CONNOR POV
Connor wakes up reaching for her.
His hand finds empty sheets and cold mattress. For exactly three seconds, he forgets she's gone. For three seconds, his body remembers what it feels like to have a mate. Then reality crashes back and the ache returns.
It's been three months since Maya walked out.
He lies there in the dark and tries to remember what it felt like to not hurt. That feeling is gone. It's replaced by something that tastes like rust and regret.
His wolf is pacing inside him. It's been pacing for three months. Every night. Every morning. Every moment in between. It wants her. It doesn't care about the rejection papers or the council approval. It just knows that its mate is gone and that's wrong on a fundamental level that Connor can't fix.
He gets out of bed and moves through the dark house like a ghost.
The hallway outside their bedroom is lined with doors. Each one opens to a room Maya used to spend time in. The library where she read books about pack politics because she thought it would make him proud. The sitting room where she waited for him at night. The sunroom where she used to paint landscapes even though she said she wasn't an artist.
All of those rooms are empty now. All of those versions of Maya are gone.
Connor stands in the doorway of the sunroom and remembers the last time she painted. It was maybe two weeks before she asked for rejection. She was painting the ocean even though they lived in the mountains. He'd asked why and she'd said something about remembering what freedom looked like.
He'd been too busy to listen.
The canvas is still there. Half finished. Blues and greens and whites that never became the ocean she wanted.
Connor closes the door and tells himself he deserves this pain.
At the office, Derek tries to approach him about business. Territory disputes. Financial reports. Things that matter.
Connor doesn't care about any of it.
"We need to address the coastal pack borders," Derek says. He's been saying this for weeks. "They're pushing boundaries again. We need to show strength."
"Send them a message," Connor says without looking up from his desk. "Tell them we'll negotiate next quarter."
"That's weakness," Derek says. "That's the kind of thing that gets taken advantage of."
Connor finally looks at his Gamma. Derek has been his friend since childhood. Derek is the only one he's actually talked to about Maya. And Derek is tired of watching him fall apart.
"I don't care," Connor says quietly. "Not right now."
Derek sits down across from him. "You have to let her go. You have to move forward."
"I'm trying," Connor says. But he's not trying. He's just existing. Waking up. Working. Going to bed. Waking up again.
The council summons him the next week.
They want him to take a new mate. Someone from a strong pack. Someone who can cement Blackwood's position. They suggest names. Bloodlines. Political advantages.
Connor says no to all of them.
"The rejection is complete," Elder Richard says. He's one of the council members but also Connor's father. "The mate bond is dissolved. You're free to move forward."
"I'm not ready," Connor says.
"You don't have time to be ready," another council member snaps. "The pack needs an Alpha with a Luna. You need to fulfill your responsibilities."
Connor stands. His wolf is close to the surface. Too close. He can feel his eyes flash gold and the council members take a step back.
"I will decide when I'm ready to take another mate," Connor says coldly. "And it's not now."
He walks out before anyone can argue.
That night, he doesn't sleep. He sits in his office and pulls out the rejection papers. He reads them over and over like they might say something different. Like Maya's signature might tell him what he did wrong.
His wolf howls inside him.
The next morning, he makes a decision.
He's going to find her.
He calls in favors. He hires investigators. He puts out quiet inquiries to packs across the country. He doesn't care about the cost. He doesn't care about anything except finding Maya and understanding why she left.
The investigators come back empty.
No credit card charges. No bank withdrawals. No phone activity. It's like she disappeared completely.
But someone knows something. Someone helped her. And Connor is going to find out who.
Six months pass.
Connor's life becomes a routine of work and searching and trying not to think about what it means that his mate has vanished completely. He negotiates treaties with shaking hands. He makes decisions that affect hundreds of lives while his brain is somewhere else entirely.
Derek keeps telling him to move forward.
"She doesn't want to be found," Derek says one night. They're drinking whiskey in Connor's office. "You have to accept that."
"I can't," Connor says simply. "I can't accept that I destroyed something and just let it stay destroyed."
A year passes.
Connor is officially recognized as one of the strongest alphas in the northwest. Blackwood Pack is thriving. Finances are stable. Territory is secure. Everything he's supposed to care about is perfect.
His personal life is a catastrophe.
He's rejected seventeen potential mates. His wolf refuses every one. The council is getting impatient. His father is disappointed.
Connor doesn't care. His wolf only wants the one mate he destroyed.
