Chapter 60
DEREK
I woke with the sour taste of whiskey still clinging to my tongue and sunlight stabbing through my eyelids like a punishment. My head was pounding. My mouth felt like cotton. And the dull throb behind my eyes wasn’t just from the hangover.
Cassandra’s bare shoulder was the first thing I saw when I turned my head.
I sat up fast. Too fast. The room tilted.
“What the hell…” I muttered, dragging a hand down my face. I was still wearing my watch. My pants were on the floor. My shirt was missing.
Cassandra stirred beside me, the covers slipping low on her back.
“Morning,” she said softly, sleepily, like this was normal. Like we did this all the time.
I felt sick.
“I don’t remember…” I started, and she smiled—soft and sad and understanding.
“You were drunk,” she said. “Heartbroken. I didn’t plan for this to happen either, Derek. But maybe…” She reached for my hand, her fingers delicate on my wrist. “Maybe it’s a sign. That it’s time we stop pretending.”
Pretending?
“Pretending what?” I asked.
“That we aren’t already tied together,” she said, her voice a whisper now. “You’ve always been there for me. Even when she wasn’t. Even when she left.”
Elena.
The name thundered through my chest like a war drum.
I pulled my hand back. “I need a shower.”
She nodded, but there was a flicker of something else in her eyes. Triumph? Satisfaction?
No. I was imagining things. I had to be.
I didn’t remember going to my room. I didn’t remember taking off my clothes. I didn’t remember anything past the sixth drink.
But I remembered how it had felt to see Elena’s face twist in betrayal. I remembered the sound of her voice, cold and sharp as a blade: "Get out of my house. Stay away from my son."
Aiden.
Goddess. I couldn’t figure out why the thought of never seeing the boy again took me out at the knees.
The shame hit me harder than the hangover. I walked into the bathroom, braced both hands on the marble counter, and stared at myself in the mirror. My eyes were bloodshot. My jaw tense.
I didn’t recognize the man I was turning into.
My father had been a strong leader—maybe the best that Silverclaw ever had. When he had become Alpha, Silverclaw had been a middling pack—with land and resources, but little power. He’d built the pack into what it was today: strong. Powerful. Unyielding.
And he’d done it all by being himself. He’d been protective and ambitious, yes, but he’d also been fair, stalwart. Loyal.
He had never—not once—given my mother, his fated mate, any reason to doubt his fidelity.
And while it was true that Elena had rejected me, even though she was with—engaged—to another man, I still felt as though I owed her my faithfulness.
I looked into my own bloodshot eyes and had to accept that I might never live up to the standard my own father had set.
My fingers clenched the marble countertop and I swallowed hard, tasting bile.
After a quick shower and a change of clothes, I made my way down to the kitchen. My mother was already there, standing at the stove in one of her aprons, humming quietly as she prodded at something in a cast iron skillet. Bacon.
She looked up briefly when I entered.
“Coffee’s hot,” she said. “You look like hell.”
“Good morning to you too,” I muttered, grabbing a mug. I poured myself a cup and added nothing. I needed the bitterness.
We sat in silence for a minute.
“I can feel you thinking,” she finally said, using tongs to flip the bacon in her pan onto a paper-towel-lined plate.
“A dangerous pastime,” I said, and she smiled, reached back and removed the apron she was wearing, tossing it onto the countertop.
She held the plate of bacon out to me, and I took a piece, the grease hot on my fingers. I let it burn.
My mother poured herself her own cup of coffee and the silence in the room stretched on.
Eventually, she sat down across from me, hands curling around her coffee mug like she was waiting for a storm to pass. Maybe she was.
“You’ve been thinking about your father,” she said quietly.
I nodded. How did she always know?
“I miss him,” I said. “But more than that… I keep asking myself what he would’ve done. With the summit. With the rogues. With…” I trailed off, unwilling to say her name. Elena lived too vividly in my head already.
My mother sipped her coffee, watching me over the rim of her mug.
“He was a good Alpha,” she said. “Not a perfect man. But a good one. And he trusted his instincts. Even when they made things harder.”
I nodded again, chewing my bite of bacon without tasting it.
“I think he would’ve hated this rogue threat,” I said. “Not just because it’s dangerous. But because it’s unpredictable. No honor. No code. Just fire and chaos.”
“He would’ve hated it,” she agreed. “But he also would’ve known how to deal with it.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “And he wouldn’t have let his personal life get in the way.”
At that, she raised a brow. “Ah,” she said, sitting back. “So we’ve arrived at the real problem.”
I gave her a look.
“Derek,” she said, voice softening, “You think I don’t know you?. I know that tone. That guilt.”
I sighed. “I just—”
“Regret is something you’ve been living with for six years. You think the rest of us don’t know it? That we don’t live with it too?”
I flinched.
My mother didn’t push.
Instead, she stood and moved toward the fridge, giving me space. “Cassandra’s been in love with you since she was fifteen,” she said as she pulled out eggs. “You’ve known it. Everyone’s known it.”
“Maybe it’s a sign,” I muttered.
“Of what?”
“That it’s time I stop chasing things that were never going to work,” I said. “That maybe I should think about what’s good for the pack. Marry someone from a strong family. Someone loyal. Someone who’s always been there.”
She cracked an egg on the side of a bowl.
“Is that what she is?” my mother asked lightly. “Someone who’s always been there?”
“Cassandra has never done anything to hurt the pack,” I said defensively.
“That’s not what I asked.”
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
She glanced at me as she whisked the eggs, then poured them into the pan.
“Elena was…” she started, then seemed to mull her next words carefully. “I imagine it was hard. For both of you. Not knowing anything about her past,” she finished.
I looked up at her.
“But she made you stronger. She challenged you. Made you rethink things. Cassandra? She’s never challenged you a day in her life. She follows where she thinks power will go. And if you do marry her, I hope it’s not because you think your father would’ve wanted it.”
I looked at her sharply. “He respected her father.”
“He tolerated him,” she corrected, flipping the eggs. “Because he had to. Because you made a vow to her, and he supported you.”
I stared down into my coffee cup.
“Did you ever love her? Do you still?”
“Elena?” I asked, too quickly.
My mother smiled knowingly. A little sadly.
“Cassandra,” she said softly.
“If I married her it wouldn’t be about love,” I said.
“No,” she agreed. “But it should at least be about truth.”
We finished breakfast mostly in silence. But the words lingered.
Truth.
Loyalty.
Regret.
After my mother left the kitchen, I sat for a long while at the table, staring out the window at the sweeping forest edge in the distance. Somewhere out there, rogues were waiting. Planning. Testing our limits.
And I’d been too consumed with my own mistakes to see the truth staring me in the face.
I stood suddenly, pushing my chair back, and headed straight to the study.
Brock had left the tribunal transcripts on my desk like I’d asked.
I opened the folder.
Pierce.
The former Gamma of Silverclaw. Exiled. Loyal to no one but himself.
I skimmed pages of testimony.
At first, it was all things I’d heard in passing. Allegations of disloyalty. Rumors of arms dealings. Discrepancies in resource inventories.
But then—
Something caught my eye.
My brow furrowed. I went back. Read it again.
And again.
My breath caught.
A cold sensation crept down the back of my neck, like a warning. I sat up straighter in my chair, the leather groaning beneath me as tension filled every limb.
My heart started to pound.
Hard. Relentless. Like a drumbeat sounding an alarm.
And suddenly, I wasn’t just reading history.
I was staring at a threat that had never gone away.
One that had been waiting in the dark.
Waiting for me to finally see it.
