The Luna He Rejected: An Alpha's Regret

CHAPTER 22

Seraphine’s POV

We ran.

The moment Marcus’s radio went silent, Caden was already moving. I followed right behind him, boots pounding against the wooden planks of the dock. Marcus and Kevin were close on our heels. The night air was cold and sharp against my face, but I barely felt it. My heart was hammering so hard I could hear it in my ears. The twins and Evan were still inside the house. Dani had stayed behind to watch them, but the thought of someone being on the boat, so close to where my children slept, made my stomach twist with fear.

We reached The Vera in under three minutes.

The boat rocked gently on the dark water, completely silent. The hatch leading below deck was hanging open at an angle, the lock broken and dangling uselessly. Someone had forced their way in. Caden went down first, moving fast but careful. I climbed down after him, my hands gripping the cold metal railing.

The small cabin below was a mess. Drawers had been pulled open. Storage compartments were rifled through. And at the far end, the hidden safe Kevin had installed years ago stood wide open, its heavy door bent slightly outward. Empty.

The birth certificates were gone.

Kevin came down last. He stopped dead when he saw the open safe. For a long moment, he just stood there, staring at it like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. Then his shoulders dropped, and all the air seemed to leave his body at once.

“I knew something was wrong,” he said quietly. His voice sounded hollow. “For the last three weeks… I kept getting this feeling. Like someone had been near the boat. I told myself I was being paranoid. I should have moved the documents weeks ago. I should have—”

“Kevin,” I said, cutting him off gently but firmly. “This isn’t your fault.”

He didn’t answer. He just kept staring at the empty safe like it had personally betrayed him.

Caden turned to Marcus, his expression hard. “What can she do with them?”

Marcus rubbed a hand over his face, looking exhausted. “Everything. Those certificates are the real ones. They prove the twins exist. They prove you’re the father. And more importantly, they prove the children were hidden. Isolde can file a bloodline complaint with the tribunal using these as evidence. It makes her case airtight. She can claim you and Seraphine concealed the heirs from the pack. That kind of complaint carries serious weight. It could force a full investigation, temporary removal of the children from your custody, and months of legal hell while everything gets dragged through the central council.”

I looked at the open safe again. All those years of careful protection, the quiet life I had built in Millhaven, the lies I had told to keep the twins safe, the distance I had put between us and Ironmoor, wiped out in a matter of minutes. Gone. Just like that.

A strange, cold calm settled over me.

Isolde wasn’t going to wait. She had what she needed now. She was going to file tonight. That meant we had seventy-two hours before the tribunal would be on us. Maybe less.

I turned to Caden. “We have to get ahead of her.”

He looked at me, eyes sharp. “What are you thinking?”

“We file our own paternity claim first,” I said. “Officially and publicly. We make it known that you are their father and that we are handling this ourselves. If we move first, we take some of the power out of whatever story she tries to spin with those certificates.”

Marcus was already pulling out his phone. “I’ll call Amara right now. She can start drawing up the paperwork tonight.”

Before he could dial, Dani’s phone buzzed from where she had left it on the small table near the hatch. She had come down behind us after making sure the children were still asleep. She picked it up, glanced at the screen, and her eyes widened.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

She turned the phone around so we could all see.

It was a post in the local community group, the one that served both the human and pack-adjacent residents of Millhaven. The image was clear and official-looking. Someone had posted scanned copies of the twins’ birth certificates. The father’s name section was deliberately left blank, but everything else was there. Names. Dates. Place of birth. The post had already gathered dozens of comments.

The message underneath was short and vicious:

Hidden heirs. Hidden from their own pack. What else have they been lying about?

Caden went very still beside me. I felt the rage rolling off him through the bond.

Then we heard soft footsteps on the dock above us.

We all turned.

Luna was standing at the top of the hatch, looking down into the cabin. She must have slipped out of the house and followed us. Her small face was serious, the way it always was when she was thinking hard about something. She climbed down the ladder carefully and walked straight over to Dani.

She looked at the phone screen for a long moment.

Then she spoke, her voice quiet but clear.

“That’s wrong.”

Everyone froze.

Caden slowly crouched down in front of her so they were at eye level. The pack members who had gathered on the dock above us were watching in silence now. The night suddenly felt very still.

“Luna,” Caden said, his voice low. “What do you mean?”

She looked at him steadily. “The information is wrong. You’re my father.”

Caden’s breath caught. I saw it happen. For a second, he looked completely lost. He had been preparing himself for shock, for questions, for anger even. But Luna just stood there, calm and certain, like she was stating something everyone already knew.

Caden swallowed hard. “How long have you known?”

“Since the first day,” she said. “At the school. When you looked at Emery like that. I saw your face. I knew then.”

She glanced at me, then back at Caden. Her voice stayed soft, almost gentle.

“I was waiting for you to say it.”

Caden didn’t speak. He just stayed crouched there, staring at his daughter like she had reached inside his chest and rearranged something fundamental. I watched the emotions move across his face, shock, guilt, something that looked a lot like relief.

Luna reached out and touched his arm, just once.

Then she turned and walked back up the ladder without another word.

I watched her small figure disappear into the darkness of the dock, heading back toward the house. My chest felt tight. She had known. All this time. My quiet, watchful daughter had carried that knowledge alone since the very first day Caden walked back into our lives.

Caden stayed crouched on the floor of the boat for a long moment after she left, one hand braced against the wall like he needed the support. When he finally stood, his eyes found mine. There was something raw and open in his expression that I hadn’t seen in years.

He didn’t say anything.

He didn’t have to.

I stepped closer and placed my hand over his. The mate bond hummed between us, heavy with everything we weren’t saying out loud.

Outside, the night was still and cold. Somewhere out there, Isolde was already moving. The birth certificates were in her hands. The clock was ticking.

But in this moment, standing in the quiet cabin of a boat that had just been violated, we weren’t just reacting anymore.

We were going to fight back.