Chapter 21
Chapter 121
DEREK
I stood in the doorway to Alden’s hospital room, barely breathing,
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Inside, the boy I had just learned was my son lay pale and still, sunded by wires and monitors. The soft beep of machines echoed in the sterile silence, steady but too quiet. Lalor a heartbeat you didn’t trust to keep going.
Elena sat at his side, her fingers wrapped gently around his much taller ones. She hadn’t looked up when I opened the door. Hadn’t moved at all. Her posture was rigid, but the grief in it was mistakable. She looked like she was holding herself together by sheer force of will.
I didn’t blame her.
The truth still hadn’t fully landed in my chest. My son. My son. The words felt too large, too fragile. I didn’t know how to hold then without dropping something that mattered.
He was mine.
He always had been.
And I hadn’t known.
Istepped quietly into the room, each footfall feeling loud against the tile. The scent of antiseptic burned my nose, but beneath it was something warmer. Fainter. Familiar.
Him.
“Elena,” I said softly. “May I sit with you?”
She didn’t speak. Didn’t look up. Just nodded once, her eyes never leaving his face.
I pulled a chair to the other side of the bed and sat, sinking into it like I’d been holding my breath since the moment I saw his blood on my hands.
My fingers trembled slightly as I reached for Aiden’s free hand. I didn’t expect him to squeeze back. But I needed the contact. Needed something real to hold on to.
His skin was warm. Alive.
I let out a breath Thadn’t realized I was holding
The doctors had said it was a waiting game now. That his vi
vitals were steady, but trauma did strange things to a body–especially a young one. The next few hours would be critical
Solsal.
Holding my son’s hand in silence.
And trying to understand how I could feel so much love for someone I hadn’t even known was mine until a few hours ago.
We sat there in silence, listening to the machines whisper life back into our soil
Eventually, I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry.”
That made her tum
Her eyes were tired. Red–rimmed. She looked like she’d aged a year in a day. But she was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever
seen
“For what?” she asked quietly.
Chapter 121
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For everything.” I said. “For the wedding. For low I treated you for all the things I didn’t say and the ones I did. I hurt you. I
see that now.”
She didn’t answer right away. Just blinked down at Alden’s still forn. When she finally did speak, her wice was soft
“Surely you know that all the harm you inflicted…” she shook her head, a soft Incredulous laugh slipping past her lips. “A simple apology is not going to suddenly make everything better…
I sighed, ran a hand over my face.
“I know,” I said.
She nodded slowly. “But I appreciate that you said it.
Her eyes flicked up to me once inore.
“Lowey
owe you an apology as well,” she went on.
I raised my eyebrows at this, but didn’t say anything.
“I shouldn’t have kept Aiden a secret from you. I see that now,” she nodded toward where I was holding our son’s hand.
“But… you should know… he’s had a good life since I walked away from you. Since our wedding day. And I plan to continue to live it. The same way I always have.
I let that sit with me.
More silence. More machines. I looked at the boy between us and saw the ghost of a life I hadn’t lived. First steps. First words. First everything.
I’d missed it all.
“What happened to you?” I asked. “After the wedding? After you left? I sent people out to look for you and all we heard back were rumors. Someone had seen a woman who looked like you Said there was a car accident and that you were taken away.”
She gave me a curious look. “Is that why you thought I was dead?”
I nodded, the steady peeping of the hospital machines a quiet backdrop.
Elena drew in a slow breath. Her hand tightened on Aiden’s.
“I didn’t u
n’t just leave, Derek. There was an attempted kidnapping
”
My whole body went still.
She kept talking, her tone eerily calm. “I rejected the bond that morning because I felt like I didn’t belong. I was confused and overwhelmed, and then…it happened. They came out of nowhere.”
voice cracked on the word.
“It was only by the grace of the Moon Goddess that I pulled myself free.”
I sat up, waiting on tenterhooks to hear what happened next
“As I was pulling away,” she whispered. “I fell into the path of a car. I was hit.”
I felt cold all over.
“And that’s the grace of the Moon Goddess?” I asked bitterly, “You being hit by a car?”
Elena looked up at me, finally, and there was something unreadable in her gaze.
“The car that hit me,” she said, “was being driven by my father.”
23
Chapter
It felt ie the floor depped me here
She shook her head metallu
prejudic. 1 teak welcomed back into the quick. They mode u 18 satik
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was a chance to start over,
abweich
Teal back in my chair, trying to beech it at er geen petunt no at the that notember inte son 1 didn’t loow we had
1 looled at Aiden again. At this small miracle lying beter
And tớt the first time in years, I thought that maybe het mehe Men Gedder af‘ been penishing me
Maybe she’d been trying to bring us back together
But the people who’d tried to take Elena they hadn’t been divine
They were wolves. Monsters in fur. And they were still out there.
My hands curled into fists
“Do you remember anything about the people that tried to take you asked “Anything at all?”
She shook her head. “Faces, maybe. But they blur together. It’s like my mind doesn’t want to go back there. “
I nodded. I wouldn’t press. Not yet. But I would find them. Whoever they were–Pierce’s men, or someon
my focus back to him,
And I would make them regret ever touching her.
Aiden stirred slightly in the bed. Just a twitch. But it was enough to bring my i
This boy. My son
He was still here. Still fighting
And I would be here when he woke up
Fortum
For her
Ewen
wen if it was already too late to fix the past… maybe
naybe there was still time to build something new
Something better.
Something real-
