ELENA'S POV - THREE YEARS AFTER THE TRIALS
"Mommy, where's our daddy?"
Aria's question hits me like a punch to the chest. I'm halfway through making breakfast when my four-year-old daughter looks up at me with those huge hazel eyes—Chase's eyes—and asks the one question I've been dreading.
The spatula slips from my hand and clatters against the stove.
"What?" I manage to say.
"Our daddy." Aria tilts her head, studying me with that unnerving wisdom she's had since birth. "Emma at preschool says everyone has a mommy and daddy. Where's ours?"
Aiden looks up from his coloring book, instantly protective. "We don't need a daddy. We have Mommy and Marcus and Sage and everyone who loves us."
My heart swells with pride at my son's fierce loyalty, but Aria won't let it go.
"But we had one, right?" she presses. "Before?"
I crouch down to their level, forcing a smile. "He couldn't stay, baby. Sometimes grown-ups make choices that take them away."
"Did he not want us?" Aria's voice is so small it breaks something inside me.
"No!" I say too quickly, too desperately. "No, sweetie. He didn't know about you. He left before—" I stop myself. How do I explain rejection to a four-year-old? "He left before he could meet you."
"So he doesn't know we exist?" Aiden's face scrunches up in confusion. "That's silly. We're the best kids ever."
Despite everything, I laugh. "You absolutely are."
Aria reaches out and touches my hand. Her little palm is warm, and suddenly I feel that familiar tingle—her empathetic abilities activating.
"You still miss him," she whispers, and her eyes fill with tears that mirror emotions she's pulling from me. "You're sad inside. All the time."
My throat closes. "No, sweetie. I don't miss him."
But Aria's gift doesn't let her believe lies, especially not from her own mother.
"You do," she insists. "I can feel it. It's like—like a big hole in your heart that hurts."
"Aria, stop it," Aiden snaps, moving to stand between us. "You're making Mommy sad with your weird feelings thing."
"I'm not making her sad! She already IS sad!" Aria's voice rises, frustrated that her brother doesn't understand.
"Kids, please—" I start.
A knock on the door interrupts us.
Marcus enters without waiting for permission, his massive frame filling the doorway. "Boss, we have a problem."
I stand immediately, shifting into Alpha mode. "What kind of problem?"
"The Continental Summit kind." Marcus's face is grim. "You got the official invitation. It's mandatory attendance for all recognized Alphas."
My stomach drops. The Continental Summit. Where every Alpha in North America gathers.
Where Chase will be.
I haven't seen him in three years. Not since the Blood Moon Trials, where I barely survived but won my right to keep my children and my pack. Not since I looked him in the eye and told him to never contact me again.
"I don't have to go," I say, but even I don't believe it.
"You do," Marcus corrects gently. "New Council law. Every Alpha attends or loses their recognition. No exceptions."
"When?"
"Two weeks."
I sink back against the counter, my mind racing. Two weeks. Fourteen days to prepare to see the man who shattered my world. The father my children don't know exists.
"You could tell him," Marcus says quietly, reading my thoughts. "About the twins."
"No." My answer is immediate and final.
"Elena—"
"He rejected me, Marcus. He chose someone else. He doesn't get to know about them now just because it's convenient." I glance at Aria and Aiden, who are watching with wide eyes. "They're mine. Only mine."
"Except they're asking questions now," Marcus points out. "Questions that'll get harder to answer."
Before I can respond, Sage bursts through the door, her red hair wild and her face pale.
"Elena, we need to talk. Now. Privately."
Something in her tone makes my wolf bristle with alarm. I turn to Marcus. "Can you watch them?"
"Of course. Come on, monsters. Let's go feed the pack's chickens."
The twins cheer and run off with Marcus, their troubling questions temporarily forgotten.
The moment they're gone, Sage grabs my arm. "I've been researching your bloodline like you asked. Digging into your family history to understand why you have that silver Luna magic."
"And?"
"And I found something." Sage pulls out a worn leather journal. "This belonged to your grandmother. Elena, she was part of the Moon Goddess's original bloodline—the First Wolves. Just like I suspected."
"We knew that already," I say impatiently.
"But we didn't know THIS." Sage opens the journal to a marked page. "Your grandmother had a mate. A powerful Alpha named Alexander Rex."
The room spins. "Rex? As in—"
"Chase's grandfather." Sage's voice is barely a whisper. "Elena, you and Chase aren't just fated mates by chance. Your bloodlines were bound together generations ago. Your grandmother and his grandfather were true mates who were separated by war."
I stumble backward, my mind reeling. "That's impossible."
"It's not. Look." She shows me a photograph tucked in the journal—a young woman who looks exactly like me, standing beside a man with Chase's storm-gray eyes and black hair.
"The Moon Goddess bonds bloodlines across generations," Sage continues urgently. "When true mates are separated before completing the bond, their descendants are fated to find each other. To finish what was started."
"So Chase and I—"
"Were destined to meet. Destined to mate. Destined to create children who carry both the First Wolf bloodline and the Rex Alpha bloodline." Sage grips my shoulders. "Elena, your twins aren't just special. They're the fulfillment of a bond that's been waiting seventy years to complete."
"No." I shake my head violently. "No, that can't be true. Chase rejected me. If we were really destined—"
"Free will exists even in destiny," Sage says sadly. "He made the wrong choice. But the bond doesn't care. It's still there, waiting. And Elena"—her voice drops—"if you go to that Summit and see him again, the bond will try to reestablish itself. Your wolf will recognize him. His wolf will recognize you."
"I can handle it," I say through clenched teeth.
"Can you? Because according to this journal, when separated true mates from bound bloodlines see each other again after children are born, the mate bond becomes ten times stronger. It's the Moon Goddess's way of forcing completion."
My hands start shaking. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that the moment Chase sees you with those twins—the moment he realizes they're his and that they carry both bloodlines—the incomplete bond will snap into place like a steel trap." Sage's eyes fill with tears. "And neither of you will be able to fight it. Not with magic, not with willpower, not with anything."
"So I'm trapped," I whisper. "After everything he did, after three years of building my life without him, I'm just—trapped?"
"Unless—" Sage hesitates.
"Unless what?"
"Unless you complete the rejection ritual properly. With both parties present and the twins there as witnesses. It's the only way to permanently sever a generational bond."
"Then that's what I'll do," I say firmly. "I'll go to the Summit. I'll find Chase. And I'll end this once and for all."
Sage looks at me with pity. "Elena, the ritual requires you to stand in front of him and say you feel nothing. That you want nothing from him. That your wolf recognizes no bond."
"So?"
"So you'll have to lie. While touching him. While your children watch. And if your heart still feels anything—even a tiny spark of the love you once had—the ritual will fail. And the bond will complete automatically."
I stare at her in horror.
Outside, I hear Aria's laughter as she plays with her brother.
In two weeks, I'll see Chase Rex again.
And according to ancient magic I can't control, I'll either destroy the bond forever—or become tied to him in a way I can never escape.
The ghost of my past is about to become my present.
And I have no idea which outcome terrifies me more.