Chapter 3

That night, I returned to the small lakeside house where I had lived before my marriage.

My parents had moved to their new residence years ago, and the hallways were thick with dust. I had come for one thing.

In the attic, inside a leather trunk, were things Breenda hadn't had time to take when she left.

Some photographs, a few gifts I'd given her, and three journals.

I opened the first page and saw a line written in familiar handwriting.

—"Dear Basil."

Unmistakably Breenda's script.

I kept reading.

"Basil, you came to the house to see Serena again today. Your voice is so gentle when you talk to her. The way you smiled at her made my heart ache. I was in the kitchen washing fruit, and my hands wouldn't stop shaking."

And below that, another entry.

"I know he doesn't belong to me. But I can't stop myself from thinking—if he'd met me first, would everything be different?"

"The bonding ceremony invitation arrived. I locked myself in my room and cried all night."

My hands began to shake. I kept turning pages.

Several pages after that had been torn out.

I opened the second journal. The dates had jumped to just before and after her exile.

"He came to see me. He said he was sorry, said he couldn't go public, but that he would always take care of me."

There was also a photograph.

Breenda and Basil standing shoulder to shoulder beneath the old silver fir in Moonlight Grove. Her head rested lightly against his shoulder, one hand placed on her swollen belly. Both of them smiling.

On the back of the photo, a line scrawled in hasty handwriting: Even if the whole world refuses to acknowledge it, you're mine.

I held the photograph, my fingertips frozen.

So it had started that long ago. And I had been kept in the dark all these years.

Then where was my real child?

I drew a deep breath and sent a message to the operative.

[Investigate the birth records at Delphinium Pack Hospital from eighteen years ago. Full moon day, afternoon to dusk.]

[Also check Breenda's reproductive records in the exile territory. Confirm whether she has any documented delivery.]

The mindlink was about to disconnect when it was pinged again. An emotional surge from Basil's end bled through.

What followed was a barrage of ragged breathing and distorted images flooding my mind—

That was my bedroom.

Breenda sat facing him, straddling Basil's lap. She wore a gown thin as cicada wings, her fingers threaded through his hair.

Basil tilted his head back, both hands gripping her waist, his breathing rough and heavy.

Moonlight fell across them both, their bodies intertwined beyond separation.

I stared at the images, my stomach dropping like a block of ice, nausea surging from the base of my throat.

"Basil..." Her voice dripped, soft as honey. "Did you see Caspian's fur color? It's the perfect blend of both of us."

"Breenda, not here."

"I just want to say..." She leaned down, her lips nearly brushing his—

"You know how much it hurts every time Caspian calls me 'Auntie'? He should be calling me—"

"Breenda!" Basil cut her off, turning his face away.

But the hand gripping her waist never let go.

In that moment, something inside me shattered completely.

What followed was too revolting to watch.

I shut down the link and rushed to the bathroom to vomit.

Again and again I retched, bringing up nothing, only a searing pain that radiated from my chest through every inch of my body.

It was a long time before I could compose myself enough to receive the operative's message.

[Ms. Whitmore, I have results.]

[Breenda Whitmore arrived at the border exile territory eighteen years ago in July. In August, she gave birth to a full-term male infant at a private den. Blood type classified as Alpha.]

[Your delivery-day records at the hospital show two female infants born during the afternoon-to-dusk window. One was classified Beta. The birthing ward was later decommissioned, and most files were lost.]

[However, in November of that same year, when Breenda next traveled to the border, she was accompanied by a female infant approximately five months old.]

[That girl currently performs hard labor at the lowest-tier slag mines on the border. Her physical condition is extremely poor—multiple old injuries, severe malnutrition, near-total social withdrawal. Breenda collects the majority of her wages each month through a middleman.]

Attached at the end were several photographs.

A skeletal girl hauling broken stone at the edge of a mine pit. Her forearms covered in bruises and old scars.

Another image: she was curled up on a broken stool in some corner, expressionless, gnawing on cold scraps.

In that instant, a hatred so vast it blotted out the sky swallowed me whole.

I wept for a long time, until my tears ran dry and nothing remained in my chest but a searing, blunt ache.

Then I stood up. I gathered every piece of evidence—the journals, the photographs, the recorded link images, the intelligence files—and transmitted the entire package to the pack's judicial arbiter.

After that, I contacted Ronan Nightveil again.

"Tomorrow I'll formally sign the transfer contract. But I have one condition—Delphinium Pack must be completely destroyed."

A low chuckle came through the link, followed by Ronan's calm, unwavering voice.

"Done."

Basil, I lifted you to every height you ever reached. And I will make sure the fall is just as far.