He still reaches for her in the morning. He still remembers where she used to sit. He still feels the phantom weight of her hand in his.
And every single day, the regret gets deeper.
Two years pass.
Connor has built an empire while slowly dying inside. Nobody knows. He's good at hiding it. He's good at compartmentalizing. He learned that skill early from his father. You separate the person from the leader. You hide the broken parts and show the strong parts.
But Derek knows. Derek has always known.
"You're not living," Derek tells him. "You're just existing. You need to find her or you need to let her go. But you can't keep doing this."
Connor finally makes the call.
He contacts every pack in the northwest region. He asks them to look for a woman named Maya. Mid-twenties. Probably hiding her wolf nature. Possibly pregnant or with a young child.
Most packs refuse to help. It's not their business. It's not their responsibility.
But the coastal pack leader, a man named Marcus Dane, agrees to help.
"I'll look into it," Marcus says over the phone. "No promises though. If she's hiding, she's hiding for a reason."
Connor waits. For weeks, he waits.
Then Marcus calls back.
"Found her," Marcus says simply. "She's been in Crescent Bay for two years. Running a bakery. Seems to be living quietly. She has a daughter."
A daughter.
Connor's entire world stops.
"What?" he says.
"A daughter," Marcus repeats. "Two years old. Has your eyes actually. Green like storm clouds. She's definitely Blackwood bloodline."
Connor can't breathe. He can't think. He can't do anything except process the fact that he has a daughter he didn't know about.
A child that Maya carried alone. A child she's been raising without him. A child he's never met.
"I'm coming to the summit," Connor says into the phone.
"Good idea," Marcus says. "You might want to prepare yourself though. She's not going to react well to you showing up. She's built a life there. She's got friends. She's got community. Finding you might destroy that."
"I don't care," Connor says. And he means it. "She's my mate. That child is my daughter. I'm not letting either of them go again."
Marcus is quiet for a moment. "You need to understand something," he says finally. "She left you for a reason. She ran and hid and built a life without you. Whatever you think you're going to walk into, it's probably going to be worse than you imagine."
"I don't care," Connor repeats. "I'm coming."
He hangs up and immediately starts making arrangements.
The summit announcement comes through official channels a week later. Four packs gathering in Crescent Bay. Connor volunteers immediately.
His father is surprised.
"Why do you care about this summit?" Richard asks. "You've been ignoring pack business for months."
"It matters to me," Connor says. And that's all the explanation he gives.
For the next three weeks, Connor prepares.
He tells himself he'll keep it professional. He tells himself he won't overwhelm her. He tells himself he'll be respectful of the life she's built.
He's lying to himself and he knows it.
Because the second he sees her again, all of that goes away. The second he looks at her face, all the pain of the last two years is going to come pouring out.
And the second he sees his daughter, everything changes.
The night before he leaves for Crescent Bay, Connor sits alone in his office.
He thinks about the man he was when Maya left. Cold. Focused. Certain that the pack mattered more than anything else.
That man is dead.
What's left is someone broken and desperate and willing to burn everything down to get his mate and daughter back.
He's spent two years building an empire. He's about to spend the next month trying to rebuild a family.
And he has no idea if Maya will even let him try.
The phone buzzes with a message from Marcus.
"She knows you're coming. She's terrified. Be careful with her, Connor. She's stronger than she looks but she's also more broken than you probably realize."
Connor reads the message and realizes he has no idea who Maya has become.
He knows who she was. The girl who tried too hard. The mate who waited too long. The woman who asked for her freedom.
He doesn't know who she is now. He doesn't know the woman who built a bakery alone. The mother who raised a child without pack support. The person who's been surviving two years in hiding.
That woman is going to be a stranger to him.
And he has no idea if she'll want to know him.
He packs his bag for the summit and tells himself he's prepared for anything.
He's lying.
Because nothing is going to prepare him for the moment he walks into her bakery and sees her standing there. Nothing is going to prepare him for meeting his daughter.
And nothing is going to prepare him for what comes next.
His phone buzzes one more time.
It's from an unknown number. A woman's voice on a voicemail.
"Hello, Alpha Blackwood. This is Vanessa Stone from Blackwood Pack. I'm coming to the summit too. I think it's time you understand exactly what you destroyed when you rejected Maya Grant. See you soon."
Connor listens to the message three times.
Vanessa is coming.
Which means the council sent her.
Which means this summit isn't just about seeing Maya and his daughter.
It's about something bigger. Something darker.
And he has no idea what he's about to walk into.