But all Elaine could feel was confusion, pain, and raw disbelief. The mate bond shouldn’t still exist… not after all this time.
“Mommy, who is he?” Nathan asked quietly, his wide eyes darting between the men.
Elaine crouched beside him, her hand gently smoothing his hair. “He is the Alpha of this pack, Nathan. Alpha Michael. Say hello.”
Nathan straightened, his little chest puffing out proudly. “Hello, Alpha Michael. My name is Nathan. It’s nice to meet you! When I grow up, I’ll be an Alpha too-just like my daddy.”
??/p>
He grinned, hugging Darius’s leg.
Both Elaine and Darius couldn’t help but smile softly at their son’s innocence. The moment was heartbreakingly pure amid the tension thickening around them.
Darius’s gaze lifted, meeting Michael’s squarely.
“Alpha Michael,” he said evenly, voice steady and commanding. “As I’ve said before, Elaine is here for Roselyn. Nothing else.”
Michael’s jaw tightened. “But-“
“But nothing,” Darius interrupted, his tone hardening. The Alpha aura in him flared subtly, the air around them pulsing with power. “I know this is your pack, but if you cannot respect Elaine’s wish to be left alone, we will leave right now.”
The two Alphas stared at each other-silent, locked in a battle of dominance that went far deeper than territory. Between them stood Elaine, her heart torn between the life she built… and the one she left behind.
And as the wind whispered through the pines, the forest seemed to hold its breath.
As Darius, Elaine, and Nathan leave-no doubt heading toward the cabin where Roselyn now stayed-the silence that fell over the Silverblade Pack House was heavier than any storm. The last fading hum of the engine dissolved into the distance, swallowed by the trees. What lingered behind was a silence filled with ghosts-the kind that pressed on the chest, thick and suffocating.
The late afternoon light dimmed, shadows stretching long across the courtyard. A breeze stirred the fallen leaves, their rustling whisper the only sound left in the wake of Elaine’s return.
Michael stood motionless at the top of the stone steps, staring after the disappearing car as though sheer will alone could bring it back. His hands were clenched so tightly at his sides that his knuckles turned bone-white, veins straining beneath the skin. His chest rose and fell unevenly, each breath jagged with restraint. The Alpha in him demanded control, demanded composure-but the man beneath that title was unraveling.
Every part of him screamed to go after her.
To demand answers.
To touch her, just once, and see if what he felt was just an illusion.
Because he had felt it. The pull. The spark of the bond that should have died long ago. It had been faint-like a heartbeat buried under years of silence-but it was still there. That invisible thread that had once tied their souls together.
He closed his eyes, his jaw tightening. Darius’s scent still hung in the air-strong, territorial, protective. Nathan’s laughter, light and innocent, still echoed faintly between the stone walls. Those two sounds-the scent of another Alpha and the voice of a child that wasn’t supposed to exist-cut deeper than any blade.
“How can this be possible, Kathy?” Michael’s voice broke the stillness, rough with disbelief. The mate bond… it’s still there. And Nathan-” He stopped, shaking his head as if the words themselves were too heavy to say.
“Elaine suffered a miscarriage. How is any of this possible?”
Kathy, who had been standing a few paces behind him, stepped closer. Her face was pale, eyes glossy with confusion and sympathy. “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “None of this makes sense.”
Michael turned slightly toward her, his expression hard but pained. “Kathy, you and I agreed to respect Elaine’s privacy. We told Darius we wouldn’t try to talk to her. But this-” He
” exhaled sharply, raking a hand through his hair. “This isn’t just about privacy anymore.”
Kathy nodded slowly. “As Alpha and Luna of Silverblade, we can’t ignore it. But still, Michael, I don’t want to cause her more pain. Not after everything she went through.”
He looked at her then, eyes storm-dark and distant. “You think I want to? Seeing her again…” His voice faltered, then steadied with quiet resolve. “I wasn’t expecting to feel anything other than guilt.
But definitely not the mate bond”
He looked down at his hands, remembering the way her scent hit him the moment she stepped out of the car. Familiar, haunting.
The way her eyes widened when she saw him.
The way she trembled when the bond sparked between them.
He swallowed hard. “And yet… it’s not just her. It’s the boy too.”
Kathy blinked, startled. “Nathan?”
Michael’s gaze lifted slowly, filled with a strange, haunted certainty. “When he stood there- when he looked at me-I felt it. A pull. A connection I can’t explain. Like a tether, faint but real.
It’s not my imagination, Kathy. I could feel him.”
“But-” Kathy hesitated, her brow furrowing. “Elaine miscarried. The healers confirmed it. You saw what it did to her… how she left with Darius.
There’s no way-“
“I know what I saw. And what I felt,” Michael cut in, his voice tightening with restrained emotion. “Darius may be raising him. He may even believe Nathan is his. But the bond doesn’t lie.
That child…” He paused, the words heavy on his tongue. “That child might be mine.”
Kathy’s eyes widened. “Michael… what are you saying?”
He turned away, staring into the darkening forest where the car had vanished. “I’m saying that something is wrong here. Deeply wrong. The bond between Elaine and me was supposed to be broken when she left-when I rejected her. But it wasn’t.
It’s faint, yes, but it’s still there. And now there’s a boy who carries both her scent and my connection.”
For a moment, neither spoke. The only sound was the wind brushing through the trees and the distant call of a hawk overhead. The weight of his words hung between them, heavy and electric.
Finally, Michael spoke again, voice hardening with resolve. “I need answers. I need to talk to Councilor Lucius. He’s the only one who might know how this is possible-why the bond never died.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.