POV - Elara
The book almost fell on little Tommy's head.
I'd been looking at nothing, my hand frozen in the middle of shelving, when the heavy hardcover slipped from my fingers. Tommy yelped and jumped back, his eyes wide. I grabbed it before it crashed to the floor, my heart pounding.
"Sorry, buddy," I said, faking a smile at the seven-year-old rogue kid. "Mommy was daydreaming."
He giggled and ran off to find his friends. I breathed slowly, pressing the book against my chest. This was the third time this week I'd nearly hurt a child because my thought had wandered somewhere I didn't want to go.
Three years of peace, Elara. Three years, I told myself firmly. That was enough. It had to be enough.
The Greywater Hollow library was my refuge. Dusty shelves, the smell of old paper, sunlight streaming through windows that viewed the mountains—this was where I'd rebuilt myself from nothing. After I'd left the Blackthorn territory with nothing but a backpack and shattered dreams, this library had saved me. Teaching young rogues to read and love books gave my life meaning again.
I was nobody important here. That was the beauty of it.
"You're doing it again," a voice said softly.
I turned to find Cassian leaning against the doorframe, a bag of groceries in each arm. His dark hair fell over his eyes as he smiled at me—that gentle, understanding smile that had become my anchor. At twenty-eight, he moved through the world like he didn't want to upset anything. Like he was afraid of breaking things.
Unlike the man I'd known before. Unlike the man whose name I never said out loud anymore.
"Doing what?" I asked, even though I knew exactly what he meant.
"That thing where you go far away without leaving the room," Cassian said, setting the groceries on the library desk. "You look sad. You should smile more."
He wasn't wrong. I forced another smile, this one warmer. "Better?"
"Much better." He kissed the top of my head—something so easy and safe and nothing like the desperate, hungry kisses I'd known three years ago. I pushed that thought away like I always did.
"Is Maya here?" he asked, already looking toward the children's corner.
"Drawing," I said. "She's been pretty quiet today."
Cassian walked over to where our daughter sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by colored pencils and paper. Maya was three years old, with pale skin, dark hair, and silver eyes that made people stare. Beautiful in a way that sometimes made my chest hurt. When she looked at me with those eyes, I saw him. I always saw him.
I shouldn't have let her stay this quiet for so long. Children were supposed to be loud, weren't they? "Drawing Daddy again?" Cassian asked, kneeling beside her with the same warmth he showed every kid in Greywater Hollow.
Maya shook her head, her pencil still moving across the paper. "No. Drawing the other daddy. The sad one who lives in the snow."
The library stopped operating.
My hearing went weird—everything became loud and quiet at the same time. The other kids playing in the corner sounded like they were underwater. The wind outside the window turned into something threatening.
"What did you say?" My voice came out strange, like someone else was speaking through me.
Maya looked up, her silver eyes meeting mine. "The other daddy. I see him sometimes when I sleep. He's very sad, Mommy. He has a big scar on his face, and he lives in a really cold place."
No. No, no, no.
I crossed the room too fast, my legs moving before my brain caught up. I sat down and gently took the drawing from Maya's small hands. My fingers were shaking.
It was him.
Every single detail was him. The dark hair. The sharp mouth. The silver eyes that had looked at me like I was the only woman who'd ever existed. The exact scar—a crescent moon shape—that I'd traced with my fingers in the dark, three years ago, when I'd thought we had a future.
Alpha Kieran Blackthorn. Drawn by his daughter, who'd never even seen his face.
"How do you know what he looks like?" I whispered.
"I don't know," Maya said simply. "I just see him in my dreams. He's always looking for something. He's always so sad, Mommy. Can we help him?"
Cassian had gone completely still behind us. I could feel the sudden stress radiating from him like heat from a fire. When I looked back at him, his face had changed. The gentle, easy smile was gone. Now he looked scared.
"Elara," he said softly. "We need to talk."
"Right now?" I managed.
"Right now," he stated. "It's important. It's... it's something I should have told you a long time ago."
Before I could reply, the library doors burst open with so much force that books shook on their shelves. The children screamed. The temperature dropped like someone had opened a door to winter itself.
A young rogue named Jake stumbled inside, his eyes wide with fear.
"They're coming," he gasped. "Big fighters on wolves. Not from our pack. They're looking for someone. They're asking about an omega with a child."
My blood froze.
Cassian moved instantly, pulling me and Maya close. His body went stiff in a way that meant he was ready to fight.
"How many?" he asked.
"Six," Jake said. "Maybe more coming. They have shooters' marks. Council marks. They're asking questions about a woman who came here three years ago. Pregnant. Alone."
The room was spinning.
I looked at Maya's drawing again—at Kieran's sad face, at his strong shoulders, at the way she'd captured the loneliness in his expression. A three-year-old child drawing a man she'd never met. A three-year-old child drawing a man the High Council was now looking for.
"Elara," Cassian said, holding my shoulders. "Listen to me. I need you to take Maya and go upstairs to the reading room. Lock the door. Don't come out, no matter what you hear. Promise me."
"What's happening?" I asked. "Who are these people? Why are they looking for me?"
"Because," a new voice said from the doorway, so cold and sharp it could cut glass, "you're carrying something that doesn't belong to you."
A tall woman with dark eyes and a cruel smile stepped inside. Behind her stood the six warriors Jake had described. They looked dangerous. Professional. Paid.
"Victoria Ashcroft," Cassian breathed, and I'd never heard such horror in a person's voice. "You shouldn't be here."
Victoria's smile widened. "You think I care about pack area laws? I'm here on Council order." She looked straight at me. "And you, little omega, are about to make a very hard choice."
She motioned to the warriors. They started moving toward us.
"Run!" Cassian shouted, pushing me toward the stairs.
Everything was happening too fast. Maya was crying. The soldiers were advancing. Cassian was placing himself between us and the danger. I grabbed my daughter and ran for the stairs, not understanding what was happening, only knowing that everything I'd built was crashing down.
As I reached the stairs, I heard Cassian yell one more thing: "They know about the bond, Elara! They know what Maya is!"
And then, over the sound of the children screaming, over the crashing of furniture, over my own rushing heartbeat, I heard something that made my soul stop cold:
A roar that shook the entire building. A roar so powerful that dust fell from the roof. An Alpha roar. And underneath it, one word that rang through the library like thunder: "ELARA!"
He'd found me.
After three years of running, of hiding, of trying to erase him from my life, Kieran Blackthorn had found me. And from the raw need in his voice, I knew that everything I'd hidden—the pregnancy, the baby, the three years of exile—was about to crash into my face.