Chapter 83

Logan

She lied to me.

That’s all I could think. All I could comprehend in that moment. She had lied.

But now, wait, that wasn’t completely true. She didn’t lie. She’d hidden it. Conveniently, she had excluded the information until it was more favorable. She had tucked it away behind those wide, earnest eyes and soft smiles, locked it up so tightly that not even a hint escaped.

The missing princess. The one the whole damn kingdom had mourned and questioned where she had gone. I had thought she was lost to the wind, never to be seen again. And this whole time, I had been married to her.

And she let me believe she was just a healer. A nobody from nowhere. My mother had once openly accused her of being a rogue.

I stood in the center of the Summit room, every bone in my body stiff with disbelief as the words still echoed in my ears. “My daughter.” The Alpha King’s voice still reverberated off the marble, but the rest of the world had gone muffled.

Evelyn. My wife. The woman who had kissed me like I was the only thing she wanted in the world. She was royalty this whole time. And she never told me. I had thought we could rebuild and start again, sculpt a new life from the ashes of this war and our previous attempts, but now I realized that she had been a stranger to me all along.

Emma snorted beside me, her eyes glittering like ice. “So the little healer was actually the crown jewel,” she said under her breath. “Figures. I suppose it all makes sense now.”

My mother didn’t even bother to hide her smirk. “I must say, I almost admire it,” she drawled. “I underestimated her.”

If there was one thing my mother loved unwaveringly, it was power. And this power was already married to her son. Oh, how quickly she had changed her tune on Evelyn. It made me feel sicker than I already did.

“Enough,” came the Alpha King’s voice again, sharper this time.

Alex stood with him, eyes fierce. He looked at Evelyn sympathetically. His sister.

“She had to stay hidden,” he said. “It wasn’t a choice. Have we conveniently forgotten the ambushes? The assassins and their attempts on royalty?”

“She did what she had to,” the King said, looking around the room with authority only years of rule could forge. “To survive. I appreciate those of you who were kind to her even before you knew.”

But all I could hear was the sound of Jesse’s taunting, telling me that I didn’t know my own wife. That there was more she was hiding, secrets she was keeping. Did he know? Had she told him?

Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.

I turned and walked. No words. No explanation. No apology. The Alpha King hadn’t even given me his leave, yet he also didn’t try to stop me. There was just the sound of my boots thudding against the marble floor and my thoughts breaking apart like ice underfoot.

“Logan!” she called behind me. “Logan, wait!”

I didn’t. I couldn’t.

I kept walking, hoping she would allow me the space I needed to process it all.

But of course she didn’t. She caught up to me halfway down the hallway, breathless and determined. “Please,” she said, grabbing my arm, “just, please, listen.”

I pulled away, slowly. “You’ve been lying to me since the beginning.”

“No. I haven’t. I didn’t tell you everything, but that’s not the same as lying.”

“Convenient. Sounds a lot like the same to me.”

Her face fell. “I was trying to protect myself. My father. My future. You.”

“Protect me? From what? The truth?”

She flinched like I’d slapped her.

I ran a hand through my hair, pacing. My wolf stirred uneasily under my skin, unsure whether to rage or mourn. I was a tangle of emotions I couldn’t begin to unweave.

“You married me, Evelyn. You said vows to me, and you couldn’t even do me the decency of being truthful about who you are. Do you know how this all makes me look? I look like a fool! I feel like one, too. And you knew. You knew the whole damn time that I was being played, but it didn’t matter because I was just a means to an end, right?”

“I didn’t know what to do!” she cried. “You have to understand. I didn’t know how to tell you. I was afraid. Afraid it would ruin everything. And I thought… I thought it didn’t matter anymore. And then when you said you wanted to start over again with me, I decided that I would come clean because we were finally—” She choked. “We were finally us.”

I stopped pacing. Something occurred to me then. If she had been avoiding the truth, perhaps she had been dodging this, too.

I looked at her. Really looked at her. And if I strained, I could picture it. A young woman in a white dress, kidnapped but defiant in the face of fear. My veins ran cold.

“So the little girl in the clearing. The one in white all those years ago. The one I helped rescue…”

I couldn’t even finish the thought, couldn’t assign words to it.

“It was me,” she whispered. “I remembered the way you looked at me like I mattered. Like I wasn’t just someone to protect, but someone worth protecting. I never forgot that. Even when everything else was taken from me. You were the best thing I had then, and you’re the best thing I have now, Logan. Please.”

The air between us crackled. My heart warred with my head. Because this was the moment, the one I had been fantasizing about for years. I had found her. The girl in the woods. It was the kind of moment they write fated-mate stories about. The kind of truth that turns lives around.

But I couldn’t shake the burn in my chest, the anger that swelled there.

“You should’ve told me,” I said quietly. “Before the vows. Before I gave you everything I had to give.”

“I know.” Her voice cracked. “And I wanted to. So many times. But I was scared. And I was selfish. And then it was too late, and Logan, I threw the divorce papers away. I don’t want it anymore. I want you. Just you. With no lies. No secrets. Now you know, so please, at least consider taking me for who I am. All that I am now.”

I stared at her.

I wanted to believe her. My heart ached with how badly I wanted to. The part of me that still tasted her kiss, that had memorized the feel of her body melting into mine, screamed at me to take her in my arms and forget it all.

But the part of me that was reeling still thrashed away from it all. I couldn’t make my decision right then and there.

“I don’t know if I can trust you,” I admitted, and my voice sounded foreign even to my own ears. “I don’t know if I ever even really knew you.”

She looked up at me, tears threatening. They made her eyes glisten, and it broke something in me to know that I was the one making her cry.

“Then let me show you,” she said. “Let me earn it.”

I didn’t say yes. But I didn’t say no.

“Just give me some time, Evelyn,” I said. “Please, it’s the least you can do.”

I turned away, the weight of her secrets trailing behind me like a shadow.

And this time, she didn’t follow.