3
(Flashback – 5 years ago)
The wind howled as Evanna pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders, the forest path before her blurred by tears she refused to let fall. Her feet ached from walking, but she didn’t stop—not yet. Not until the castle was nothing but a silhouette swallowed by the trees behind her.
Ashmoor was behind her now.
So was he.
She hadn’t taken anything from the royal chambers. No gold. No jewelry. Not even the velvet ribbon he’d used to tie her hair back before they’d kissed. She left everything behind—except the memory of his voice, low and warm in the dark. And the way his arms had felt around her.
And the weight she now carried inside her.
Evanna didn’t realize it that night. She didn’t even suspect it until nearly three weeks later, when the scent of meat made her sick and her cycle never came.
She’d stood in her small rented room, staring at her reflection—hands trembling as she pressed them to her lower belly. She’d whispered a dozen reasons to dismiss it: stress, a bug, bad timing. But none of it mattered.
She knew.
The baby was his.
The Alpha King’s.
The midwife confirmed it in the second month.
"You’re with child," the old woman said gently, wrapping a shawl around her shoulders as Evanna blinked in stunned silence. “A strong one, too. I can already feel the heartbeat.”
Evanna’s own heart cracked.
She didn’t know whether to laugh or weep.
She hadn’t seen him since the party. Rylan—King Rylan—wasn't someone she could write a letter to or casually visit. He was a ruler, a warrior, a man with wolves at his back and enemies at every border.
And she was just a baker’s daughter with no title, no name of importance, and now… a secret.
For days, she said nothing. She wandered the quiet streets of a neighboring town, fingers brushing her belly through her dress, mind swirling with questions she couldn’t answer.
Would he even remember her?
Would he believe her?
Would he try to take the baby?
The thought terrified her. She pictured a royal guard showing up one day, tearing the child from her arms, and raising it in a place of power and protocol—with no warmth, no freedom, no her.
And so, Evanna made her decision.
She would raise the child alone.
She moved again—this time to a remote village called Bramble Glen, nestled at the edge of the old forests. It was far enough from the capital to avoid royal patrols, but close enough that she could feel the pull of the moon, the way her daughter would someday feel it too.
She found a small cottage. Humble, but warm. The neighbors were kind and nosy in the way small-town folk often were, but none of them asked about a father.
Evanna worked odd jobs: helping at the bakery, cleaning houses, making herbal teas with an old forest healer who took her in like a sister.
Each night, she’d hum lullabies as she laid in bed, one hand on her growing belly. Sometimes, she dreamed of Rylan—not as the King, but just the man he’d been in that moment with her. The one who whispered her name like a vow.
But she always woke alone.
Still… she was never truly alone again.
The day Lyra was born, the midwife gasped.
“She has his eyes.”
Evanna had already known. The second she saw her daughter’s tiny face—those gold-flecked irises and the faint mark on her shoulder, a swirl that mirrored the royal crest—she knew her decision had been both right and impossible.
Because how could she hide something like this?
Lyra didn’t just resemble her father. She glowed with his strength. Even as a baby, she rarely cried. She reached for the moonlight and giggled at the scent of pine. At two, she was shifting partially during full moons—unheard of in pups her age.
But Evanna hid it well.
She kept them away from town during lunar cycles. She taught Lyra to keep her “gold eyes” a secret. And when the little girl asked, “Mommy, where’s Daddy?” Evanna would smile softly and say, “He’s part of the stars, baby. He watches you from far away.”
She never thought it would be enough.
But it had to be.
Because the truth was too dangerous.