Chapter 17
Chapter 117
DELEK
Elena hadn’t left my side since I’d nearly collapsed.
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She kept glancing over at the, eyes licking to my face, the line of y jaw, the color of my skin. She passed me water before I even thought to ask for It Pressed the protein bar into my hand again when I let it sit too long.
Sat beside me in that stiff, plastic chair like she couldn’t bear to be further than arm’s reach.
And maybe she couldn’t. Maybe it was instinct. Or gullt,
ut it didn’t feel like p
It felt like… care.
It had been a long time since I’d felt this from her. Maybe I never rally load. Not like this.
Her presence had always been powerful–electric–but right now was steady, Grounded. Her voice was sober when she spoke to me. Her touch lingered when she passed me the drink.
She looked at me the way I had once only dreamed she would. Like I mattered,
And it gutted me. Because I knew it wouldn’t last
When she finally settled into the chair beside me, her knees brushing mine, I turned to face her.
“I need to ask you something,” I said, my voice quiet.
She looked up, wary. Waiting
“Why did you do it?” I asked. “Why did you keep my son from me?
1 braced for the explosion. The sharp retort. The ice in her voice.
But she didn’t flare. She didn’t cry.
She just breathed. In. Out. And then she answered
“The day I rejected our bond, there was an attempt to kidnap me.
The words hit like a cold splash of water.
“I barely escaped. And when I did, I ended up in the path of a car. was hit. Badly. I woke up in a hospital bed days later. with people I didn’t remember, but who claimed to be my family. Who treated me like I mattered. Who welcomed me like I’d never been welcomed anywhere else.”
My stomach twisted.
“When I was in Silverclaw,” she continued, her voice thin, “I didn’t feel like I belonged. Not to the pack. Not to you. You were so convinced I was a rogue. That I was beneath you.”
I finally forced myself to look at her.
“So I convinced myself that I didn’t deserve you,” she went on. “And that… that made me feel like I didn’t deserve anything. I stayed in Silverclaw because 1 didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.
“But then, these people–my family–embraced me. It was like whiplash, I found out I was pregnant in the middle of all of that
chaos.”
Her voice wasn’t loud, but it struck like lightning-sharp and electric. I didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink. My eyes stayed locked on
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her, waiting, dreading, needing more.
I didn’t even know who I was yet–had barely begun to remembe pieces of myself—and suddenly I was carrying a life inside me she said. “Anew life. One I didn’t low how to protect… except to stay far, far away from the place that had nearly
destroyed me.‘
I flinched.
Because I knew exactly what place she meant.
Me.
Silverclaw.
Us.
“I wanted to tell you,” she said, and those four words cracked something deep inside my chest. “I swear I did. There were nights … after he kicked, after he seuled against my ribs like he already belonged there–I’d lie awake and wonder.”
I was hanging on her every word.
“Wonder if he had your eyes. Your stubbornness. Your fire. I thought about what it would be like to let you know. To give you the chance to be his father.”
I wanted to speak. To say I would’ve dropped everything, would’ve come the second she called–but my throat locked around the truth
She wouldn’t have believed me then. Not after everything I’d done.
“But then I’d remember the way you looked at me,” she continued voice cracking now. “Like I was a problem you didn’t want to solve. Like I was a mistake you regretted making. You didn’t know who I was–but I did. In a way. I knew what we were. What we could have been”
Chopter 118
