The Alpha Rejected Me, But I Carry His Heir

Chapter 15: Deeper In

We go back. Into the flooded dark, up the dripping hall, down the halls behind us into the all-consuming dark, following our own steps back as somewhere behind us soldiers keep a mother from her children at a ruined postern. And Aria is silent in my arms.

And Rowan is tightly curled against Kaelen's chest.

And I turn the question over and over again as I climb, because coming back in doesn't help me unless I can answer the one question that changes everything: Who was in my chamber? Physically. My room was warded, sealed, fire-warded, warded again with earth magic, warded with words and knowledge. But the patron heard the words I spoke aloud in it — which means either the wards were broken — or someone I trusted carried the words out.

And I trust very few.

We emerge into a ruined storage room off the servants' hall. Kaelen gently lowers Rowan onto the ground, and I take his hand, and he takes mine, and I try to settle us both. "There's nothing we can do in your chamber," Kaelen says low.

"If it was compromised -" "It's not the chamber.

It's the words."

I pressed myself to the cold wall, thinking quickly.

"I drew the map.

You edited it. We said the route aloud. And three people were in that room, Kaelen.

You, me, Rurik."

I looked at my second — my scarred, steady, loyal, brother-in-blood, Rurik who had bled for me half a dozen times — and I hated the way the shape of the thought sat in my head even as I made myself do the words.

"And I would be damned if I doubted my own hands before I doubted him."

"Then don't."

Rurik's voice is dull, but I saw a flash of pain in it — he heard the math as well.

"Doubt the room. You told me yourself, Nova — the Patron's been plotting across time and space. A man with that much patience plants his ears for years before he needs them.

Who put the ward on your chamber?"

It hit like a stone in a pond. "The keeper of the ward," Kaelen said softly. "When the Silvercrest delegation arrived, I made sure the guest chambers were warded to protect you. Normal courtesy.

The warding was performed by -" He pauses.

The color drains from his face. "By Vryce's apprentice. Vryce does all the craftwork in this keep.

Of course, he does. He laid the ward that was supposed to keep you safe." There it was.

Not a spy in the room.

A spy in the walls — a ward built to listen, not protect, laid by the enemy's own hand under the guise of hospitality. Every word I ever spoke in that room, every plan I ever made, every soft thing I ever let slip — the patron had heard it all. I feel sick. And then, under the sickness, something cold and clarifying: relief.

Because it isn't Rurik.

It was never going to be Rurik. And I can see exactly how my enemy's reach works, which means I can finally cut it off. "Then here's what we'll do," I said, and the plan formed itself as I said it.

"We don't hide the children in another room to be warded. We hide them where the Patron would never expect to look for them, protected by the one person in this keep whose loyalty even Vryce can't buy." I turned to Kaelen.

"Your mother's old tower.

You told me no one ever entered it after she died. Do you know if it was warded?" "No. It was hers.

My father sealed it shut in grief and never entered it again."

The pieces fell into place. "Vryce's craft couldn't reach it. It's the one place in the whole keep that the patron can't see."

"Then that's where they'll be."

I got down on my hands and knees and looked at the twins. "Aria, Rowan — we're going to a secret place.

A real one this time.

Just for us. And you're going to be the bravest, quiet wolf the mountains have ever seen.

Can you do that?"

Aria nodded fiercely.

Rowan looked at Kaelen.

"Are you coming?"

Kaelen bent down. "I'll never be far.

You have my word."

And Rowan, satisfied, gave him his hand. We led our children into the darkness before dawn, up to the cold dead woman's tower — covered with sheets, untouched, silent to the patron's ears.

Rurik kept the first watch by the door, and for the first time in days I could believe my children were safe in a place the enemy could never find.

When dawn broke, Kaelen and I were finally alone in the tower's outer room, with the twins asleep and exhausted and finally not hearing the enemy's ears. "You doubted Rurik," Kaelen said quietly. Not a question. A statement.

"Only for three seconds.

And I will carry the shame of those three seconds for a long time." I scrubbed my face. "That's the plan, Kaelen.

That's the true weapon. Not the ward, not the archer. The doubt.

They make you suspect everyone you're willing to die for.

They did it to you five years ago — turned your bond into a knife. They tried to do it tonight." Kaelen was silent. Then softly: "They failed.

With you.

You looked in the face of someone you trust, and you chose to keep trusting him." "Because I learned what happens when you don't." I met his eyes, and I saw no barriers between us now, or fewer than there had been in five years.

"I spent five years believing you didn't want me because I was worth nothing. I built my whole self around that lie. And it was a lie someone told me — the same way they tried to tell me something tonight about Rurik."

My voice trembled just a bit.

"I can't remember now what I thought I knew about us, Kaelen. I only know I'm so tired of letting someone else's poison tell me that." The space between us shifted. Kaelen reached out and touched my cheek — slow, as always, always giving me the choice to refuse.

His thumb traced the line of my jaw.

I didn't pull away. "Then let me tell you what I do know," he said softly. "I don't want you because of a bond.

The bond's dead and I don't care. I want you because you walked into my hall and carried a storm with you, and you forced me to my knees, and you were right to. I want the woman you became without me - the woman more clever, colder, and braver than the Alpha who threw her away deserves."

His forehead was pressed to mine.

"And I'm not asking for the girl with the moon flowers, Nova. I'm asking for the you that I'm lucky enough to still have, however long it takes her to decide that she's ready to come back." The dead woman's tower was silent around us and our children slept behind its door, and we stayed silent — foreheads touching, breathing the same air, listening to the silence around us. I didn't kiss him.

Some walls take one stone at a time.

But I didn't step away, either. And when the first grey light of dawn fell on the tower's window, I let myself push my hand, very softly, against his chest — over the spot where my severed bond used to be — and I felt his heart beat like it was trying to reach mine. "One stone at a time, Alpha," I told him.