“He sounds nothing like what I’d expect from a Thornridge wolf.”
“That’s because he doesn’t remember being anything else.” I run my free hand through my hair, tugging at the strands. “Our mother told him to forget what we were before, that remembering would only bring pain, and he listened. He packed away everything from before like it was just a bad dream and never looked back.”
“But you didn’t forget.”
“Couldn’t. Someone had to remember what we lost. Someone had to carry our father’s memory, even if Jonascouldn’t.” I swallow hard against the tightness in my throat. “Jonas grew up believing Thornridge was his family. He joined the warriors because he wanted to make Mordaunt proud, wanted to prove he was loyal and strong, and everything a pack wolf should be. He doesn’t see the corruption. Doesn’t want to see it. In his mind, Thornridge saved us when we had nowhere else to go.”
Caelan moves closer to me on the bench until our sides are pressed together. “And you let him believe that.”
“What was I supposed to do? Tell an eight-year-old that the people feeding him and housing him were the same ones who murdered his father? That his whole life was built on a lie?” I shake my head. “I made a choice. I let him have his illusions because the truth would have destroyed him. And then I spent sixteen years making sure those illusions never shattered, even when it meant lying to him every single day.”
“That must have been lonely.”
I think about all the times I stood beside Jonas at pack gatherings, smiling and nodding while Mordaunt spouted nonsense about Thornridge’s righteous mission. All the times I bit my tongue when my brother talked about how grateful we should be for everything the pack had given us. All the times I wanted to scream the truth and didn’t because protecting Jonas meant protecting his delusions, too.
“He worships Bastian,” I confess. “Thinks he’s everything a leader should be. Strong, decisive, willing to do whatever it takes to protect the pack. Jonas has no idea what Bastian really is. What he’s capable of doing to the people who trust him.”
“Would he believe you if you told him?”
“Probably not. Bastian has spent years cultivating Jonas’s loyalty. He saw the same thing in my brother that I did, thatdesperate need to belong somewhere, to matter to someone, and he exploited it. Made Jonas feel special, important, like he was part of something bigger than himself. By now, Bastian will have convinced him that I’m the enemy. That I betrayed the pack for a woman. Jonas will hate me, and he won’t even understand why.”
Caelan doesn’t offer platitudes or empty reassurances. She just takes my hand again and holds on tight. The gesture is simple, but it means more than any words could.
“I’m sorry,” she says after a long moment. “I’m sorry you had to make that choice.”
“I’m not. Given the same circumstances, I’d do it again in a heartbeat. You’re worth it, Caelan. Whatever happens with Jonas, whatever I’ve lost or will lose, you’re worth all of it.”
She lifts our joined hands and presses a kiss to my knuckles. The gesture is so tender, so unexpected, that it makes that space behind my sternum ache.
“We’ll find a way to help him,” she promises. “When this is over, when Thornridge falls, we’ll find Jonas and show him the truth. He’ll understand eventually.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” she admits. “But I believe it. And sometimes belief is all we have.”
Chapter 19 - Caelan
My sister has been avoiding me for three days, and I’m done letting her get away with it.
I find Sera in the Cultural Center’s main archive, surrounded by stacks of documents and looking like she hasn’t slept in a week. Her silver-blonde hair is piled in a messy bun, and there are ink smudges on her fingers that tell me she’s been at this since dawn. When I clear my throat from the doorway, she startles so badly that she nearly knocks over a pot of tea that’s gone cold hours ago.
She presses a hand to her chest. “You scared the hell out of me, Caelan.”
“Good. Maybe now you’ll actually look at me instead of finding excuses to be somewhere else whenever I walk into a room.”
Her mouth opens, then closes. She has the decency to look guilty. “I haven’t been—”
“You have. And I understand why, but I’m tired of it.” I cross to her desk and plant my hands on the edge, leaning in until she has no choice but to look me in the eye. “We need to talk. Really talk, not just exchange pleasantries while pretending everything is fine.”
“I have a meeting with Oren’s council in two hours about the intelligence network—”
“Cancel it.”
“I can’t just cancel—”
“Sera.” I soften my voice because she looks exhausted and overwhelmed, and despite everything, she’s still my sister. “Please. When was the last time we actually spent time together?Just the two of us, without pack politics or mate bonds or Thornridge threats hanging over our heads?”
She stares at me for a long moment, and I watch the war play out across her face. Duty versus family. Responsibility versus connection. The curse may be broken, but old habits are hard to shake, and Sera spent years burying her emotions so deep that even now, she struggles to let them surface.
