Chapter 19
Brenna
Nathan Bern eats breakfast like a man who expects the world to wait while he finishes his eggs.
I sit across the kitchen table and watch him work through the plate Greta set down—scrambled eggs, cornbread, venison sausage from the freezer—with a slow, deliberate pace that is completely maddening.
His aide stands behind him as always. His coffee cup is positioned at the precise angle that allows him to lift it without moving his elbow from the table. Everything controlled.
This is the man who destroyed my life.
Not directly. Not with violence or cruelty. With a conversation with a young alpha, telling him that mating with a magic-blood was a danger the southern packs couldn’t risk. And Merric listened. I don’t know who I was angrier with.
Now Bern sits in my kitchen, spreading butter on cornbread, and I feel nothing that I expected to feel. Not rage. Not the fury I’ve been carrying. Something colder. A wariness I can’t pin down.
Something about this man isn’t right. Beyond the obvious. Beyond the history. There’s a quality to his attention that goes past politics into something deeper.
I can’t name it. I should be able to name it. I should be able to read Nathan Bern with my eyes closed. But I’m off balance. Last night is sitting in my chest, and every time I try to focus on Bern’s tells, my mind slides back to the bunkhouse.
Merric’s hands on my flesh. My mouth on his throat. The connection tearing open between us. And then Sienna in the doorway, and the look on her face—
Stop! Pay attention.
“The council has resources available for displaced packs,” Bern is saying.
He addresses this to Willow, who sits at the head of the table with the stiff posture of a woman who didn’t sleep well and is compensating with backbone.
“Building materials, medical supplies, financial support. The application process is straightforward.”
“We didn’t know there was an application process,” Willow says. “Nobody told us.”
“An oversight I intend to correct. Communication with Ravenclaw has been… inadequate. I’ll be the first to admit that.”
He’s smooth. Genuinely smooth. Not the oily kind.
The kind that comes from decades of practice at saying the right thing in the right tone at the right moment.
He sounds like a man who cares. And maybe he does care, in the way that powerful men care about the communities they manage.
The way you care about a garden you’ve been tending; some plants thrive, some get pruned, some get pulled up by the roots if they grow in the wrong direction.
Cameron appears in the doorway. He’s been avoiding the kitchen since Bern arrived yesterday, eating at odd hours, retreating upstairs when any of them come through. But this morning he’s come down, and he stands in the frame with his eyes fixed on Bern with an unnerving intensity.
“Good morning, Cameron,” Bern says. Warm. Cordial. “I hope you slept well.”
Cameron doesn’t answer. He looks at me, a long, searching look that carries questions I haven’t answered and conversations we haven’t had. Then he pours himself a glass of water and goes back upstairs without a word.
Bern watches him go with an unsettling interest. Like Cameron is a specimen under glass.
My wolf bristles. I press her down.
The morning unfolds in the uncomfortable manner caused by forced hospitality.
Bern wants another tour of the property.
Bern wants to see the ward lines. Bern wants to discuss the parley with Ashfall and the regional security implications.
Every request is reasonable. Every question is informed.
And I can’t refuse any of it without looking like I have something to hide.
Willow shadows the tour with me. She’s sharp, professional, fielding Bern’s questions with competence.
When Bern asks about the scattered families, Willow gives him the sanitized version—locations omitted, names withheld.
She’s been doing this long enough to know what to share and what to hold back.
“Impressive,” Bern says, surveying the reinforced north boundary. “These wards are substantially stronger than I’d expected.”
“Brenna restored them,” Willow says. “In the last week.”
“Remarkable. That level of ward work requires significant magical reserves.” He turns to me. “You’ve been maintaining these alone?”
I narrow my eyes on him. “You’re interested in wards?” I find it unlikely that he’d be anything other than contemptuous of our magic.
“Of course,” he says smoothly. “Just because I don’t have the capacity for sorcery, doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the craft.”
I raise an eyebrow, not convinced, but answer his question, regardless. “My mother and I maintained them together before she died. I’ve been restoring what degraded.”
“A significant investment of personal energy.” His voice is concerned. Solicitous. “You should be careful not to overextend yourself, Brenna. The council would hate to see Ravenclaw lose its alpha again.”
“Would it?” I say. “I imagine it would suit you very well.”
Something flashes in his eyes, but it’s gone in an instant. “We wolves take care of our own, Brenna. I can assure you of that.”
