Only when we reach the base of the slope that’ll lead us up to the meeting place do I have her get off, shift, and redress before taking her hand. Full trusting eyes stare up at me, and fuck, if I hope she still looks at me like that after this.
“When Sloane mentioned the rumours of your birth father being from the BC pack, I suspected. Callum, Alpha of Hightooth, kept staring at you at the meeting, and the more I thought about it, the more similarities in your appearances I found. So I requested a meeting.”
I stop both talking and walking to search for any sign of discomfort, of wanting to return home. She exhales a harsh breath, staggering between acceptance, and peers up the slope.
“What did you tell him?”
“Only that I had something vital to show him. Callum’s honourable and is focused on peacekeeping, not fighting. I knew he’d come.” I tip her chin, stealing as much of her attention as I can before her past catches up. “But say the word and we’ll go home. You don’t have to do this.”
She pulls from my grip and angles herself up the path. “I think I want to.”
Keeping close and always one step ahead, I lead her to the highest point of the hill, to the small clearing that overlooks a vast landscape mostly consumed my pine trees. A mountain covers the background, and the stretch of land below is filled with a glistening lake reflecting the low moon. It ripples occasionally as the wind blows.
Callum stands at the very tip of the overlook, staring at the water, but turns with our approach. He briefly meets my gaze before his attention lands on the woman beside me. Carina remains close, and my hand cuffs her wrist in case this doesn’t go how I expect it to.
The clearing remains still, even the wind having died down, until a gasp takes him stumbling forward. “I thought—I thoughtI was seeing a ghost that day. You look…” A sharp inhale.“Somuch like her.” Callum swipes a hand down his face, lingering by his grey-speckled beard. “How…my fuck. You’re—what’s your name?”
“Carina.” She breaks from my hold, pacing halfway between me and Callum.
“Of course, she did. She always did adore it. How is…how’s your mother? Well, I hope?”
Oh.Carina shares a glance with me, confirming we’re both thinking the same. Callum’s subtle behaviours, the way he’s looking at Carina like she’s a ghost returned, in both pain and adoration, confirms something else.
He loved her birth mother.Loves—present tense—since he doesn’t know she’s gone.
“I’m so sorry… She died saving my life.”
Light fades as he stumbles backwards and turns for the cliff’s edge. Carina moves to go after him, but my hand to her shoulder stops her.
I couldn’t imagine—if never completing the bond—someone informing me Carina died. Even years down the road. It’d be a pain of what was and what could’ve been. Mourning a woman I released and feeling grief all the same.
Callum drops to his knees and screams a guttural noise that makes Carina flinch and my own wolf howl for him. Clawed hands scrape the ground as he shouts a variety of exclamations, most of them undecipherable beneath the weight of his pain.
Minutes pass before he lifts his head and stares up at the moon. This time, his words are clear. “You promised. You promised you’d keep her safe. You’re her fucking Goddess, and youfailed.”
Carina glances back again, scrunching her face. She squeezes my hand before heading for Callum’s side. It only takes a single step before he turns towards her. First, his head, and finally hepositions one knee to get up. “How’d it…” He swallows, staring into the forest above her head. “How’d it happen?”
“Another coven was targeting me, but I don’t know the precise details of the attack. She ran to Banff, to Highridge Coven, for help. Barely made it there before she died on the High Priestess’s doorstep. She saved me.”
Callum nods roughly, his tone scraping as he grinds, “When?”
“About twenty-four years ago.”
He chokes, his eyes drilling into face. “H-how old are you?”
“A few months older than twenty-five.”
Callum curses, turns to look away, but then immediately drops back to his knees at Carina’s feet. Grief barbwires around Carina’s emotions as she lowers beside him, and while instincts urge me to protect her, I do nothing more than take a single step to overhear their lowered whispers.
“You didn’t know.”
A tear-streaked face lifts to regard her, this time studying her not as only the child of the woman he loved, buthischild. “I didn’t know she was pregnant. I…I never knew,” he breathes, dragging a hand through his hair. “Why didn’t she come to me? Why didn’t she tell me about you? Why didn’t she—” He breaks off with a sob, falling onto his hands again.
Carina rests her hand on his shoulder. “I didn’t know either. Up until recently, I believed the woman who raised me was my birth mother. Then I was told otherwise. I was told about you even more recently.” She pauses, sinking lower to his side. “I know it hurts, but could you fill in the rest? No one even knows her name.”
“Lily Brooks.” Fondness rings in his tone, and his gaze shifts away, to the past. “She was beautiful and kind. We met by accident when she wandered too far away from Vancouver while on vacation with her family and ended up on our territory.”
Just like Carina found herself on my land. An accidental meeting driven by fate.
