Chapter 13 #2
Wolf starts to no doubt say something snarky, but a deep boom rolls across the mountainside, closer than before. Close enough to raise every hackle along my spine.
Marius is back on his feet in an instant. “Follow me.”
He doesn’t wait for confirmation. His body ripples and shimmers, bones cracking, fur bursting from skin until a massive dark-gray wolf stands in his place—several inches taller than me, broad and powerful, with eyes that glow around the edges of the brown.
He starts to take off, but hesitates before sprinting like we absolutely should be.
Wolf doesn’t second-guess our actions as she follows his lead.
He’s your father, she drones, annoyingly practical. We can stay out here alone, increasing our risks. Or we can go with him, find out why he thought you were your dead mother, and hopefully get home without Malrik finding us.
I hate how much sense that makes.
I hate the flicker of hope it sparks.
I hate that a man who never came for me might become the only thing that keeps us alive.
And still, I follow.
We race through the trees, our paws carving through fresh snow so fast that ice crystallizes across our fur. Minutes stretch into something longer, the temperature dropping until it feels like the cold is trying to peel the meat from our bones.
But neither of us slows.
When we finally reach an outcropping of boulders—trees dense enough to block the wind, snow thinner on the ground—I could collapse from relief. But I don’t.
Am I out of Malrik’s spell-bound territory?
Are we far enough from The Keep for Cade to—?
Focus, Wolf snaps. Not safe yet.
Marius squeezes through a narrow crevice between two slabs of stone. We slip in behind him. It’s little more than a cave—a shelter carved by wind and time—and the moment we step inside, the cold thins and the silence deepens. Marius shifts back into his human form and nods at me to do the same.
I force Wolf to shake her head. Not a chance in hell am I meeting my dad for the first time naked.
Technically, he met you as me first, Wolf says, not helping.
“What’s wrong?” Marius asks, a crease deepening between his brows.
Wolf steps toward him and nudges his bag, nipping at the flap. Maybe he has a blanket or jacket in there.
“Do you need clothes?” he asks, catching on quickly, then frowning. “I brought these for your mother, just in case.”
The grief in his words strikes me to my core. Did he really not know she’d died? I mean, I guess so. Iris said he’d been gone for some time now, and I tried not to be offended that his kind had come to kill me and he hadn’t shown up himself…
A thought I’d previously forced into a box, not to be opened, for fear the answer of his absence might break me more now than it ever did as a child.
It’s possible he hadn’t known I’d become the Ashmark like the rest of the supernatural world did.
He radiates sorrow as he stares at me. Yet, a part of me doesn’t want to feel bad for him. He never came for me, but now that I’ve been in this world and seen its darker sides… Maybe he didn’t come around for our safety as much as my mother did when she took me away from NightShade.
He hands me an entire outfit: socks, thankfully plain, modest underwear, jeans, a black long-sleeve tee, a heavy coat, and even tennis shoes.
Then he points toward the rocks, a slight flush to his cheeks. “I’ll just wait out here for a few minutes.”
I start to call Wolf back, but she fights me with a ferocity I don’t anticipate. Mate.
Where? My heart spikes, and I’m instantly just as alert as she is.
Coming closer, but still too far. She whimpers. We need to go to him.
We can’t go back out there alone, and if he’s getting closer…
I hate to admit it, so much so that I can’t even say the words to her, but I think waiting here with Marius is best. After breaking those spells, all the running and shifting, I’m running low on energy.
Even I know I’m not invincible, and if Cade’s getting nearer, I have to believe he’ll find us.
I’m sorry, I tell her as I force my human form to take priority.
Once again, the shift is brutal. Bones snap, muscles twist, fire rips down my spine, and when I fall forward onto my hands and knees, naked and shaking, tears spill down my cheeks.
But they’re not from pain.
Not only, anyway.
Pulling on the clothes with numb fingers, I call out when I’m done, “Marius?”
He’s inside the cave before I finish saying his name—eyes glassy, breath unsteady.
“It’s really you,” he whispers.
I shrug awkwardly, not sure what expression I’m supposed to wear in a moment like this. “Why did you think I was Mom?”
The words spill out of me before I even know they’re going to.
He rubs at the stubble on his jaw, shaking his head.
“I got word a few months ago that she was…that you’d lost her.
” The ache in his words is almost too much to bear, too similar to my own.
“But I couldn’t believe it. Jocelyn and I weren’t fated mates, but we had a connection.
Nobody ever believed me, but I could sense her. All this time…”
“Then why didn’t you come for us?” The inner child in me can’t help herself. I have to know. Before anything else. That’s the million-dollar question that has lost me many nights of sleep and made me question my worth for years as a teenager. “Why?”
Marius comes closer and reaches for me. I want to back away, but I can’t move. I’m too paralyzed by the importance of what comes next. I need him to tell me something that will cause the years without him to all make sense.
Logic has no place here right now. It doesn’t matter if I’m pushing thirty. The little girl in me wants to know why she was never good enough to fight for.
“My sweet girl.” The warmth of his hand settles over my cheek, and he openly cries before me, yet smiles at the same time. “I did. So many times.”
My breath hitches, but I stay silent. I need more than that. So much more.
“Every chance I got. I saw you with your pink sparkle bike the first time you rode without training wheels. I smiled at your uneven pigtails on your first day of kindergarten. I held my breath as your mom took you into the hospital the day you broke your arm after falling out of the tree.” He pauses, his voice growing rougher.
“I cried just as I am now when you graduated high school. I even slashed the tires on the truck of the first boy to break your heart.” His forehead presses against mine.
“I came for you, Rowan. In all the ways I could. In all the ways that would still keep you safe.”
I really try to keep it together. I try to stay strong, but my attempts only last for so long. Before I know it, I’ve thrown my arms around his shoulders and am holding onto him for dear life.
He returns my gesture just as tight, both of us shaking with pent-up emotions.
“Dad.”
The word feels like a brand against my heart. One I might not ever let go of.
His hold intensifies around me, solid and warm and achingly familiar in a way that breaks open something hollow inside my chest. I breathe him in—frost, pine, and something that feels like safety, like the ghost of a childhood I never had.
“Dad,” I whisper again, softer this time. More fragile yet certain.
He pulls back just enough to look at me, his eyes searching my face as if trying to memorize every line. “I never really left you,” he murmurs.
Before I can acknowledge his efforts—before I can decide if it can truly be as easy as this to let him into my life now—Wolf’s attention shifts sharply.
Cade’s here.
Every nerve in my body goes electric.
Marius senses it too; his head jerks toward the cave’s mouth, shoulders tensing. A low rumble builds in his chest—the protective warning of a wolf who doesn’t yet know friend from foe.
Steps crunch softly through snow. Rushed, but not panicked.
Deliberate.
The kind of steps that know exactly where they’re going.
The cold air shifts and thickens, charged with something warm and wild and achingly familiar. My breath catches, because even before I fully scent him, my heart knows.
Mate.
Wolf howls within my mind, a piercing, broken sound.
Marius steps in front of me, half-shielding, half-ready to lunge.
But I place a trembling hand on his back. “Wait,” I breathe. “It’s—”
A shadow fills the cave entrance. Tall and broad, wrapped in snow and fury and exhaustion.
Golden eyes burn through the dim light, locking on me like a promise.
Cade’s breath stutters. Mine disappears entirely.
I lift my gaze higher over my father’s shoulder and meet the eyes of the man who crossed mountains, storms, and probably hell itself to find me.
And just like that, the world stops, but I don’t.
I run right into his arms.