Kian POV
The words hang in the room long after Sable slips into unconsciousness, and I feel the floor tilt under me in a way it hasn't since the night my father died and left this pack in my hands at twenty-two.
The true Alpha is coming home.
"That doesn't make sense," I say, pacing the small healer's room, my mind refusing to settle on any explanation that isn't terrifying. "I am the true Alpha. I've held this title for three years. There's no rival claim, no contested bloodline"
"Unless there is," Luna says quietly, "and nobody's told you."
I stop pacing and look at her. Her face has gone carefully blank, the way it does when she's protecting herself from a thought too painful to let show.
"Elena," she says. "My mother. If she was your father's sister, and if she had a child befor
