Caelan shakes her head. “I didn’t do anything. Patrick is the one who—”
“Patrick couldn’t have done it alone. The mate bond amplified his conviction. It gave him something to fight for beyond revenge or duty. You were the catalyst. Without you, none of those wolves would have surrendered today. They would have fought to the death, because that’s all Thornridge ever taught them to do.”
I think about the twelve wolves who followed us into the trees. The shell-shocked expressions on their faces. The way they looked at me and Caelan walking hand in hand like we were proof that something better existed beyond Mordaunt’s cruelty.
Maybe Maeve is right. Maybe the bond between us did something more than just connect two people. Maybe it lit a beacon for others who were lost in the dark.
Maeve’s expression grows somber. “There’s something else you need to know. Something I saw in the visions but couldn’t piece together until now.”
“What?” Caelan asks.
“The traitor. The one who told Thornridge about your mission.” Maeve pauses. “It was your father, Caelan. Jordan Thornwick.”
The color drains from Caelan’s face. “What?”
“When Sera broke the curse, everything in Llewelyn territory changed overnight. The women your father had spent his whole life understanding suddenly became strangers to him. Your mother wanted a connection. Your sister wanted adventure. The entire matriarchal structure was in upheaval as generations of women tried to process emotions they’d never been allowed to feel. And your father… He didn’t adapt. He preferred the old order. He preferred women who didn’t demand things from him, who didn’t expect him to meet them emotionally, who didn’t question the quiet, comfortable distance he’d built his entire marriage around. The curse never touched him directly, but its breaking destroyed the world he understood.”
“So he sold us out to Thornridge?” Caelan’s voice is barely a whisper.
“He made contact with Mordaunt’s people months ago. He’s been feeding them information ever since. The extra patrols at the camp, the ambush in the riverbed—that was all because of him.”
Caelan looks like she might be sick. I reach for her hand, and she grips it so hard her nails dig into my skin.
“Where is he now?” I ask.
“He fled with Mordaunt when the retreat was called. They’re somewhere in the unclaimed territories, regrouping. He’ll face justice eventually. They both will. But not today. But your mother…she’s devastated. She would benefit from a visit.”
Caelan doesn’t say anything. She just stands there with her hand in mine and her face frozen in an expression of disbelief and betrayal. Her own father. The man who raised her. The man she trusted.
I know that pain. I know what it feels like to watch the people who were supposed to protect you become the ones who hurt you most.
Maeve slips away without another word. I guide Caelan down the corridor toward the room we’ve been sharing, and she follows without protest. She doesn’t speak until we’re inside with the door closed behind us.
“He was my father.” Her voice cracks. “How could he do this?”
“I don’t know.”
“People died today because of him. Trenton might die because of him. My own father helped Mordaunt. He chose Thornridge over his own daughters.”
I pull her into my arms and hold her while she shakes. She doesn’t cry. Caelan isn’t the crying type. But the tremors that run through her body tell me everything about the storm raging inside her.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble against her hair.
“It’s not your fault.”
“I know. But I’m still sorry.”
Eventually, the shaking stops, and she pulls back to look at me. Her eyes are dry, but something in them has hardened.
I lean down and kiss her. It’s soft and slow and full of everything I can’t put into words. Gratitude. Relief. The bone-deep certainty that whatever comes next, we’ll face it side by side.
When we finally break apart, Caelan rests her forehead against mine.
“So what now?” she asks.
“Now we rest. Tomorrow, we start rebuilding.”
She nods. “I can live with that.”
