Chapter 14
Sofia arrived before noon with another woman.
Noah ran from the porch.
“Mom?”
The woman barely got out of the car before he reached her.
Elena Bennett held her son so tightly Jake looked away again.
Noah cried this time.
So did she.
Jake had known Noah’s mother was missing.
Knowing something and seeing what it had cost him were different.
Elena touched his face, his hair, his shoulders as if checking every piece.
“You shifted.”
Noah nodded.
“You’re hurt?”
“Not now.”
“You’re eating?”
Jake said, “Constantly.”
Elena looked at him.
Noah wiped his face.
“Mom, this is Jake.”
Elena’s expression changed.
Not hostile.
Recognizing.
“Oh,” she said.
Jake frowned.
“Oh what?”
Sofia muttered, “Here we go.”
Inside, Elena told them what happened.
The Ash Circle had found the family three months earlier.
They were not hunting Noah because of his first shift.
They were waiting for it.
His bloodline carried something rare: not stronger wolves, not royal wolves, not an alpha hierarchy.
Memory.
Certain wolves could retain impressions from places where supernatural violence had happened.
Smells.
Images.
Sometimes voices.
“The woods remember,” Elena said. “And some of us can listen.”
Jake thought of Noah waking beneath the oak.
“What happened in those woods?”
Elena looked at Sofia.
Sofia answered.
“A Warden died there.”
Jake’s chest tightened.
“Mine?”
“We think so.”
“My grandfather?”
“No.”
Elena looked directly at Jake.
“Your father.”
Jake stood so fast the chair fell.
“My father is alive.”
Elena’s face went pale.
Sofia closed her eyes.
“What?” Jake demanded.
No one answered.
“No. Absolutely not. I talked to him two weeks ago.”
Sofia stood.
“Jake—”
“He sends birthday cards.”
“Listen.”
“He called me after the game!”
Noah moved toward him.
Jake backed away.
“Don’t.”
Noah stopped immediately.
Jake pulled out his phone.
His father’s contact.
DAD.
He called.
One ring.
Two.
Three.
Voicemail.
Jake looked at Sofia.
“What are you saying?”
Elena spoke carefully.
“The man you know as your father may be alive.”
“That is a terrible start.”
“But he is not the man listed in our records as your biological father.”
The room went silent.
Jake laughed.
It sounded wrong.
“This is stupid.”
Lisa knew.
The thought arrived before anyone said it.
His mother knew.
He called her.
She answered immediately.
“Jake?”
“Who is my father?”
Silence.
Jake’s knees weakened.
“Mom.”
“Where are you?”
“Who is my father?”
Lisa inhaled.
“Come home.”
“No.”
“Jake—”
“Tell me.”
Noah stood several feet away, hands at his sides.
Not touching.
Waiting.
Lisa’s voice broke.
“His name was Daniel Miller.”
Jake stared at the wall.
“My dad’s name is Robert.”
“Robert adopted you when you were two.”
Jake could not breathe.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was going to.”
“When? I’m eighteen.”
“Daniel died before you were born.”
The woods.
The Warden.
Eighteen years ago.
Jake closed his eyes.
“How?”
Lisa started crying.
“I never knew.”
Elena knew more.
Daniel Miller had been a Warden.
He had also been working with Noah’s grandmother.
Not hunting wolves.
Protecting them.
The Ash Circle wanted access to a place in the West Ridge woods where several old paths crossed—paths Sofia called thresholds.
Daniel refused.
He died sealing one.
Jake was born six weeks later.
“Then I’m not a wolf,” Jake said.
Elena shook her head.
“Not exactly.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“You carry Warden blood.”
“And I’m changing.”
“Yes.”
“Wardens turn into wolves?”
“No.”
Jake laughed bitterly.
“Excellent.”
Sofia opened her notebook.
“Unless your father wasn’t the only inheritance.”
Jake looked at Noah.
Noah already understood.
“My family,” he said.
Elena nodded.
“Daniel’s mother.”
Jake’s grandmother.
“What about her?”
Sofia turned the notebook around.
A name Jake had never seen.
Ana Horvat Miller.
Beside it:
WOLF-BLOODED.
Jake sat down.
“So I’m both.”
Elena nodded.
“A Warden line and a wolf line meeting in one person.”
“Is that rare?”
Sofia gave him a humorless smile.
“We have no idea. Everyone who might have known was murdered, disappeared, or learned to stop writing things down.”
That evening Jake walked alone to the edge of the woods.
Noah followed but stayed ten feet back.
Jake appreciated that.
“My whole life is somebody else’s secret.”
Noah said nothing.
“My dad isn’t my dad.”
“He is if you want him to be.”
Jake looked back.
Noah shrugged.
“Blood seems overrated lately.”
Jake laughed despite himself.
“That was good.”
“I have moments.”
Jake turned toward the trees.
“What if everything about me is because of this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Football. Hearing. You.”
Noah came closer.
“Jake.”
“What if I only want you because of some bloodline thing?”
Noah’s face hardened.
“Then don’t kiss me.”
Jake blinked.
“Seriously.”
Noah stepped in front of him.
“Don’t touch me because a wolf wants it. Don’t date me because Sofia pulled a card. Don’t stay because somebody dead wrote our families in the same notebook.”
Jake stared at him.
“What if I want to kiss you because you’re being annoyingly reasonable?”
Noah’s mouth twitched.
“That’s acceptable.”
Jake kissed him.
Noah growled immediately.
Jake broke the kiss laughing.
“God, I love that.”
Noah covered his face.
Jake froze.
Love.
He had said it casually.
Not I love you.
Still.
The word hung there.
Noah lowered his hands.
Neither mentioned it.
Not yet.
***
Marcus had accepted werewolves with surprising grace.
He accepted tarot more reluctantly.
“Cards are where I draw the line,” he said.
Jake stared at him. “You watched me become a wolf.”
“Physical evidence.”
“You bear-sprayed a supernatural cult member.”
“Also physical evidence.”
Sofia shuffled her deck at the kitchen table.
Marcus pointed. “That is cardboard.”
She drew a card and slid it toward him.
Page of Swords.
Marcus frowned. “What does it mean?”
“Curious. Watchful. Talks too much.”
Jake laughed so hard he nearly fell off the chair.
Marcus looked betrayed.
“You stacked the deck.”
Sofia smiled. “Cardboard.”
Noah leaned against Jake’s shoulder.
“I like her.”
“Everybody likes her until she predicts emotional growth.”
Marcus picked up the card.
“Can I keep this?”
Sofia raised an eyebrow.
“Why?”
“Physical evidence.”
She let him keep it.
Three days later Jake noticed it tucked into the clear back of Marcus’s phone case.
He said nothing.
Some conversions deserved privacy.