The comment lands strangely. I don’t believe the council thinks of our pack as one of their own. But I don’t push it.
“I’m glad to hear it,” I say instead.
We’re walking back into the yard when Merric appears on the path. He’s been keeping his distance, letting me handle Bern on my territory, which is the right call politically. But I can feel him, a presence at the edge of my awareness that I’ve been actively ignoring.
“Willow,” Merric says. “Dane needs you at the barn. Something about the roof joists.”
Willow glances at me. I nod. She goes.
“I’d like a moment with Alpha Brenna,” Merric tells Bern.
Bern looks between us. “Of course,” he says, with the smooth generosity of a man who believes he’s being gracious. He and his aide walk on toward the house.
And then it’s just us at the entrance to the yard. Morning light, birdsong, the distant sound of Dane’s hammer.
“We need to talk,” Merric says.
“Not now.”
“So you keep saying. When, Brenna?”
“When there isn’t an Elder Alpha camped on my property, sizing up everything we do.”
“Somehow I think you’ll find a reason even when he’s gone.”
“That’s ridiculous, Merric. At the moment, my priority is Bern. He’s—”
“I don’t want to talk about Bern.” Merric steps closer. Lowers his voice. I feel a warm pull that I resist with everything I have. “I want to talk about us. About what happened in the bunkhouse. About what you told me.”
“What I told you doesn’t change anything operationally.”
“Operationally,” he scoffs. “Brenna. You told me I have a son. That’s not operational. That’s— Christ, that’s everything!”
“I told you in a moment I wasn’t prepared for, and now I need time to figure out what comes next.”
“What comes next is we tell Cameron.”
I glare at him. “No!”
“He deserves to know.”
“He’s seventeen and volatile. And right now, there’s a man on this property who makes his self-preservation instincts scream. This is not the time to drop a paternity bomb on him.”
“When is the time? When he figures it out himself? He’s smart enough, Brenna. He’s already watching us, already putting pieces together. If he hears it from someone other than us—”
“He won’t hear it from anyone because the only people who know are you, me, Greta, and Willow. And they’d never breathe a word.”
“And Sienna.”
I freeze. “Sienna knows?”
“And Rook. Probably Dane and Briar, too, if I know them.”
Dear God!
“What the fuck, Merric! You told them?” My voice is too loud. I fight to calm myself.
“Didn’t have to. They’re my packmates. They’ve known me for years. Rook took one look at Cameron and one look at me and figured it out in about thirty seconds.” He pauses. “They won’t say anything. But the point is, this isn’t a secret that holds.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. And I hate him for being right because the alternative—keeping the secret, controlling the information, managing the situation the way I’ve managed everything—is the only approach I know.
“I’m not ready,” I say. The honesty costs me. “I’m not ready to see his face when he finds out I lied to him.”
“You didn’t lie. You protected him.”
“You think he’ll see the difference? He’ll see another secret his mother kept. Another decision I made without consulting him. He’s already angry about the years I was gone. This will—” I stop. Breathe. “This will break something between us, Merric. I know my son. He’ll feel betrayed.”
“Then we tell him together. We sit him down, both of us, and we tell him the truth. All of it. Why you kept the secret, why I wasn’t there. Let him be angry. Let him yell. But let him know.”
I can feel his sincerity. He means this. He wants to be in the room when it happens. He wants to share the weight of Cameron’s reaction instead of letting me carry it alone.
I don’t know how to respond to a man who wants to share the weight.
“Give me a day,” I say. “Let Bern leave. Let the dust settle. Then we’ll talk about how to tell him.”
Merric studies me. I can feel him deciding whether to push.
“A day,” he says. “Then we stop putting it off.”
“A day.”
He nods. Turns to go. Stops.
“For what it’s worth,” he says, without looking back, “you’re not going to lose him. He loves you. That doesn’t go away because the truth is complicated.”
He walks toward the barn. I stand on the path and watch him go, fighting the ache in my chest that I’m running out of strength to resist.
The afternoon is worse.
Bern’s aide interviews Ravenclaw wolves. Casual conversations that feel like depositions. Bern himself spends an hour with Greta, which worries me more than anything else, because Greta is the repository of everything Ravenclaw, and Bern knows exactly what questions to ask an elder.
