The Banned Daughter

The Name He Buried

I don’t remember leaving the kitchen.

One second, Jace is standing in front of me, his mouth still warm against mine, his blue eyes full of everything neither of us has the right to feel. The next, I’m halfway up the stairs with one hand locked around the banister and my pulse pounding hard enough to blur my vision.

I kissed Rowan’s beta.

Not just Rowan’s beta.

Jace Weaver.

By the time I reach my room, my hands are shaking.

Rowan is sitting on the edge of the bed when I push open the door. He looks up immediately, concern softening his face.

“Starlight.”

The nickname nearly makes me cry.

He stands, but doesn’t touch me right away. He knows better than to crowd me when I’m upset.

“Did he say something to you?” he asks.

I stare at the floor.

Jace said my father told him not to call. He said he came back for me. He said things that cracked open wounds I had spent seven years pretending were healed.

And then I kissed him.

“Did you know?” I ask.

Rowan’s brow furrows. “Know what?”

“That Jason Calloway is Jace Weaver.”

For one second, he does not move.

Then every bit of warmth drains from his face.

“Jason is the Weaver boy?”

My throat tightens. “Yeah.”

“The boy whose father challenged your father?”

The question lands like a stone.

Everyone in my old pack knew the story. A beta challenging his Alpha was rare enough. Losing was worse. The Weaver family being gone by sunrise had become one of those things adults mentioned in lowered voices when they thought the pups were asleep.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “That Jace.”

Rowan’s jaw tightens. A low, dangerous sound rumbles in his chest.

“He told me his mother’s name was Calloway,” Rowan says. “His records begin with her family after he turned seventeen. I ran every check I could. His references were clean. His work was clean. He earned every rank I gave him.”

“He changed his name.”

“A name, maybe.” Rowan’s golden-brown eyes flash. “But he also hid who his father was, where he came from, and the fact that his past was tied to yours.”

I wrap my arms around myself.

“He never told you?”

“No.” Rowan’s voice is quiet now. Controlled in the way it only gets when he is furious. “He told me he had no relationship with his father. He never told me why.”

My stomach knots.

Rowan had trusted Jason with the pack. With patrol routes, security plans, the safety of every wolf who lived beneath this roof.

With me.

“If I had known,” he says, “I never would have made him my beta.”

“He isn’t his father.” I don't know why I feel the need to defend him, but I do and the words slip out before I can stop them.

“I know.” His expression softens for half a second when he looks at me. Then it hardens again. “I don’t judge him for what his father did, Starlight. I judge him for what he chose to hide from the Alpha who trusted him.”

The words settle heavily between us.

“He didn’t know I was here.” The way Jace paled when he saw me, proved that much at least.

“Maybe not.” Rowan takes a slow breath. “But he knows now. And instead of coming to me, he followed you into the kitchen.”

He clenches his teeth and fists. A low growl rumbles from his throat.

Heat climbs my neck. “He just wanted to talk.”

He narrows his eyes, his gaze lasers into mine. “About what?”

I can’t answer that.

Rowan studies me, and I know he sees the truth in every place I am failing to give it to him.

“Did he hurt you?” he asks.

“No.”

Not tonight. Not in a way I can explain.

Rowan’s eyes close briefly. When they open, the anger is still there, but it is no longer aimed at me.

“A beta acts in the Alpha’s place when I cannot,” he says. “He knows every weakness in this pack. Every patrol route. Every person I would die to protect.” His voice drops. “He concealed a history that connects him to my intended and to the Alpha who raised her. Until I know the full truth, that makes him a risk.”

“You’re going to remove him.”

He's quiet for a moment, then sighs and shakes his head. “I’m going to suspend him until I hear his side.” Rowan reaches for my hand, his thumb brushing over my knuckles. “I will be fair. But I will not ask my pack to trust a man when I no longer know who he is.”

My chest aches.

“Rowan—”

“Tomorrow.” His expression gentles again. “Tomorrow, Jason Calloway tells me why he came into my pack wearing another man’s name.”

He pulls me into his arms before I can say anything else.

I fold against him, pressing my face into his chest. He smells like cedar and clean soap and safety. His hand moves slowly over my hair, soothing all the places inside me that still feel splintered.

“I’m angry,” he murmurs into my hair. “But not with you.”

Guilt burns anyway.

Because he has no idea what happened downstairs.

After Rowan leaves, I stand in the middle of my room with one hand pressed against my lips.

And I wonder whether I kissed the boy who lost me...

Or a stranger who built his whole life on a lie