Chapter 157

I went back to my apartment. Mine. The one with the uneven stovetop burner and the coat rack I never hung right. The one I hadn’t stepped foot in since long before my heat, before I started sleeping in someone else’s bed and calling it safety. It felt strange walking back in like nothing had changed.

It wasn’t haunted or vandalized. Just still. The lights were too white, too bright. My favorite mug was still by the sink, the one with the chipped rim. My jacket hung on the hook like I had only been gone a few hours. Simon’s place was across the hall, exactly where I left it. I could feel him inside, awake. Probably debating whether or not to check on me. He didn’t. I didn’t knock either.

I stood just inside the doorway for a long time. My feet didn’t want to move past the threshold. The room felt like a stage I’d abandoned, my absence stretching across it like dust. I eventually curled into the corner of the couch and sat there until the silence stopped being unbearable and just became a fact.

My mother had been a vampire. Not just a vampire, but a high-born one. Exiled. Infamous. She hadn’t died in a field hospital like I had always believed. She had gone underground. Disguised herself. And apparently, given birth to me. No one knew. Not the pack. Not the vampire court. Not even the man I had been letting into my bed.

Except he had known. Or at least suspected. I could still see it on his face, the way he had looked at me like something sacred and terrifying had finally taken shape. He had known, and he hadn’t told me. And now I didn’t know how to look at him. Or myself.

When I woke up, the tea I had made was cold. I drank it anyway. I could hear Simon pacing. I could hear every breath he took. Every shift of weight from one foot to the other. When he finally knocked, it was tentative. Like he expected me to throw something at the door.

He didn’t wait for me to answer. He just came in and set everything down on the table—drives, papers, the folder—and looked at me like someone bracing for a confession.

“I brought everything,” he said.

He didn’t mean supplies. He meant history.

“Serena was not just a nurse,” he said before I could even ask. “That was a temporary identity. A cover. She was high-born. A vampire noble. She was exiled for political sedition, and for having an affair with a werewolf Alpha, your father. No one knew she had a child. No one knew you existed.”

He had already told me all of this. I just stared at the folder he slid toward me.

“She disappeared just before the Vampire Wars officially began,” Simon continued. “The vampire council claimed she was dead. That was a lie. She resurfaced years later under the alias you’ve seen in those records, embedded in a medical unit on the wolf side. She wasn’t there by accident. She positioned herself close to your father’s territory. Maybe she wanted to make peace. Maybe she wanted to protect what she had left. We don’t know.”

He sat back and ran a hand through his hair.

“You asked how the war started. The answer isn’t simple, but it’s important. It began seventy-three years ago. Before then, there was a tenuous peace between vampires and wolves. Fragile, but functioning. We shared neutral trade cities, split borderlands, and even coordinated in some cross-species emergencies. But then a vampire lieutenant was caught feeding on a werewolf ambassador’s child. It wasn’t ordered. It wasn’t sanctioned. It wasn’t even strategic. It was impulse. Hunger. And the vampires protected him instead of giving him up. That was the spark.”

He pulled out one of the notebooks and opened it to a marked page.

“House Drevien shielded the lieutenant. Their leader at the time was already under suspicion for embezzlement and unauthorized border expansions. When the wolves tried to investigate, Drevien declared sovereignty and fortified their holdings. That escalation led to a massacre at a border post. Three wolves died. In response, two vampire supply lines were targeted and destroyed. From there, it stopped being a matter of justice and became a cycle of revenge.”

Simon flipped the page.

“Wolves developed the Howl Array—a sonic weapon that destabilized vampire neural networks. It caused disorientation, memory loss, even seizures. The vampires responded by creating suppression serums that disrupted bonding hormones and short-circuited Alpha scent recognition. It broke mating cycles. It unhinged heat. Entire wolf units lost their cohesion. And still, it escalated.”

“Cities that were supposed to be neutral became test zones,” he said. “Places like Caztan and Thorne Valley. They used civilians as cover. Entire clans disappeared, either slaughtered or consumed in retaliatory strikes. And by the time the elders from both sides tried to call for peace, the infrastructure was already collapsing. Forests burned from sonic mines. Rivers were poisoned. Children died in the crossfire. Not just vampire or wolf children, children. Period.”

He was quiet for a second.

“By the time Serena reappeared, things were already broken. But she came back anyway. She worked quietly, hiding in plain sight. We think she was gathering data, maybe trying to lay the groundwork for a cure. There are notes in here, handwritten ones, that mention early versions of the suppressants we’re still dealing with. She was researching ways to reverse them. She may have even started the prototype I eventually inherited.”

I reached for the folder, but didn’t open it. “And I was born in the middle of that?”

Simon nodded. “We think so. She gave birth in secret, probably just before she went into exile. It’s likely she hid you somewhere safe, or left you with someone she trusted.”

I could barely breathe.

“I spent my whole life thinking I was broken,” I said. “But I wasn’t. I was just different. You knew. Richard knew. And you let me sit in it.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t know until the portrait incident. And even then, I wasn’t sure. Richard figured it out around the same time. He was trying to protect you. So was I.”

“Don’t say that,” I snapped. “Protecting me would have meant telling me the truth.”

Simon didn’t argue. Instead, he reached into the bag and handed me a folded paper.

“The regimen,” he said. “You’re stabilizing, but your body’s still recalibrating. The tonic helps with your vascular system. The cold immersion resets your nervous response. Breathwork keeps your scent from spiking during bell pulses. If you want control, this is how you start.”

I unfolded it. It wasn’t complicated. Just tedious. Daily commitment, hourly monitoring. Like learning to walk again with different legs.

I didn’t say I would do it. But I didn’t throw it away either.

That night, I followed the steps. Just to see. The tonic burned, but not in a bad way. The breathwork left me dizzy. But I didn’t flinch when I triggered the bell pulse manually from my panel. My scent stayed flat. My pulse held steady. That had never happened before.

When I walked into the council chamber the next day, they were already waiting. Some of them stared like I was a threat. Others looked afraid. I let Simon run the test. He activated the pulse. I stood still.

No reaction.

When it ended, I spoke clearly.

“I am in control. I am not a danger to this court, or to this kingdom.”

No one challenged me. Not even Elder Harrow.

Richard joined me only after the vote passed. He stood beside me and named me joint commander. His voice was steady. His face unreadable.

He didn’t reach for my hand.

I didn’t offer it.

That night, I didn’t sleep. I walked the perimeter and felt everything. Every scent, every whisper of movement in the dark. The regimen worked. But something inside me still burned.

I didn’t know what I was becoming.

But I was starting to understand what they had made me for.

And I would not be ashamed of it.