"Any change, Alpha?" Kane's voice was low, hesitant, from the doorway of the nursery. Weeks had passed since the silence fell over the manor, a heavy shroud of grief replacing the tension. Weeks since Darius walked out of that room holding one small bundle, leaving behind what he believed was everything else.
Darius didn't turn from the crib. He stood over it, watching the tiny face of his surviving son, his heir. His face was drawn, his golden eyes shadowed, filled with a raw, terrifying emptiness. "No change, Kane. He is sleeping." His voice was rough, unused.
The manor felt broken. The pack mourned with their Alpha, their earlier misjudgments of Ariana replaced by a deep, aching respect and sorrow for the Luna they had lost just as they were finally beginning to know her. Amara stood guard outside the nursery door, her loyalty absolute, her heart aching for her Alpha and the lost life.
Vincent Blackthorn moved through the grieving manor with a chilling composure. He found Darius in the nursery, the air thick with unspoken sorrow.
"Still here, son?" Vincent's voice was soft, carefully modulated to sound sympathetic.
Darius didn't look at him. "Where else would I be?"
Vincent walked closer, looking into the crib. "She gave you a fine boy, A strong heir. He will do you proud." He placed a hand on Darius's shoulder, a gesture of comfort that felt cold and calculating. "I feel for him His mother... and the other twin." He sighed, a carefully constructed sound of sorrow. "Life can be cruel. Especially when dealing with... fragility."
"She wasn't weak,Why do you keep saying that" Darius growled, the first sign of fire in his voice. "When you knew She was poisoned. By them." His gaze hardened, fixed on his son's face. "Elena. Her parents. They did this. They weakened her system. Caused the complications." His rage towards the Cummings was a cold, burning fire beneath his grief. He didn't know Lila's specific, active role in the lie told during the birth, or that she believed she had successfully eliminated Ariana and the second twin herself. He blamed them for the cause, believing the birth complications were the result.
"That's the cause, yes," Vincent agreed smoothly, his eyes holding a cold calculation that Darius, consumed by grief, missed entirely. Vincent believed the 'Key' was now dormant, contained within the surviving heir. Ariana's potentially disruptive influence was removed. The 'problematic' second twin was gone . His immediate plan had been messy, yes, but the surviving heir was secure. He was unaware that Dominic Fenrir had intercepted the 'discarded' pieces of his plan. Vincent focused his efforts on the future, subtly guiding conversations towards the 'legacy' of the heir. "He must be raised strong, Darius. According to the ancient ways. His potential..is. immense."
"Potential, I don't give an F about potential" Darius repeated flatly, looking at his son. "All I care about is protecting him. Keeping him safe." He spent hours in the nursery, watching the small face, seeing Ariana in the set of his eyes, the curve of his lip. He talked to the baby boy in low whispers. "You look just like her. Just like your mother. I'll protect you. With my life. You're all I have left of her." He vowed to honor Ariana's memory through their son.
Reports filtered back about Elena.
"Alpha?" Lucien hesitated, finding Darius by a window overlooking the snow-dusted gardens. "Reports from the edge of Fenrir's territory. Elena... she's been sighted again with his rogues."
Darius's golden eyes hardened, cold and dangerous. "With him?"
"Looks like it," Lucien confirmed, his face grim. "After her escape... it seems she really went straight to them just as we thought."
Darius turned from the window, his voice icy. "Another betrayal. A co-conspirator in the end." He assumed she was a willing participant in his enemy's pack, another calculated move. He didn't know the brutal reality of her situation – her enslavement, her humiliation in Fenrir's den. He saw her only as a traitor, someone directly involved in the events that had led to Ariana's death.
He commissioned a memorial for Ariana and the lost twin, a quiet place in the most beautiful part of the manor gardens, near the roses Ariana loved. A simple stone marker. He visited it daily, sitting in the cold air, talking to the empty space, talking to her.
"I loved you," he whispered, his voice raw with loss, tears tracing paths down his face. "Goddess, Ariana, I loved you. I didn't know how much until... until you were gone." He relived their moments together – the tense first meeting, the quiet moments in the library where he watched her, the shift in his feelings, the overwhelming rush of protectiveness during her labor. He had fallen for the quiet, strong woman beneath the facade of weakness. And she was gone. Believed gone.
He sat there, mourning the woman he had come to love, the twin he believed he had lost. This tragedy was a wound that would define him, shaping him into a fiercer, more guarded Alpha, consumed by loss and the fierce protection of the son he believed was all he had left of Ariana. He was unaware that miles away, the woman he mourned was alive, holding one of his children, their twin , her memory a blank slate, watched over by the very rogue who had orchestrated attacks against him and now held his most precious prize.