Chapter 85

DEREK

I stood in the doorway to Aiden’s hospital room, barely breathing.

Inside, the boy I had just learned was my son lay pale and still, surrounded by wires and monitors. The soft beep of machines echoed in the sterile silence, steady but too quiet. Like a heartbeat you didn’t trust to keep going.

Elena sat at his side, her fingers wrapped gently around his much smaller ones. She hadn’t looked up when I opened the door. Hadn’t moved at all. Her posture was rigid, but the grief in it was unmistakable. She looked like she was holding herself together by sheer force of will.

I didn’t blame her.

The truth still hadn’t fully landed in my chest. My son. My son. Those words felt too large, too fragile. I didn’t know how to hold them without dropping something that mattered.

He was mine.

He always had been.

And I hadn’t known.

I stepped quietly into the room, each footfall feeling loud against the tile. The scent of antiseptic burned my nose, but beneath it was something warmer. Fainter. Familiar.

Him.

“Elena,” I said softly. “May I sit with you?”

She didn’t speak. Didn’t look up. Just nodded once, her eyes never leaving his face.

I pulled a chair to the other side of the bed and sat, sinking into it like I’d been holding my breath since the moment I saw his blood on my hands.

My fingers trembled slightly as I reached for Aiden’s free hand. I didn’t expect him to squeeze back. But I needed the contact. Needed something real to hold on to.

His skin was warm. Alive.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

The doctors had said it was a waiting game now. That his vitals were steady, but trauma did strange things to a body—especially a young one. The next few hours would be critical.

So I sat.

Holding my son’s hand in silence.

And trying to understand how I could feel so much love for someone I hadn’t even known was mine until a few hours ago.

We sat there in silence, listening to the machines whisper life back into our son.

Eventually, I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry.”

That made her turn.

Her eyes were tired. Red-rimmed. She looked like she’d aged a year in a day. But she was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“For what?” she asked quietly.

“For everything,” I said. “For the wedding. For how I treated you. For all the things I didn’t say—and the ones I did. I hurt you. I see that now.”

She didn’t answer right away. Just blinked down at Aiden’s still form. When she finally did speak, her voice was soft.

“Surely you know that all the harm you inflicted…” she shook her head, a soft incredulous laugh slipping past her lips. “A simple apology is not going to suddenly make everything better…”

I sighed, ran a hand over my face.

“I know,” I said.

She nodded slowly. “But I appreciate that you said it.”

Her eyes flicked up to me once more.

“I owe you an apology as well,” she went on.

I raised my eyebrows at this, but didn’t say anything.

“I shouldn’t have kept Aiden a secret from you. I see that now,” she nodded toward where I was holding our son’s hand.

“But… you should know… he’s had a good life since I walked away from you. Since our wedding day. And I plan to continue to live it. The same way I always have.”

I let that sit with me.

More silence. More machines. I looked at the boy between us and saw the ghost of a life I hadn’t lived. First steps. First words. First everything.

I’d missed it all.

“What happened to you?” I asked. “After the wedding? After you left? I sent people out to look for you and all we heard back were rumors. Someone had seen a woman who looked like you. Said there was a car accident and that you were taken away.”

She gave me a curious look. “Is that why you thought I was dead?”

I nodded, the steady peeping of the hospital machines a quiet backdrop.

Elena drew in a slow breath. Her hand tightened on Aiden’s.

“I didn’t just leave, Derek. There was an attempted kidnapping.”

My whole body went still.

She kept talking, her tone eerily calm. “I rejected the bond that morning because I felt like I didn’t belong. I was confused and overwhelmed, and then…it happened. They came out of nowhere.”

Her voice cracked on the word.

“It was only by the grace of the Moon Goddess that I pulled myself free.”

I sat up, waiting on tenterhooks to hear what happened next.

“As I was pulling away,” she whispered. “I fell into the path of a car. I was hit.”

I felt cold all over.

“And that’s the grace of the Moon Goddess?” I asked bitterly. “You being hit by a car?”

Elena looked up at me, finally, and there was something unreadable in her gaze.

“The car that hit me,” she said, “was being driven by my father.”

It felt like the floor dropped out beneath me.

I stared at her. “What?”

“Can you imagine?” she said. “Of all the street corners in all the world, I was attacked… and thrown into the path of the family that had been looking for me for the better part of a year.”

She shook her head ruefully. “I woke up in a hospital room and was welcomed back into my family’s fold without thought or prejudice. I was welcomed back into the pack. They made me feel like I belonged.”

At this, I felt a touch of shame.

“It was a chance to start over,” she went on. “A chance to start fresh. And I took it.”

I sat back in my chair, trying to absorb it all. Her kidnapping. Her accident. Her return to a world she didn’t remember—and the son I didn’t know we had.

I looked at Aiden again. At this small miracle lying between us.

And for the first time in years, I thought that maybe—just maybe—the Moon Goddess hadn’t been punishing me.

Maybe She’d been trying to bring us back together.

But the people who’d tried to take Elena…they hadn’t been divine.

They were wolves. Monsters in fur. And they were still out there.

My hands curled into fists.

“Do you remember anything about the people that tried to take you?” I asked. “Anything at all?”

She shook her head. “Faces, maybe. But they blur together. It’s like my mind doesn’t want to go back there.”

I nodded. I wouldn’t press. Not yet. But I would find them. Whoever they were—Pierce’s men, or someone else—I would find them.

And I would make them regret ever touching her.

Aiden stirred slightly in the bed. Just a twitch. But it was enough to bring my focus back to him.

This boy. My son.

He was still here. Still fighting.

And I would be here when he woke up.

For him.

For her.

For us.

Even if it was already too late to fix the past… maybe there was still time to build something new.

Something better.

Something real.