Chapter 34
Kasey
“Did you have a nice chat with my mother?” Evander asked once we were settled on the couch, a small plate of snacks between us.
He’d decided somewhere along the way that I needed to eat more. I kept insisting I was fine, that I ate when I was hungry, but if Evander thought I needed food, I wasn’t going to argue. Not when he looked at me with that quiet certainly, like he knew something I didn't.
And maybe he did.
I took another bite, more for him than me, and nodded.
“That’s good.” He shifted beside me, settling deeper into the couch as he pulled a tablet onto his lap. The same one I’d seen him use a handful of times. His thumb swiped across the screen with practiced ease. “I got the file from Lockswell.”
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to breathe for a second.
Because whatever was in that file, it wasn’t just pictures. It wasn’t just my records.
It was my life. Every year. Every rule. Every correction. Every piece of training carved into me.
All of it, sitting right there in his hands.
And I wasn’t sure I was ready to see myself through their eyes.
He didn’t look at me right away, instead his eyes stayed on the tablet.
“I haven’t opened it yet.”
The tablet screen glowed faintly; the Lockswell crest stamped at the top like a brand.
“I don’t know what’s in it,” he went on. “But whatever it is…it’s not going to change how I view you.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to look at it.
“You don’t have to look at it all. Mostly what I’m after should be on the very first page.”
Not able to force down another bite, I set the yogurt aside and drew up my knees to my chest, curling in on myself without thinking about it.
Evander glanced at me, just long enough to check to make sure I wasn’t slipping too far, before he tapped the file open.
And just like I expected, the very first thing that appeared on the screen was a picture of me.
The image filled the screen.
It was me. But not the version Evander had shown me before. That early photo, the one he’d kept, had been soft. A little boy with messy hair, dirt on his cheeks and alive. Happy.
This one wasn’t.
In the Lockswell photo, I was eight, and all of me was there. Messy wavey hair that was in my eyes. A scratch on my chin. And tears streak down my cheeks.
But my eyes.
God. My eyes were empty and that made my stomach twist. They weren’t just sad or scared. They were blank. Like whatever I had been told right before this photo took life out of me.
I didn’t look like that boy. But I could see me in just as much as I did the ones that Evander had stashed away.
I would never remember what was spoken or done to me that day, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
Evander stared at the photo for a long time, his jaw tightening and something dark flickered behind his eyes.
Then, he exhaled and clicked the tablet off.
No second guesses. No more looking. Like he decided for me that we didn’t need to know what was in the file
“I’ve seen what I needed. I don’t…. I don’t want to see the rest. All it’ll do is make you revisit a part of your life that doesn’t need to be visited. And I’m not doing that. I want the Kasey that’s right beside me today. Not the one from this file.”
He nudged the tablet further away, as if distance alone would protect me.
“But…he’s me.” Wasn’t that the point of Evander getting the file in the first place? To show me that I was the boy he wanted me to be? To see my past all right there in black and white?
“I don’t love you because of who you were.
I care about you because of who you are now.
Right now. Today. The past is the past. The version of you in that file is just that.
A version created by a place that wanted you to be broken and beaten.
But in a matter of days, you’re already coming out of that mindset.
Whatever happens from here on out is up to you.
Who do you want to be? Whatever it is, I’ll still care about you. I’ll love you no matter what.”
Love.
Did he mean to say that? Or had it slipped twice in one moment?
“Okay.” I breathed; my mind wrapped around the words. A feeling I couldn’t ever remember. Not since I arrived at Lockswell. Not a single moment there was ever love or care or cherish.
The silence stretched between us, warm and heavy, like the air before a storm. Evander’s words still lingered, and they settled somewhere deep, somewhere I wasn’t sure I could reach.
“Evander…” My voice came out smaller than I meant. I also almost called him Evy. The fear of the DNA test sat heavy on my chest. “What if I’m not him?”
He blinked, slow, and steady, giving me full attention without crowding me.
“What if I’m the boy from before? The one you lost? The one you’ve been looking for all these years?”
I looked down at my hands in my lap, fingers twisted against one another. “What if I’m just…me? What if I’m not who you think I am?”
The possibility that these memories I had weren’t of this Evander. It was possible my parents were, in fact, killed in a car crash and I was sent to Lockswell as an orphan.
It was also possible that I was this Evander’s Kasey. And right at that moment, I really hoped I was.
He shifted closer, wrapping an arm around my back and pulling me to his side.
“Kasey, if you’re not that boy…then you’re not that boy.
” He paused for a breath. “I still want you either way. I’ll still care; I still love you.
I still choose you. Will I stop looking for him?
No. But I won’t give all my free time chasing a ghost anymore.
No matter what the DNA results are. You come first. If you turn out to be him, then nothing changes.
I’ll treat you the same. I just won’t chase the shadows anymore.
Either way, you’re part of this family. And when you’re ready, you’ll get to meet the rest of them. ”
“His family?” I asked barely above a whisper.
“Yes,” he said softly. “That too.”
A rush of emotion surged through me—fear tangled with hope; happiness tangled with terror. It made my chest feel too tight, my breath too thin.
“They… they’re alive?” The words scraped out of me. Were my parents, my real parents, truly still out there?
