Chapter 22 - Caleb
Astrid is in bed when Lila eventually returns to the kitchen, shoulders tight, while hesitation and worry move through her eyes when she looks at me.
Everything in me is raging to come out all at once, but I try to hold it in as long as I can. I don’t want to scare her. I don’t want her to hate me all over again.
My heart is pounding, and my hands have the faintest tremor in them. Too many overwhelming thoughts race through my mind while I look at her, body numb.
I don’t realise I’m shouting until it’s too late. The words slip from me before I can stop them, piloted by confused instincts and half-confirmed suspicions.
“Is she mine?”
Lila flinches as if the question is a physical blow, and the shock floods her expression. It’s too real and far too telling to ignore. Her lips part to speak, but nothing comes out.
I can hardly hear anything over the blood roaring in my ears.
She swallows hard, dropping her gaze to the floor as her shoulders slump. “Caleb…”
“No,” I say sharply. Pain and fury tangle inside me, making it harder to breathe. “Don’t try to soften it. Answer the question.”
Lila hesitates again, expression dropping as if she’s been caught.
That’s the final nail.
A low sound reverberates in my chest, pushed out by the complicated feelings overloading my inner wolf at once, but I force it back enough not to lash out like I want to. I hit the nearby counter hard enough to make her flinch, but I don’t move.
Looking down at the floor as the emotions hit every organ at once, I let go of a shuddered breath, unable to look at her.
“Jack overheard your mother at the solstice… she slipped up while talking about us, and she said…” The words lodge in my throat, taking considerable effort to clear them again as I force myself to meet her eyes.
“You told me her father was from another pack. You told me that, and I took your word for it.”
When she doesn’t say anything, red rims my vision, and I step closer.
“Lila, tell me the truth,” I say, tense and bordering on lethal. “Right now.”
More fear and dread shift across her face, and she swallows hard. That vulnerability practically screams at me now.
“I… didn’t mean for you to find out like this,” Lila whispers, allowing all of her guilt and remorse to show on her face.
I grab the counter the moment the room tilts, feeling off balance from the confirmation.
There’s no denial. Only the blinding truth that nearly knocks the ground right out from beneath me.
“Lila,” I murmur back, voice shaking. “Is Astrid my daughter?”
While trying to regain control over her emotions, she squeezes her eyes shut before opening them again, forced to face it all at once. She nods slowly. “Yes…”
The word leaves her as a fragile, broken thing, yet it hits me more like a blade to the chest.
My lungs stop working for a beat, and I stare at her in completely stunned silence.
There’s nothing I could say that would ever match the storm tearing through me.
Panic slips into her tone, as if searching for any kind of justification that might fit. “I wanted to tell you, but you were already planning on leaving, and you made it clear that you wanted nothing to do with me.”
“You still could’ve told me,” I utter, feeling a kind of betrayal I’ve never known before. “Even if I was leaving… You could’ve said something. You didn’t even give me the chance.”
Lila’s eyes fill with tears. “I know… but how was I supposed to raise a child with someone who hated me?”
“I didn’t hate you,” I snap, stepping close enough to feel the waves of pain coming from her. “I was an arrogant kid. I didn’t see what was right in front of me, and I couldn’t handle the thing pulling me to you. I didn’t want to face it before leaving, but if you had told me, I would’ve tried.”
Her brows pinch together at that. “No, you wouldn’t have.”
“I’m afraid there’s no way of finding out now.”
Lila trembles in front of me. “I was terrified. Don’t act like it was easy for me.”
“So you punished me by keeping my child from me?”
“No!” she fires back, voice breaking. “I wasn’t trying to punish you. I was trying to survive… trying to navigate nothing but fear and pain all on my own.”
I hear her, and I don’t doubt how impossible it surely seemed for her, but it doesn’t negate the sludge of emotions moving through me.
My wolf feels frantic beneath my skin as I rake a hand through my hair, trying to grapple with everything.
Astrid is my daughter. Mine.
Not just Lila’s. But mine.
I tried to rationalize my suspicions away before.
I tried to ignore the way she lit up whenever I was around, and the way she instinctively reached for me like I meant something to her.
I brushed aside how natural it feels to scoop her up, along with the protective streak that’s been forming in me ever since I laid eyes on her.
It all makes sense now, but that clarity doesn’t soothe me.
Right now, it enrages me.
