The Stolen Years
Four years.
Four years of waking up in a cold sweat, my inner wolf howling in the pitch-black darkness of my bedroom, tearing at my own chest because the mate I had claimed was gone. I had burned down rival territories looking for her. I had executed my own spies for failing to find a trace of her copper hair.
I thought she was dead. I thought my political enemies had slaughtered her to punish me.
But she wasn't dead. She was standing in a freezing cabin in neutral territory, fiercely protecting the greatest secret in the history of the Bloodbane pack.
PUP. My wolf whimpered, a sound of absolute, devastating agony and awe. OUR PUP.
I was on my knees on the dusty wooden floorboards. The ruthless Alpha King of the South, a man who didn't bow to the High Council or the Gods, was completely paralyzed by the sight of a four-year-old boy.
He had her nose. He had her soft, stubborn jawline. But his eyes... those bright, piercing golden eyes staring back at me in absolute terror... they were a perfect, undeniable mirror of my own soul.
"Hey," I choked out, my voice sounding like grinding stones. My hands were shaking so violently I had to press them against my thighs to stop the tremors. I slowly, agonizingly reached one hand forward. "Hey, little one. I'm not going to hurt you."
The boy didn't step forward. He didn't look at me with the instinctive love of a pup meeting his sire.
Instead, he let out a terrified whimper, clutching his stuffed bear to his chest, and darted completely out of my reach. He ran straight past me and buried his face in Freya's legs, wrapping his small, trembling arms around her knees.
"Mommy, make the scary man go away!" he cried, burying his face in her apron.
The words hit me like a physical blow from a silver warhammer.
The air was violently sucked out of my lungs. My hand dropped to my side, completely empty.
Scary man. Not father. Not Alpha. Just a monster who had broken into their home.
I looked up from the boy. Freya was standing there, her chest heaving, one protective hand resting on our son's head. Her green eyes weren't filled with the soft, submissive love they used to hold when she lay in my bed four years ago. They were filled with absolute, blazing hatred.
The overwhelming, crushing agony in my chest suddenly instantly violently transmuted into something else.
Rage.
Pure, unadulterated, apocalyptic Alpha rage.
She had stolen him. She had stolen his first steps. His first words. She had let my son grow up thinking he didn't have a father, while I was slowly dying inside from the severed bond.
I pushed myself off the floor, my massive frame towering over them once again. The vulnerable man vanished, buried under the lethal, impenetrable ice of the Alpha King.
"Pack your things," I commanded, my voice dropping an entire octave, vibrating with an Alpha command so heavy the two elite guards at the door immediately stiffened.
Freya raised her chin, pulling our son tighter against her legs. "I told you, Kade. I'm not going anywhere with you."
"And I told you, I'm not asking," I snarled, stepping into her personal space.
The scent of her—vanilla, crushed pine, and sweet rain—flooded my senses, making my fangs ache to mark her right here, right now.
"You have exactly five minutes to gather whatever the boy needs.
If you don't, I will throw you in the back of the transport exactly as you are, and I will burn this pathetic cabin to the ground. "
Freya opened her mouth to argue, but she looked into my golden eyes and saw the absolute, terrifying truth. I wasn't bluffing. My wolf was so close to the surface, completely unhinged by the betrayal, that I was a second away from losing control completely.
She swallowed hard, her jaw tightening. "Fine. But you don't touch him."
She knelt down, whispering soothing words to our terrified son, before hurriedly grabbing a small duffel bag and shoving some clothes and a few wooden toys inside.
I watched her every move like a predator. My eyes kept darting to the boy. My son. The realization kept hitting me in overwhelming waves, making my hands clench into tight fists at my sides.
"Let's go," Freya said coldly, slinging the bag over her shoulder and picking the boy up in her arms. She refused to look at me.
I gestured for my guards to lead the way out. As Freya walked past me, the cold winter wind whipped her copper hair against my arm. The urge to pull her flush against my chest and bury my face in her neck was physically agonizing.
We stepped out into the freezing snow. A massive, black armored SUV was idling in the clearing.
I opened the heavy back door, gesturing for her to get in. She climbed into the backseat, settling the boy on her lap. I didn't get in the front. I climbed into the back with them, slamming the heavy armored door shut, trapping us in the suffocatingly small space.
"Drive," I barked at the guard behind the wheel.
The SUV lurched forward, tearing through the snow-covered forest, heading straight for the southern borders of the Bloodbane territory.
For the first thirty minutes, the silence in the car was deafening. The boy—I didn't even know his name—eventually cried himself to exhaustion, his small head resting against Freya's chest as he fell into a restless sleep.
I couldn't take my eyes off him. I watched the steady rise and fall of his chest. I watched the way his small hand gripped Freya's sweater.
"What is his name?" I asked, my voice a low, rough whisper in the dark cabin of the SUV.
Freya looked out the heavily tinted window at the passing trees. She didn't answer for a long time.
"Asher," she finally whispered, the word sharp and reluctant.
"Asher," I repeated, the name tasting like a heavy, beautiful prayer on my tongue. I turned my head, my golden eyes locking onto her stubborn profile. "Why didn't you tell me, Freya? Even if you hated me... how could you steal my own blood from me?"
Freya finally turned her head to look at me. The sheer, blinding fury in her green eyes made me flinch internally.
"How could I tell you?" Freya hissed, keeping her voice low so she wouldn't wake Asher.
"You kept me as a prisoner of war! You used me to warm your bed, and the moment the High Council offered you a political alliance, you agreed to execute my entire pack!
You were going to marry the Northern Princess and lock me in the dungeons as a bargaining chip! "
"That's a lie!" I growled, leaning closer, my fangs slipping out. "I never agreed to execute anyone! I was playing the politics to keep you safe! If I had openly claimed an enemy healer as my Luna, the Council would have assassinated you!"
"You didn't trust me enough to tell me that!
" Freya shot back, a single tear of absolute, furious betrayal escaping her eye.
"I woke up in your bed, Kade, only to hear your Beta confirming the orders for my pack's execution.
I was already pregnant. What did you expect me to do?
Stay and let my child be raised by a monster who slaughters his mother's people? "
The words ripped straight through my chest, shredding whatever was left of my heart.
She heard the false orders. She hadn't run because she didn't love me. She ran because she thought I was going to murder her family. She ran to protect our pup.
The crushing, absolute guilt of my own secrets crashed down on me. I had built a fortress of lies to protect her, but I had ended up locking her out in the cold.
"Freya..." I breathed, all the anger completely vanishing, replaced by a devastating, hollow ache. I reached out, desperate to just touch her hand.
She flinched away from me as if my skin was made of burning acid, pulling Asher tighter against her chest.
"Don't touch me," Freya whispered, her voice laced with absolute venom and fear.
"You have your healer, Kade. I will cure your plague.
I will save your pack. But the moment the last wolf is healed.
.. I am taking my son and I am leaving. And if you try to stop me, I swear to the Goddess, I will kill you myself. "
I looked at the beautiful, fierce, broken woman sitting next to me. The Omega I had claimed four years ago was gone. She was a mother now. A warrior.
And she completely, utterly hated me.
I leaned back against the dark leather seat, my jaw clenching as the massive iron gates of the Bloodbane packhouse came into view.
I had brought her back to the cage. But this time, I wasn't fighting a war against an enemy pack.
I was fighting a war to win back my family. And I was already losing.