“Very much so,” Evander answered. “They live in a retirement community now. They sold their house about five years ago. They couldn’t bear staying in a place that reminded them every day their son never came home.”
My parents. Alive. Breathing. Waiting.
Waiting for a boy who never returned. Waiting for a boy who might not even exist anymore.
“They…did they give up?” I whispered, afraid of the answer.
“Not exactly. They…they had hope. But having hope for so long can destroy a soul more than anything. They had to move on, to restart life. They didn’t exactly give up, but they accepted the fact that their child, their only child, was killed.
But they would be thrilled to find their son alive, and happy, and so very healthy. ”
Hope was a dangerous thing. Hope can break you worse than the truth. I knew that firsthand.
“You don’t have to meet them until you’re ready. They will like you just as you are, blood test or not.”
There were so many questions clawing at the back of my throat, but fear held them there, sticky and heavy, refusing to let them out.
If I really was Honeybee…. if this Alpha was my Evy…. Then I could see my parents again. I could hug them. I could have everything I lost.
But even if I wasn’t that boy, even if the truth shattered every fragile hope inside me, I would still have something.
I would still have them. A family. A place. People who wanted me.
“Wh-when do the results come in again?” I asked, my voice barely holding together. “Isn’t that…today?”
Did I want to know?
The answer felt like it could either save me or break me, and I wasn’t sure which one terrified me more.
Evander reached for his phone on the coffee table, unlocking it with a swipe of his thumb. His brows drew together in that focused way he had. He opened his email, scrolling with slow deliberate movements.
“Nothing yet.”
My stomach twisted.
“Moore said the results should be in by the end of the day.”
So maybe tonight.
It was too far, yet too close at the same time.
Evander sat his phone down, tucking me into his side once more. “I’ll tell you when they are in. Or Moore will call. Either one. It’s up to you if you want to know. Or if you only want to know and I get to be kept in the dark.”
“I…” Hadn’t he been kept in the dark for years already?
“It’ll be up to you. It's your body, your blood. I get no say in when I get to know, truthfully. And that’s okay.”
I let out a shaky breath.
Too many choices, yet it showed how much trust this Alpha had for me.
***
We were cleaning up after dinner, me rinsing, Evander putting the dishes into the dishwasher, when his phone buzzed on the counter. He glanced at the screen, and his whole posture shifted.
“Moore,” he answered, stepping a little away but not out of the room. I could hear the low rumble of his voice, the steadiness he always used when things mattered. I couldn’t make out the words, but I didn’t need to. The tone alone told me everything.
My hands tightened around the plate; my heart thudded too hard, too fast, like it was trying to escape my chest.
Evander looked at me, eyes soft but serious. “Moore wants to talk to you. He said you can speak with Adrian if you’d prefer.”
“A-Adrian, please.” There was no way I’d be able to talk to another Alpha yet.
“He’ll talk to Adrian,” Evander answered, no hesitation. Then to me, “I’m going to step out. Just to the backyard. You can see me right through the door.”
I took the phone. “You got this, sweetheart.”
Did I? It didn’t feel like I did.
Evander gave me one last lingering look before leaving me alone in his kitchen.
My fingers trembled as I lifted the phone to my ear. “H-hello?”
“Hey Kasey,” Adrian said. Voice soft as a blanket draped over my shoulders. “How are you doing?”
“Okay, I guess.” As good as I could be, but was small talk really necessary?
“Good to hear. Now, it’s up to you before I tell you the results. I can just email them to you, if you want instead.”
“Just tell me, please.”
“They’re a perfect match, Kasey. One hundred percent.”
A match.
My knees threatened to give out as tears gathered.
I didn’t breathe. I couldn’t.
I…. I didn’t know what to think.
“Kasey?” Adrian’s voice was filtered through the little speaker. “You are Kasey Lorne Hale.”
“I…how?”
How did I get here? How was it possible? And why?
“That’s a good question to ask your Alpha. Evander will be more than happy to explain.”
Right. Of course.
“I…I…I have a family.”
“Yes, you absolutely do. Now go tell the good news to Evander, honey.”
Right. I could do that.
Maybe. If my voice works.
Adrain was still talking, but everything around me felt too bright. My breath hitched. I didn’t know having these results would change anything. I didn’t think I’d feel like this.
“I- “
And then Evander was there.
My Evy.
I didn’t even hear him. One second, he was outside on the back deck, and the next he was right there beside me, appearing out of what felt like thin air. His hand came up gently, taking the phone from me.
“Hey, sweetheart. Let me take it now.”
I didn’t argue. I couldn’t. My fingers loosened on instinct, and he slipped the phone from my hand.
He lifted it to his ear, the other hovering near my shoulder before slowly laying it on my upper arm, grounding me.
“I’ve got him. Thank you, dear.”
Evander stepped closer, and I easily went into his hold as he ended the call. The sound of the cell being set on the countertop registered somewhere, but it was overshadowed by the warmth of Evander’s arms wrapping around me.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s all okay.”
I gave up the fight against the tears, not sure why I tried to fight them to begin with. They fell in big streaks, soaking the front of Evander’s shirt as his hands rubbed up and down my back.