“Do you have any idea what you stole from me?” I ask, tone riddled with disbelief and pain. “Years, Lila. Years full of firsts—all gone.”
“I know,” she murmurs, almost folding in on herself from the guilt. “I’m sorry… but you weren’t—”
“I wasn’t what? Worthy? Ready?”
“You weren’t safe,” she manages just above a whisper as her chin wobbles. “You were cruel to me. You were so dismissive and cold. You treated me like I didn’t matter, and I knew I had to tell you at some point, but it felt so impossible.”
Every correct claim hits me one after the other, but it still isn’t enough.
“I was. I treated you like shit, and I regret it more than anything. But you didn’t give me the chance to grow up, and to realise whatever existed between us was real,” I return, clenching my hands tightly.
“You robbed me of her… and you robbed Astrid of a father just because you couldn’t stomach telling me. ”
Her breath wavers as she tries to keep herself together. “Caleb—”
“I’ve been fighting my instincts for weeks, wondering why I felt so connected to her. Why it felt so right to protect her, and why I looked at that little girl and saw something so familiar but couldn’t explain it,” I mutter, feeling more broken the more I let it out.
Lila’s face crumples from the weight of it. “I know.”
“And you let me doubt myself. You let me think I was imagining things when you could’ve told me from the day I found you again.”
She glances away. “You never asked.”
“Because I trusted you to tell me the truth!” I throw back at her, body tight with rage and disappointment. “I believed you’d tell me something this important, regardless of where we stood.”
When Lila goes silent, withdrawing all over again, I clench my jaw, unable to get a grip on my thoughts.
“I can hardly look at you right now…”
The words escape me before I can soften them, or before I can figure out if I even want to voice them.
Pain floods our bond, and every second of it hurts. It’s raw and completely unfiltered, but I force myself to stand in it. To feel it feeding between both of us.
After a long moment, Lila goes to say something, but the words die on her tongue before she can get them out. The tears slip from her eyes and race down her cheeks, and as much as I want to brush them away and to tell her everything will be fine, I don’t move. I can’t.
“I’m sorry,” she manages, far too soft, but also too late.
My heart lurches in response, but any sort of apology doesn’t come to me. Not yet.
“I think it would be best if you stayed in the spare room.”
The words come out cold enough to make her freeze on the spot, and her brows pinch together. “Are you serious?”
“Very,” I mumble, looking away to avoid crumbling under the devastation in her eyes. “Please, just go.”
I feel her gaze on me as her breath catches on a sob that she tries to swallow back. She hesitates just long enough for another wave of empathy to hit me, wanting to take it all back and comfort her.
But I feel wounded in ways I’ve never been before. I’m not ready for amends yet.
Eventually, Lila pulls together what’s left of her pride, then walks down the hallway with unsteady and defeated steps.
I stay right where I am for far too long, finding the silence unbearable.
As that ache in my chest gets worse, Astrid’s face flashes in my mind.
Of her at the solstice earlier, showing me that carved wolf like it was her newest prized possession.
How she ran and had fun with the kids, then clung to Lila and me.
I picture her sitting at the kitchen table, happily eating whatever breakfast I’ve put in front of her, quietly sharing her every thought with me.
The fury cycles into grief, then back into fury, hitting me again like painful tides inside me.
I’ve never felt so gutted before, let alone so angry and robbed of something so pure.
So many memories I’ll never have, of memories that belonged to both Lila and me and no one else. Moments I should’ve lived instead of being told after the fact.
Lila took it all away from me.
And yet, I understand exactly why she did it. But it doesn’t take that pain away either.
Where warmth usually rests in our bond, it almost trembles like a nerve stretched too tight, aching and pulsing from both sides. I feel just how difficult this is for her, and in turn, I know she feels my agony too.
Shutting my eyes, I close it off for the time being. I can’t do it.
My feelings for her have reached a place I never imagined possible before, but caring for her and wanting a future together don’t make up for years of not knowing my own child existed.
Pulling in a slow, shuddering breath, the same word echoes in my mind.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow, I’ll face her. I’ll talk to her once I’ve gained some control over my emotions, and I’ll listen. But for now, I need time to reconcile with the fact that I’m a father, and one who’s been kept from his own blood.
So I push off the counter, walk down the hall and past Astrid’s room, and go to our room alone.
It feels as cold and lonely as ever, but for now, it’s what I need.