.
He hadn't told her about the rows of suspension tanks. He hadn't told her about the milky, soulless white eyes. And he hadn't told her that Damon had grown exact, genetic replicas of Caspian and Briar just to practice carving them up.
Fennigan was terrified that if he spoke the words aloud, if he described the grotesque, floating shells of their beautiful toddlers, the sheer horror of it would permanently break the fragile peace Leela had just managed to reclaim. So, the Alpha swallowed the poison, choosing to let it rot his own mind so hers could stay clean.
Elana Blackwood hadn't survived three decades as the Luna of the Blackwood pack by being oblivious. Her instincts were honed to a razor's edge, and she knew her massive, battle-hardened sons better than they knew themselves. For days, she had watched Fennigan and Jax walk through the packhouse with their shoulders tight and their eyes shadowed, carrying a heavy, festering silence that practically reeked of a buried secret.
She wasn't going to let it rot their family from the inside out. She summoned them to her private office.
When Fennigan and Jax walked through the doorway, they didn't find a broken, defeated woman. The sleek wheelchair she sat in didn't cause her a single ounce of struggle, nor did it diminish her commanding, authoritative presence. In fact, Elana looked stronger and more radiant than she had since the night of the bunker explosion.
She had quietly enlisted one of the pack’s lead warrior trainers to act as her physical therapist, pushing herself through grueling daily exercises to build her upper body strength and maintain her core stability. Her color was high, her posture was rigidly perfect behind her massive mahogany desk, and her silver eyes were sharp, clear, and completely uncompromising.
Fennigan hesitated, his Alpha energy faltering under the heavy, scrutinizing weight of his mother's gaze. Jax stopped right beside his brother, shifting his weight uncomfortably. Two of the most lethal werewolves on the mountain suddenly looked like guilty pups.
Elana didn't offer a warm, maternal greeting. She simply raised her hand, her silver rings flashing in the light, and gave a sharp, dismissive wave toward the hallway behind them.
Shut the door.
Fennigan reached back, pulling the heavy oak door until the brass latch clicked securely into place, sealing them inside the soundproof office.
Elana folded her hands neatly on top of the desk. She didn't blink. She looked her two towering sons dead in the face, her tone stripping away all their protective walls and leaving absolutely no room for evasion or lies.
"Now," Elana commanded, the absolute authority of the former Luna cracking like a whip in the quiet room. "Out with it."
Fennigan cleared his throat, the sound rough and completely unnatural in the quiet office. He shot a desperate, fleeting glance at Jax, silently begging his Beta to take the lead and shoulder the burden of the lie.
Jax stepped up to the plate, though his broad shoulders remained stiff. "It's just the Weaver, Mom," Jax deflected, offering a half-hearted, perfectly rehearsed excuse. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. "He hit a massive firewall in Damon's offshore accounts. The encryption is thicker than we thought, and it's taking a toll on Fenn's patience. We're just frustrated we don't have the names of the High Council members yet. That's all."
Fennigan gave a stiff, unconvincing nod, crossing his massive arms over his chest. "Just hitting dead ends."