Cameron stays upstairs. I check on him once early in the afternoon—he’s sitting on his bed with the window open, watching the yard with that unblinking fixation that means he’s processing more than he’s showing. He nods when I ask if he’s okay. Doesn’t say more. I leave him to it.
The second time I go up, the light has changed. Late afternoon, the sun dropping behind the western ridge, throwing long shadows across the yard below his window. The window where he’s been sitting all day. The window that overlooks the gate to the yard.
I don’t think about that. I should, but I don’t.
Cameron is sitting on his bed with his back against the headboard and his knees drawn up. His face is different from normal. Set into something hard and expressionless.
“Hey,” I say. “You should come down. Eat something.”
“Sit down, Ma.”
The tone stops me. Not angry. Not upset. Controlled in a way that doesn’t sound like my seventeen-year-old son. It sounds like me.
I sit in the chair by the door.
Cameron looks at his hands. Turns them over. Looks back up.
“That man. Bern.” His voice is level. Measured. “He knew my father.”
My chest tightens. “What makes you say that?”
“The way he looked at me. Checking something. Comparing.” Cameron’s eyes find mine and hold. “Like I reminded him of someone.”
He waits. When I don’t respond, the silence stretches between us, and it feels heavy.
“Who do you think I remind him of, Ma?” he presses.
“Nobody. You’re probably imagining things, Cam,” I lie. And I hate myself, because I know this is a chance to tell him. An open door. I should walk through it. Everything in me knows I should walk through it. Merric’s voice on the path three hours ago: What comes next is we tell Cameron.
But Bern is on the property, and the timing is wrong. Merric and I agreed we’d do this together. But I’m not ready, and every excuse I’ve been making lines up inside me.
“What if I’m not?” Cameron says. “What if he knows where my dad is?”
I take in a quiet breath, feeling my nerves stretch taut. “You should come eat something,” I say, changing the subject abruptly. “You missed lunch.”
Something moves behind Cameron’s eyes. Not surprise. Not hurt, exactly. Disappointment.
“Sure,” he says. “In a bit.”
He looks away. Back toward the window. Dismissing me.
I stand in the doorway for a moment, aware that something just happened and unable to name it.
My son’s profile against the window light.
The careful blankness of his eyes. The way his hands rest in his lap.
Rigid, deliberate, a teenager holding himself together.
Probably processing what happened with the Syndicate.
I haven’t discussed that with him yet, and it’s something that needs to be dealt with.
“Cameron—”
“I said in a bit, Ma.”
“Okay.” I nod. “I love you, Cam.” It feels like an afterthought.
“Sure.” He doesn’t say more.
I leave. Close the door behind me. Walk down the stairs with a feeling I can’t place sitting heavy between my shoulders.
I shake it off because there’s too much to think about right now to try to decipher my son’s silent messages.
I’m in the kitchen at six o’clock, helping Greta with dinner, when Willow comes in from the yard.
“Have you seen Cam?”
“He was upstairs a couple hours ago,” I say, looking up.
“He’s not upstairs now. He’s not in the yard. He’s not at the barn.”
I set down the knife I’m holding. “He’s probably walking the fence line. He does that.”
“I checked. Briar did too. He’s not on the property, Brenna.”
Greta’s hands stop moving over the cutting board. Willow is standing in the doorway, trying to be calm and failing.
“His things are in his room,” Willow says. “His shoes are gone. No note.”
No note. No signs of struggle. Shoes gone.
He ran.
The realization hits me in stages. First, the practical assessment: when did he leave, which direction, how much daylight is left?
Then the maternal terror that swallows everything else.
My son is out there. In hills that are being watched.
With magic he can’t fully control and a signature that draws danger.
I’m moving before I’ve finished thinking. Through the kitchen, across the yard, shouting for Briar. Merric’s already coming out of the barn, reading my face from fifty yards.
“Cameron’s gone,” I say when he reaches me. “Not taken. His shoes are missing. He left on foot.”
Merric’s expression doesn’t change. He doesn’t ask questions. He doesn’t waste time on shock or worry or any of the emotions I can sense in him.
“Briar,” he says as she emerges from nowhere. “Track from his window. Rook, get Dane. Sienna, stay with the settlement. Nobody moves until we have a direction.”
He’s commanding. On my territory. In front of my wolves.
And I let him, because my hands are shaking and my son is missing, and the man standing in front of me is the only person in this valley who feels exactly what I feel right now.