The Morning After
After the attack at Orion’s pack, I couldn’t settle.
No amount of pacing or cold air could shake the image from my mind — Max and Danny frozen, eyes wide, as the rogue crept closer. Felicia’s scream. Her shift. The way she threw herself in front of them without a second thought.
They were mine. There was no denying it anymore — not after what I saw.
And now, all I could think about was taking them. Not to hurt her, not to punish her, but because they weren’t safe. Not here. Not anymore.
I stood at the window in my quarters back home, watching the moon bleed into dawn. I’d left Moonshade just before sunrise, but my mind was still there. Still back in that chaos, that heat of battle, that moment I almost lost them before I even had the right to call them mine.
I hadn’t slept. I couldn’t. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the rogue again — that snap of its jaws, the sharp line of its fangs aimed at my sons. And Felicia… gods, Felicia. She fought like hell. Her strength humbled me, and her fear haunted me.
I needed answers. Real ones.
So I went to the only person in my pack who might have them.
The inner sanctum of the Crescent Moon temple was lit by dozens of candles, the air thick with herbs and smoke. Shadows twisted on the stone walls as I stepped inside.
She sat at the center — the Seer — old as time, draped in black, her skin lined like worn bark. Her eyes, blind and white, stared into nothing and everything.
I cleared my throat, my voice heavy with frustration and something dangerously close to desperation. “Tell me about Felicia.”
She said nothing.
I stepped closer. “Tell me about my children.”
Still nothing.
My fists clenched. “I need answers. Where is she? Are Max and Danny safe?”
The Seer finally tilted her head, as though she were listening to a voice I couldn’t hear. Her expression remained unreadable as she opened her cracked lips.
“The children… they are hidden in the shadow of wolves. Their path is uncertain, their future shrouded.”
My jaw tightened. I needed clarity, not riddles.
“And Felicia?”
“She walks a blade,” the Seer said, her voice rasping like wind through dry leaves. “Her heart is torn, but her will is iron. She is surrounded by those who claim loyalty — some with fangs, some with knives.”
I stepped forward, fury boiling under my skin. “That’s not enough.”
The Seer raised a hand. “There is something else you must know.”
I paused. Her tone changed. The weight in the room shifted — like the air had thickened, slowed.
She leaned forward ever so slightly, her milky eyes locking onto where she knew I stood.
“The child,” she said, voice deep and distant, “the child you were told was yours… is not.”
I stopped breathing.
Everything inside me stilled.
“What?” I croaked. My voice cracked like ice breaking over a lake.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, seeing through the veil of time, space, and lies.
“Danielle lied to you,” she said calmly. “The child she carried was never yours.”
I staggered back a step, the weight of the words hitting me like a blow. Cold and final.
“No,” I whispered, but the pieces clicked in my head like a trap. The timing. The look in her eyes. Her constant need to be enough.
It was never real.
The Seer spoke again, but I barely heard her. My thoughts were racing — five years of guilt, sacrifice, distance, all rooted in a lie.
I had lost everything because of it.
But I knew one thing now, more clearly than ever: Felicia had never lied.
And I would not lose her or my sons again.