Chapter 7

Seraphina POV

My slender fingers remained pressed firmly against the center of the alliance treaty. Kaelen froze, the heavy silver pen hovering just inches above the parchment. His obsidian eyes snapped up to meet mine, burning with a lethal mix of impatience and wrath.

My slender fingers remained firmly pressed against the center of the alliance treaty. Kaelen froze, the heavy silver pen hovering inches above the parchment. His obsidian eyes snapped up to meet mine, burning with a deadly mixture of impatience and rage.

"I want to see my son," I said, my voice echoing clearly and absolutely in the silent office. "I want to see Liam."

Kaelen's jaw tightened so hard that a muscle in his cheek twitched violently. The suffocating scent of winter pine and ozone exploded outward as his Alpha aura tried to crush me, to force me into submission. "Seraphina, this is a military alliance between packs. Do not confuse pack business with your past."

"My past is the only reason you have a future," I shot back, leaning slightly forward. My inner wolf, Selene, bared her silver fangs at his arrogance. "Without my signature, this paper is ash. Dominic walks away, and your borders will be overrun by Rogues. You do not rule here, Kaelen. I do."

He stared at me, the broken mate-bond humming a traitorous and painful rhythm beneath our skin. He was looking for the weak, crying Omega he had discarded five years ago, but what he found was a woman forged in the ashes of his "rejection."

Defeated by his own desperation, Kaelen slammed his signature onto the bottom of the parchment. I picked up the pen and mirrored his action. The treaty was sealed.

"Follow me," he growled, turning abruptly.

The private elevator ride to the lower levels was suffocatingly tense. But the moment the metal doors slid open, a sterile, stinging scent of bleach hit me. My lungs contracted. It was the exact same smell from the medical bay where he had shattered my soul and ripped my newborn son from my arms.

Kaelen did not take me to a bright, cheerful nursery. He led me down a restricted, dimly lit corridor and stopped before a thick glass door labeled "Isolation Ward."

"What is this?" I whispered, a cold dread pooling in my stomach.

He did not answer. He pushed the door open.

The rhythmic, monotonous beeping of medical monitors filled the sterile white room. My gaze snapped to the small bed in the center of the room, and the air was violently ripped from my lungs.

*Liam.*

My beautiful baby boy. He was so small, his skin a terrible, translucent pale. Tubes and wires snaked across his fragile chest, connecting him to machines that seemed to breathe for him. He looked nothing like the strong future Alpha he was supposed to be. He looked like he was fading away.

"Liam..." a choked sob tore from my throat. I rushed to the bedside, my trembling hands hovering just above his small, motionless fingertips, afraid that touching him would shatter him.

"The healers say his vitality is declining rapidly," Kaelen's voice came from behind me, devoid of warmth. It was the calculated tone of a predator setting a trap.

"What is wrong with him?" I demanded, tears blurring my vision. "He is an Alpha heir. He should be strong!"

"The toxin that weakens him is a curse on our bloodline," Kaelen said. He stepped closer, his shadow falling over me. "A stain you brought upon us when you lay with another Alpha."

I spun around, staring at him in pure shock.

He still refuses to believe.

Five years. Five years had passed, and he still believed that Dominic was my lover. He still believed that the man in that photograph was a betrayer, not my own brother. Even after I appeared beside Dominic at the gala, even after my brother himself spoke the word "sister," Kaelen still clung to that lie.

"Are you insane?" I hissed. "You heard what Dominic said. You heard him say 'sister.' You signed the treaty. You know who he is. But you still-"

"I know who he is," Kaelen interrupted, his voice low and dangerous. "I know he is the Alpha of the Silverwood Pack. I know he is your brother. But that changes nothing."

I froze. "What?"

"That photograph," he said, his obsidian eyes burning with a twisted, irrational fury. "The way you were with him. The way you leaned on him. The way you looked at him. That is not how a sister looks at a brother."

"That is not what you care about," I said, the truth hitting me like a cold lightning strike. "What you care about is your pride. What you care about is the whole world seeing you 'betrayed.' You would rather believe a lie than admit you were wrong."

His jaw tightened, but he did not deny it.

"You destroyed my life," I said, my voice trembling. "You took my son. You drove me out, with a newborn baby, because of a photograph of me and my brother. You did not even give me a chance to explain."

"You abandoned him," Kaelen said, his voice like a cold blade. "You walked out that door and never looked back."

A blazing, blinding fury exploded in my chest. Selene roared, a pure, unadulterated maternal rage, deafening, shaking every bone in my body.

"I abandoned him?" I hissed, stepping directly into his personal space, completely ignoring the crushing weight of his Alpha aura. I pressed my fingers hard against his solid chest. "You executed the rejection! You handed me a legal document to sign while I was still bleeding on a hospital bed, hours after giving birth! You and your vile family ripped him from my arms! You told me I was not worthy of being his mother because I had 'lain with a strange Alpha'-and that 'strange Alpha' was my own brother!"

I turned back to Liam's bedside, my trembling hand gently stroking his fragile cheek. His skin was cold.

"I think about him every day," I said softly, tears streaming down my face. "Every day. Every night. Every minute. Do you think I wanted to leave him? Do you think I had a choice? You would not even let me take him when you drove me out."

I lifted my head and looked him directly in the eyes.

"You want my blood?" I said. "You want my daughter's bone marrow? Then you had better reconsider your strategy, Alpha. Because if you want to keep living inside the lie you have built for yourself, then I have nothing to give you."

Kaelen froze. Something flickered across his face, something like shock, or maybe... pain. Perhaps, finally, after five years, the truth was beginning to penetrate the thick walls of pride and lies he had constructed.

The room fell silent, save for the monotonous beeping of the medical monitors and the faint sound of my son's breathing.

I knelt beside Liam's bed, took his small hand in mine, and finally, for the first time in five years, I cried.