I stopped dead, a single word freezing me in place.
"Love."
I turned to Kayden, my lips trembling like I was speaking a secret.
"Love, Kayden. Only love could make a woman willing to die."
Kayden stared at me for several seconds. Then his eyes slowly widened.
"You're saying Victoria loved someone?"
"Loved them enough to take the fall," I spoke the guess slowly, shocking even myself. "Loved them enough to give her life."
"But the person she loved..." Kayden frowned. "Wasn't me."
"Of course not," I said. "When she looked at you, there was never love. Just obsession. Like you were something to possess. But real love... she loved someone else."
Kayden strode to his desk, fingers flying over the keyboard.
"Evan, deep dive on Victoria. Everything. From birth. Especially her romantic history."
"Yes, Alpha."
Minutes later, files started coming through.
Kayden opened the first—Victoria's academic records.
"Victoria Claire, enrolled at Northern Academy at eighteen..."
He scrolled quickly, mouse clicking.
"Here." He stopped suddenly. "Campus gossip mentions she dated some guy off-campus. Unknown identity. The Claires hired the school to investigate. They found the guy was..."
He clicked an attachment. A blurry photo appeared on screen. The shot was unclear, but that gaunt profile, that brooding quality...
"Finn." My voice shook.
Kayden kept scrolling.
"A week after the rumors surfaced, Victoria's parents pulled her out and sent her overseas. The guy disappeared, too. No trace."
"This relationship..."
He opened another encrypted file—something Evan had obtained through special channels from the Claire family's internal records.
"Was deliberately buried by her parents. They paid to delete all records, threatened anyone who knew... Like the relationship never existed."
My fingers went cold.
Victoria and Finn.
They'd been in love.
The cemetery lay north of the pack, some distance from the estate. Moonlight spilled across the headstones, pale light reflecting off stone like silent ghosts.
Kayden brought two warriors carrying shovels and flashlights. I followed, my heart hammering like it might burst through my ribs.
If it really was empty...
