The cold November wind hit my face the second I stepped out of the revolving doors.
I didn't feel it.
My hands shook.
Not from cold.
From rage. From fear. From something I couldn't name.
Aria was alive.
Five years I carried that guilt.
Five years I woke up from nightmares seeing her small body torn by rogues, blood on the leaves.
Five years I told myself the Moon Goddess punished me by taking her away.
And she had been here the whole time.
In New York.
Wearing red lipstick and diamonds and hate in her eyes.
I pulled out my phone with fingers that didn't feel like mine.
"Damon," I barked the second my beta picked up.
"I want everything on Eva Voss. Everything. Where she was born, where she studied, every man she dated, every cent in her accounts. I want it on my desk in two hours."
"Alpha… are you okay? You sound—"
"Now, Damon!"
I hung up.
I looked back up at the glass tower. Sixty-eight floors of lies.
My wolf clawed inside my chest.
Mate. Mate. MATE.
I had rejected her.
I had broken the bond.
It should be dead.
So why did it feel stronger than ever?
I turned to walk to the car.
Then I realized I left my coat inside.
Stupid. Careless.
I stormed back through the lobby, past the scared receptionist, straight to the private elevator.
The doors opened.
I stepped in.
And heard running footsteps.
Small ones.
(Mommy! Look what I drew!)
The elevator doors started to close.
A tiny boy in a navy coat dashed straight toward the gap.
He was fast (too fast for a human child).
He slammed into my legs just as the doors shut behind him.
The elevator began to rise.
I looked down.
Black curly hair. Round cheeks.
And when he lifted his face…
Ice-blue eyes.
Exactly like mine.
The world stopped spinning.
He held up a piece of paper, grinning with two missing front teeth.
"Mister, look! I drew a big wolf! It's Mommy's favorite!"
The drawing was crayon on white paper: a huge black wolf with a red heart on its chest.
I couldn't breathe.
He tilted his head.
"Your eyes are the same as mine," he said, curious and happy. "Are you a wolf too?"
My knees almost gave out.
I crouched slowly, like the boy would disappear if I moved too fast.
"What's your name, kid?"
"Leo!" he said proudly. "Leo Voss! I'm five and a half."
Voss.
Eva Voss.
My heart exploded.
"Leo… who is your mommy?"
"Mommy is the prettiest and strongest! She makes shiny things for princesses!"
The elevator dinged. 68th floor.
The doors slid open.
And there she was.
Aria (Eva) stood in the hallway, face white as death.
Her eyes went from me to the boy and back again.
Terror. Pure terror.
"Leo!"
She ran forward, faster than any human should, and snatched him into her arms.
Leo giggled. "Mommy, I found a man with my eyes!"
She pressed him tight against her chest, hiding his face in her neck.
Her gaze locked on me.
Green fire. Panic. Murder.
"Get away from my son," she hissed, voice shaking.
I couldn't move.
Five years old.
Five and a half, he said.
The night I rejected her… three days before she ran… we had been together in the woods.
My brain did the math before my heart could stop it.
I took one step forward.
She took one step back.
"Aria…" My voice came out broken. "Who… is… he?"
She hugged Leo tighter.
Her chin lifted. The queen was back.
"He is my son," she said, cold and clear. "Mine. Only mine."
Leo peeked over her shoulder.
"Mommy, why are you scared? He looks nice."
I wanted to fall to my knees.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to pull them both into my arms and never let go.
But her eyes warned me: touch him and I will kill you.
"Leo," she said softly, never looking away from me, "go to Claire. Right now."
"But my drawing—"
"Now, baby."
Leo pouted but obeyed. He wriggled down and ran past me into the office.
The second he was gone, the hallway became a battlefield.
I took another step.
"Don't," she warned.
"Aria—"
"My name is Eva."
"Is he mine?" The words tore out of my throat like glass.
She laughed, bitter and sharp.
"You lost the right to ask that question the night you called me weak and walked away with Scarlett."
"I thought you were dead!"
"You hoped I was dead."
She stepped closer, voice low and deadly. "You wanted me gone so you wouldn't feel guilty anymore."
"That's not—"
"Five years, Ryan. Five years I raised him alone. I bled for him. I cried for him. I built everything from nothing so he would never know what it feels like to be rejected by his own father."
Tears shone in her eyes, but none fell.
She was stronger than I ever was.
I reached out, helpless.
"Please… let me—"
"No."
She slapped my hand away. "You don't get to swoop in like some hero. You don't get to play daddy because you saw matching eyes."
"Aria—"
"Stop saying that name!"
She was breathing hard now. "Aria died in the rain. Eva survived. And Leo belongs to Eva."
I stared at her, chest heaving.
Behind us, Claire's nervous voice: "Ms. Voss? Security is—"
"Tell them to stand down," Eva said without turning. "I'm handling this."
She looked back at me.
One last time.
"You want the truth, Alpha?"
She smiled, and it cut deeper than any claw. "Yes. He's yours. Biologically. But you will never be his father. Fathers don't throw their mates away like trash."
She turned to leave.
I grabbed her wrist.
She froze.
"Let go," she whispered.
"I'm sorry," I said, voice cracking. "I'm so fucking sorry."
She looked down at my hand on her skin.
Sparks danced again. The bond howled.
She pulled free.
"Sorry doesn't bring back the girl who cried in the mud.
Sorry doesn't erase the nights I thought about ending it all while he kicked inside me."
She stepped back.
"Stay away from us, Ryan. Or I swear on the Moon Goddess, I will disappear again. And this time, you will never find us."
She walked away.
Heels clicking. Back straight. Queen of ice and fire.
The elevator doors closed between us.
I stood there alone in the hallway that smelled like her perfume and my nightmares.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
Damon: Found something. Eva Voss has no past before five years ago. Literally nothing. Like she was born the day she arrived in New York.
I laughed once, broken and hollow.
Of course she erased herself.
She erased me.
I looked at the closed office door where my son (my son) was waiting for a mother who hated me.
I slid down the wall until I sat on the cold marble floor.
And for the first time since I became Alpha,
Ryan Blackwood cried.