The Rejected Bloodline

Chapter four: The Alpha

Nightfall territory did not look anything like what Rowan had pictured during the long walk to reach it. He had imagined something dark and threatening, shadows stretched long between twisted trees, danger waiting behind every corner he turned. Instead he found a wide stretch of open land bordering a town called Thornebridge, houses built close together along quiet streets, people moving through their evening routines the same way people did in any small town anywhere else in the world.

Still, something about the air here felt different beneath the surface. Heavier somehow, like every person he passed on the street could sense something about him that he could not yet sense about himself. A few heads turned as he walked deeper into town, eyes lingering a second too long before looking away again quickly.

He found the pack house sitting near the center of the territory, a large building constructed from dark timber, smoke curling slow from a chimney at its side. His heart pounded hard against his ribs as he approached the front door, and even after the entire walk here, he still had no real plan for what he was going to say once he was standing face to face with the truth his mother had kept from him his whole life up to this point.

A tall man stepped outside before Rowan even reached the door, as though he had sensed him coming from somewhere deep inside the house long before he arrived. He had broad shoulders and dark hair streaked lightly with gray near the temples, and his eyes carried a sharpness that suggested very little escaped his notice around this land. Underneath that sharpness, though, Rowan thought he could see something tired buried there too, worn down by years of carrying more responsibility than one person should ever have to hold alone.

Rowan knew instantly, without needing to be told a single word, exactly who he was looking at standing in front of him.

You are new here, the man said, studying him carefully from a few steps away. I do not recognize your scent at all.

Rowan swallowed hard, forcing his voice to come out steadier than he actually felt in that moment. I am only passing through, he said. Looking for a pack that might be willing to take me in. I do not have one of my own to speak of right now.

It was not entirely a lie, though it was far from the whole truth either, and he knew that better than anyone standing there.

The man studied him a long moment, long enough that Rowan started to wonder if somehow he already knew more than he was letting on to him.

I am Dorian Voss, the man said finally. Alpha of Nightfall.

Rowan forced his expression to stay calm, even as something inside his chest twisted painfully hearing that name spoken out loud by the man himself, attached now to a real living person standing only a few feet away from him, instead of just a name his mother had whispered once through tears at their kitchen table.

Rowan, he said simply, leaving his last name out of it entirely for now.

Dorian nodded slowly, studying him a moment longer before speaking again in that same steady voice. We do not take in strangers very often, he said. But we can always use another set of capable hands around here, and I prefer to give people a real chance to prove who they are before deciding anything permanent about their place among us.

That is all I am asking for, Rowan said. Just a chance to prove myself to you and to this pack.

Dorian studied him a while longer, something unreadable passing behind his sharp eyes, before he finally stepped aside from the doorway and gestured for Rowan to follow him inside the house.

Then let us see exactly what you are made of, Dorian said.

Rowan stepped through the door into Nightfall for the very first time in his life, walking beneath the same roof as the father who had absolutely no idea he even existed, carrying a secret heavy enough to change everything the moment it finally came out into the open between them.

He only hoped, walking those first few steps inside, that he still had a little more time left before that moment eventually arrived and changed everything all over again.

Somewhere behind him, out past the edge of the territory, the road he had walked to get here sat quiet under the darkening sky, and somewhere further down that same road, in the direction Wren had disappeared earlier that evening, he wondered if she was thinking about their conversation the same way he could not stop thinking about it now.

Inside, the pack house was larger than it looked from the road, with wide wooden beams stretched across the ceiling and a fire burning low in a stone hearth at the far end of the main room. A handful of people were scattered around, some talking quietly near a long table, others working through paperwork stacked near a window. A few glanced up when Dorian walked in with a stranger beside him, curiosity flickering across their faces before they returned to whatever they had been doing.

Dorian led him past the main room and down a narrow hallway lined with closed doors. This will be yours for now, he said, stopping in front of one near the end. Get some rest. We start early around here, and I imagine you have had a long enough walk already today without adding more to it tonight.

Rowan nodded and stepped inside the small room, empty except for a bed pushed against one wall and a single window looking out toward the tree line beyond the edge of the territory. He set his bag down slowly, listening to the sound of Dorian footsteps fading back down the hallway, and sat on the edge of the bed for a long moment, staring at nothing in particular.

He thought about the version of himself who had walked home from the garage only two nights ago, certain his life was ordinary and small and predictable. That version of him felt impossibly far away now, separated by more than just distance.

He thought about his mother, alone back in Ridgewood, waiting and worrying the way she always seemed to be waiting and worrying about something concerning him.

And somewhere underneath all of it, quieter than the rest, he thought about dark red hair and a calm voice telling him to breathe, and wondered, despite everything else happening around him, when exactly he would see her again.