Chapter 53

Dominic

I stared, dumbfounded. Blinking and trying my best to just unsee it, but I couldn't. I searched for some tiny sign that she was mine and all the years of guilt, of worry, of soul-brushing anguish weren't wasted, yet my wolf looked onto her with indifference.

More indifference than ever. Not hatred. Just… indifference. My heart was cold. I couldn't make sense of it. She was my daughter. She was my daughter in all the ways that truly mattered.

Do not lie.

I could hear my father's voice as if he was right there in the room with us. I could almost see him, looking at me with a soft, sad, understanding gaze.

Never lie to yourself, son. You know what you see. What you feel… What your wolf knows.

My heart thudded like a warning drum as my mind raced to accept what I was seeing. I couldn’t breathe.

“Vivian,” I said hoarsely, but she was still in wolf form, shuddering, shaking with a nervous energy, hyped up on the change and the lingering anger she'd stormed in here with. She was pacing the room now, tail high, body bristling with fury. She hadn’t realized.

She might never realize it. I did. I saw it. I could smell it in a way that only a wolf as old as I could. I felt it as she looked up at me, glaring at me with violet eyes in the body of a wolf I had not sired.

My world was tilting. Everything I thought I knew about the past cracked at the edges. I could see Hazel's face in my mind's eyes, the smile seemed cruel now, venomous--- the smile of a liar.

I was proud of Vivian completing the shift, but I was also wrecked.

She groaned, dragging me from my thoughts. She staggered once, then again—legs trembling beneath her as the full weight of the shift overtook her body. Her breaths came shallow and uneven, her muscles spasming with exhaustion. I moved to catch her just as she crumpled.

“Vivian,” I murmured, kneeling and cradling her against my chest.

She didn’t respond. Her fur receded slowly, the shift reversing as unconsciousness claimed her. I stripped off my jacket and wrapped it around her bare, limp form before lifting her into my arms, cradling her close like when she was a little girl. She'd be hungry and probably bedridden for a few days having shifted in anger and typically not one to eat enough to sustain herself as a werewolf that would eventually shift.

I remembered that she said that she and Renee had been on a diet together… That Vivian was trying to support her, but I wondered how much of that was true. With a heavy heart, I carried her through the halls of Brightclaw in silence, nodding at no one, acknowledging no one. Anyone who looked my way quickly turned their eyes to the ground. They knew better than to speak right now. Not because I was cruel, but because I was clearly not in a mood to talk. They likely heard most of the conversation from outside my office, And the fact that Vivian had shifted so unexpectedly was telling

No Brightclaw wolf had ever shifted in anger for the first time. I reached her room and got it opened by a maid. The place was a mess as usual. It seemed like she had started to pack up things to sell, to continue to fund her hobbies, likely old things that she'd either never worn or just bought on a whim just because someone else had had them. I laid her down on the bed, pulled a blanket over her, and stood there, staring.

"Alpha,” a maid asked from behind me. “Is there something I can help you with?”

I should’ve felt relief. She’d shifted. She’d crossed that threshold every young wolf waits for.

But all I could feel was dread coiling in my gut because there was no way I could let this go on. Without knowing, everything would get more complicated. There was no way that I could reasonably move forward without some form of confirmation, even though my heart, my soul, already knew the truth.

"When she wakes up, make sure there's plenty of food for her…. I know it's unlikely that she'll eat a lot, but she'll need something. Preferably something full of protein, something soft like pork."

"As you wish, Alpha”

I returned to my study, locked the door, and opened the medical cabinet in my office. I kept it stocked with all sorts of things for the sake of the pack. Surprise children were not something I hadn't encountered before. I could feel my father's hand on my shoulder.

I knew what he would say if he were here. I knew what I was doing wouldn't make any difference, but I had to know. My hands moved on instinct now, pulling a sterile vial from the kit, a lancet, and a swab.

I returned to her room.

She didn’t stir when I pricked her arm, didn’t flinch when I caught the drops of blood into the vial. My fingers were steady, my heart anything but. Back in the study, I sealed the vial and labeled it with a coded tag—no name, no identifying details. Just a reference number I’d remember and no one else would question. Then I called the one person I trusted above all for something this delicate.

“Lara,” I said as soon as she answered.

Lara was my only other family in this whole world. A cousin who, like me, had been pushed into leadership much earlier in her life than what was usually considered normal.

Her voice came on sharp, alert. “Alpha?”

My lips twitched. "Could you come to my office, Lara. I… I need you."

She hung up and before the hour was up, she was walking into my office, chest heaving, hair wind-swept, still in her scrubs. She'd probably rode at top speed the whole way back. I looked up at her and saw on her face that she already suspected what I would ask of her. She closed the door behind her and approached the table. Her gaze dropping to the vial in my hand.

She reached for it, and I grabbed her hand, holding her there, closing my eyes.

“Not a word."

"Never."

"Chain of custody stays with you."

"From here until disposal. I'll burn it myself."

"… I want it compared to mine.”

She said nothing, but she went to the cabinet and took a blood sample.

“Give me four hours."

I nodded.

“Thank you."

She marked the vial with some code, and the other vial as well before coming around. She hugged me tightly the way she had the day I found Hazel dead.

"I am here for you."

"I know."

Then, she was gone. And I don’t know where my mind went, but when she came back, she placed the folder on the table. Three of them. She hugged me again and then left.

I couldn't open any of them. I went to the liquor cabinet and pulled out a glass and bottle. The whiskey burned on the way down, but it didn’t soothe anything. I poured another. I couldn't open them, but I had to. I took a deep breath and opened the top folder.

No biological relation.

I opened the next one. And the third file.

They all said the same thing. I turned. The photo of Hazel smiled up at me from its frame like always. I stared at it for a long moment. At her gentle eyes. The illusion of warmth. The practiced tenderness that had once disarmed me completely.

I picked up the frame and hurled it across the room.

Glass shattered. The photo landed face-down on the hardwood. My thoughts were whirling. How long? How many years had she been lying to me? How many times had she looked me in the eye and said us, when it had never been true?

I stood, shoving the half-empty bottle aside, and stalked out of the house. I didn’t shift immediately. I just walked, fists clenched, breath ragged, until the fury simmered too hot beneath my skin. I finished the bottle, stumbling through the woods. I needed the fresh air, the distance. I promised myself not to walk to the cemetery and rip her headstone out.

I couldn't do that.

Vivian didn't deserve that. The bottle was empty before I had gotten far enough not to see the house's lights. Then I let the shift take me.

My wolf burst through the treeline and into the night, heedless of direction, fueled by rage and betrayal. I ran harder than I had in weeks—through the heart of Brightclaw’s territory, across familiar ridges and thick pines, dodging stones and fallen branches as the wind tore at my fur. Yet my mind was a million miles away to that sunny day on that boat covered in blood.

Who had it been? Did he know about Vivian? I didn’t see the ridge until it crumbled beneath my paws.

The slope gave way under me and I tumbled. Branches scraping, rocks slamming into my ribs. The breath wrenched from my lungs as I fell, hit once, twice,and then the icy rush of the river consumed me.

I plunged under, the current dragging me mercilessly downstream.

Everything blurred—mud, leaves, the moon flickering above, and then nothing but water and cold and the crushing weight of truth.