“Distant cousin,” she corrects tersely. “Tanith would sooner choke on her favorite poppet than claim a crossborn like myself as kin. I wasn’t raised around that side of the family—their disdain for shifter blood ‘polluting’ their line made sure of it.” Her mouth tightens. “In all my years of life, I only interacted with them maybe half a dozen times. That was all I needed to know they had evil in their souls—corrupted by bigoted hate but also their frequent use of dark magic. I never wanted them to know of your existence, or you of theirs. Keeping you far away from each other was the smartest thing I could do.”
I can’t even begin to wrap my head around the fact the triplets who’d laid siege on my home were related to me…even distantly. Malvina’s vague question from that day itches at the depths of my mind.“You really didn’t know your mother at all, did you, dear?”That day, I thought she’d just been taunting me,now I have to wonder if she’d known of my mother’s familial history.
Hands balled into fists, I grit out, “Well, they found me anyway. Destroyed the sanctuary—killed Lowri.” And others. Not to mention the omegas they’d also taken.
“I know.”
“Ren killed one of the triplets.”
Her face grows grim. “They’ll come back to avenge their sister.”
My chance to respond is interrupted when the people from our past start speaking again, the memory snapping back into motion, the truth resuming its performance. Me and my mother still the only audience.
Mom—then, not now—doesn’t soften a single word when she looks at Merritt and asks, “You would sell your son’s own fated mate into sex slavery?”
Slightly muffled by Merritt’s hand still gripping her face, the younger, terrified version of me gasps. Not just at Mom’s casual acknowledgement of the bond she’s been sensing for months in secret, but at the way Mom names it without hesitation. Speaks it into existence. Makes it real.
Merritt doesn’t react at all. Not surprise. Not concern. Just flat dismissal, like this is old information that’s never been worthy of his time.
“He’ll be Alpha of this pack one day,” he says. “So many females will throw themselves at him, he’ll drown in omega pussy. But taking your runt of a daughter as his mate?” A short, humorless sound leaves him. “That happens over my dead body. My son needs a strong female at his side. Talis McNamara will fill that role. Her beta presentation complicated things, yes, but it changes nothing. Rennick will take omegas, as many as he likes, and he’ll produce his heir that way. McNamara understands this.”
My chest aches for my mate, knowing this is the man who raised him. That Rennick became who he is feels like a miracle carved out of defiance. His childhood gave him every excuse to harden, to turn cruel. He didn’t take a single one.
Mom watches him for a long moment. Her attention flicks between his stone-set face and the claws still pressed threateningly to my past self’s throat. Blood continues to spill, thin rivulets tracing down pale skin, soaking into the collar of the dark shirt.
Something I don’t understand settles over Mom then. A decision made without words. Her shoulders square. Her chin lifts. And she speaks words I’ve heard before. I thought they were haunting when she first said them. Hearing them now, with the full shape of the truth twined in them, makes the hair on the back of my neck rise and ice bloom through my veins.
“I know what you want most,” she tells him, her resolve keeping her eyes pinned on his. “What you’re so desperate for…I can give it to you.”
Merritt’s mouth curls into a cruel grin, a scoff slipping past his thin lips. “Bargaining is beneath you, weaver.”
She doesn’t waver. Not even a fraction. “I’ll do anything to keep my daughter safe.”
My breath catches a I recognize this moment for what it is. The air seems to thicken, the weight of what comes next already bearing down on me, because whatever she gives him here becomes the axis. The point everything bends around. The choice that reshapes everything that follows.
The younger version of me shakes her head, small and frantic, silently pleading. She can feel it too—the pressure change in the air, the sense of something terrible drawing nearer.
Merritt’s grin falters. Interest making his obsidian irises gleam. “All right, weaver. I’ll bite. What do you think I want badly enough to let you walk away?”
He throws the question down with the confidence of someone who believes he’s already won.
But Mom only says, “Time.”
And somehow, I know she has him. I was raised by a woman who always stayed ten steps ahead, who could find a way out even when backed into a corner.
His brow furrows, but there’s a twinkle of recognition there too. He smooths it away quick and continues to play at ignorant. “Time?”
Mom’s head tilts as her gaze rakes over him, assessing, in that way that feels like she’s looking past the surface and uncovering every truth you were sure you’d buried too deep to be found.
“Once your body starts showing symptoms, it’s already too late,” she says evenly, no emotion. Just fact. “The clock starts ticking, and there’s no outrunning it. You believe you’re invincible. Stronger than everyone else. But this isn’t something you can beat into submission, Alpha.” Her gaze pierces through him like an all-knowing blade. “Two months ago, the tremor began in your hand. Last month, sleep stopped coming. Insomnia settled in. You thought no one would notice.” A pause. “But I did. The madness has you in its grips and there’s nothing you can do about it. You’re a dying man, Merritt.”
The snarl that tears out of him is pure Alpha, feral enough to make the air vibrate. “How dare?—”
“I can delay it.” Unfazed, she cuts him off. “I can give you more time.”
Silence slams down between them, curiosity once against settling on his harsh features. “How?”
There’s a moment where she stills, as if bracing against herself. She swallows once. Hard.
