That’s the final nail.
A low sound reverberates in my chest, pushed out by the complicated feelings overloading my inner wolf at once, but I force it back enough not to lash out like I want to. I hit the nearby counter hard enough to make her flinch, but I don’t move.
Looking down at the floor as the emotions hit every organ at once, I let go of a shuddered breath, unable to look at her.
“Jack overheard your mother at the solstice… she slipped up while talking about us, and she said…” The words lodge in my throat, taking considerable effort to clear them again as I force myself to meet her eyes. “You told me her father was from another pack. You told me that, and I took your word for it.”
When she doesn’t say anything, red rims my vision, and I step closer.
“Lila, tell me the truth,” I say, tense and bordering on lethal. “Right now.”
More fear and dread shift across her face, and she swallows hard. That vulnerability practically screams at me now.
“I… didn’t mean for you to find out like this,” Lila whispers, allowing all of her guilt and remorse to show on her face.
I grab the counter the moment the room tilts, feeling off balance from the confirmation.
There’s no denial. Only the blinding truth that nearly knocks the ground right out from beneath me.
“Lila,” I murmur back, voice shaking. “Is Astrid my daughter?”
While trying to regain control over her emotions, she squeezes her eyes shut before opening them again, forced to face it all at once. She nods slowly. “Yes…”
The word leaves her as a fragile, broken thing, yet it hits me more like a blade to the chest.
My lungs stop working for a beat, and I stare at her in completely stunned silence.
There’s nothing I could say that would ever match the storm tearing through me.
Panic slips into her tone, as if searching for any kind of justification that might fit. “I wanted to tell you, but you were already planning on leaving, and you made it clear that you wanted nothing to do with me.”
“You still could’ve told me,” I utter, feeling a kind of betrayal I’ve never known before. “Even if I was leaving… You could’ve said something. You didn’t even give me the chance.”
Lila’s eyes fill with tears. “I know… but how was I supposed to raise a child with someone who hated me?”
“I didn’t hate you,” I snap, stepping close enough to feel the waves of pain coming from her. “I was an arrogantkid. I didn’t see what was right in front of me, and I couldn’t handle the thing pulling me to you. I didn’t want to face it before leaving, but if you had told me, I would’ve tried.”
Her brows pinch together at that. “No, you wouldn’t have.”
“I’m afraid there’s no way of finding out now.”
Lila trembles in front of me. “I was terrified. Don’t act like it was easy for me.”
“So you punished me by keeping my child from me?”
“No!” she fires back, voice breaking. “I wasn’t trying to punish you. I was trying to survive… trying to navigate nothing but fear and pain all on my own.”
I hear her, and I don’t doubt how impossible it surely seemed for her, but it doesn’t negate the sludge of emotions moving through me.
My wolf feels frantic beneath my skin as I rake a hand through my hair, trying to grapple with everything.
Astrid is my daughter. Mine.
Not just Lila’s. But mine.
I tried to rationalize my suspicions away before. I tried to ignore the way she lit up whenever I was around, and the way she instinctively reached for me like I meant something to her. I brushed aside how natural it feels to scoop her up, along with the protective streak that’s been forming in me ever since I laid eyes on her.
It all makes sense now, but that clarity doesn’t soothe me.
