The Alpha Rejected Me, But I Carry His Heir

Chapter 11: The First Meeting

Morning dawns grey, and wary, and the answer to the question I've delayed for five years presents itself to me.

They deserve to know that their father is here. Not all the truth—not so long as there's an archer running loose in these mountains, and a five-year shadow hunting their bloodline, but Aria already has demanded explanations thrice, and Rowan studies the door of every room like he's anticipating an appearance. Children know it all, every instinct in the heart knows of it before you can even articulate it, before you even know that there are five whole years to acknowledge it.

And so, I bring Kaelen to them. On my own terms. In my own chambers. With Rurik at the door, with the hidden western gate seal pressed into my palm within my sleeve, with every escape route plotted in my head.

Kaelen falters on the threshold as though he suspects the very floor beneath him may suddenly plummet to Tartarus. He bears no offerings to their altar this time, no tray bearing treats, no painted shield to secure against their wary glances—only himself, as stripped as the previous night would've demanded. His gaze snags the faces of my two offspring and I watch him drink them in like a man starved with thirst and refusing to acknowledge his need.

Aria. Rowan. I keep my voice perfectly measured.

This is Kaelen.

He's the Alpha of this pack. He's going to be staying here with us for a while during our visit.

The tiny female considers him with the bright, unforgiving logic of her age. You're the porridge man.

I am. Kaelen's voice is husky. He sinks one enormous knee—and not a heroic posture to make and all, but rather a practical necessity, a man shrinking into space two children can both acknowledge.

He made it wrong, didn't I?

Too much honey?

WAY too much honey. Aria replies gravely. But I ate it anyway because I'd been raised to be polite.

And then I hear a sound leave Kaelen's chest that may be a laugh or maybe be the cracking of his heart, and I can’t quite decide which or that makes a difference when Aria’s response hits me square on the ribs. They’re always right.

Rowan continues to watch, pressing into my side, silent as usual, his emerald gaze dissecting the stranger with an unnerving and altogether too adult sort of attention and it stills Kaelen completely. And then my boy, my quiet, watchful child who never really trusts easily or makes such bold connections on any ordinary Tuesday of the week, tugs at my sleeve again, and when I duck my head to meet his eyes he whispers the words that undo us all:

Mama. He has my eyes.

I don't know what to say. For the first time in five years, my mind's completely empty; my usual strategic thinking abandoned for fear of utterance. Kaelen's face has drained to the color of ash because he heard the declaration just as strongly as I; and his own emerald gaze finally meets mine on the crown of my son's head, wet with tears and desperation, with the question I'm absolutely incapable of answering between my two children and this treaty of utmost political Importance:

Yes, baby, I say softly, as Rowan deserves at least the honest recognition of the truth. He does.

My son considers the words with the ponderous and unerring solemnity unique to the very young and steps from the folds of my skirt-a single tentative foot forward—and he looks up at the immense, kneeling Alpha who has unknowingly fathered him and I see the moment Kaelen recognizes the depth of my child's learned fears for all that's lost and all that can't ever be fixed nor made whole, but he doesn't LIE-he doesn't tell him what he thinks it might like to hear and in that space of brutal, honest truth I begin to realize I may someday even be able to trust Kaelen too,- but he simply meets my son’s hopeful emerald eyes and says simply, steadily, surely:

No. I'm never going to leave again. Not ever. Whatever I have to fight to be here, what must be done to stay — you have my word as an Alpha, and an Alpha’s word is a sacred thing.

My boy weighs this pronouncement with wisdom that surpasses his five years of earthly understanding and nods once, then leans forward just barely, and it's not quite trust. Not yet, but it's—it's the threshold of trust, cracked wide open.

Over their heads, Kaelen looks like he thinks I’ve given him a treasure beyond compare. I meet the grateful gaze that he throws at me and keep my expression completely blank though, my heart giving way and blooming and threatening to burst with something utterly wild and utterly terrifying and utterly, achingly warm. It feels like the beginnings of warmth after a very long winter, and damn it.

Careful, Nova, I tell myself—even when I can barely believe it.