Chapter 24

Nicholas’s POV

The Medical Summit was supposed to be routine. It was another showcase of research and innovation, an opportunity to watch the program I had invested in flourish. I had expected presentations, polite applause, and a few strategic conversations in conference rooms.

Nothing in my carefully ordered life had prepared me for the moment I saw her.

She was on stage. Standing in the center of a floodlit platform, her back straight, her chin lifted, and her voice… her voice… low, measured, commanding, and yet utterly captivating.

Dr. E. Arden, they called her. Principal Investigator. Brilliant. Poised. Every word she spoke carried authority, precision, and intellect. Every movement was calculated yet effortless. Every slide she presented drew the audience closer, like a magnetic pull, holding them rapt.

And then I saw her face.

It was her. Not Arden, not the ghost of the girl I thought I had lost, not some pale imitation.

My Esther. Alive.

She had grown, hardened, sharpened herself into someone the world could not ignore. I froze, my chest tightening, as if the world had narrowed to that single figure under the lights, delivering a lecture as if she belonged in the world she had once vanished from.

For a heartbeat, I couldn’t move. Every instinct, every muscle in my body, screamed at me. Shock. Awe. Recognition. Longing. Anger. Betrayal.

I could feel my wolf, Norman, stirring beneath my skin, coiling and uncoiling. He was a growling, impatient shadow demanding to mark its territory, claim what had been denied, and punish those who had hurt my mate.

She didn’t notice me at first, or maybe she did and was pretending not to. That same calm, controlled presence I had once admired, and sometimes feared, shrouded her.

Dr. E. Arden. All this time, she had been right under my nose. I should have known that she was still alive.

That was the mask she wore now. The mask she had chosen to survive, to shield our children, to hide from me.

But it was futile. I could see her through it. I had always seen her.

I forced myself to move, stepping toward the stage. My hands clenched at my sides, my wolf thrumming with tension and rage. Security barely registered me, and the audience didn’t even glance in my direction. Power and reputation can open doors others cannot, and I was nothing if not accustomed to bending the world to my will.

And yet, nothing had prepared me for this.

She looked calm, collected, almost untouchable. But the slight tightening around her eyes, the faint tremor in her hands as she gestured toward the slides, betrayed her. My heart ached and roared all at once. She was standing there, alive, commanding the room, and yet, she was still mine in ways that terrified me.

The applause had faded, and she stepped down from the stage. As she retreated, I followed.

I had reached her side before anyone could process it. She glanced up, and recognition flickered in her eyes. Fear? Wariness? Defiance? But she was there, facing me, unbroken, standing on her own.

“Esther,” I said, low and rough, my voice a mixture of authority and emotion I could barely control. “How did you end up here? Where are my children?”

The name slipped past my lips before I could stop it. I didn’t care that the world might be listening. My need for answers, for the truth, overrode everything else.

Her posture stiffened. I could see the flicker of panic, or calculation, across her face. She swallowed, trembling ever so slightly, and lifted her gaze to meet mine, voice barely a whisper.

“I… I miscarried,” she said.

It was like a knife through my chest. Fury evaporated, replaced instantly by grief so deep it felt like it could swallow me whole. My wolf cried out inside me, a long, mournful howl of loss and despair. The world around me blurred. The crowd, the stage, the applause—all of it faded. There was only her, only the absence of what should have been ours, and only the cruel realization that I had been denied the chance to protect, to claim, to hold.

I stepped back, gripping the edge of a chair for support. My knees felt weak, as though the floor itself had been pulled from under me. She was trembling too. I could see it clearly now, the weight of the lie she carried to shield me from further rage, from the chaos I might unleash if I had allowed it. The sight tore at my chest, and I wanted to scream at the injustice of it all.

“You…” I began, voice breaking, raw, low. “You…” My fingers dug into the fabric of the chair, leaving crescents in my knuckles. My wolf circled and growled in frustration, anger, and heartbreak. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why go to such lengths to hide from me, to hide the truth from me?”

She shook her head, lips pressed tight. “I—I had to protect you. I had to protect the children. I had to survive.” Her voice cracked despite the effort to remain steady.

The irony was unbearable. She had survived everything, yes, but not unscathed. Not without loss. And she had carried the burden of my wrath, of my absence, of our stolen life, alone.

I wanted to curse the world, to demand justice from it, to demand her and what should have been ours back. But I couldn’t. I had no right,not in that moment, to unleash the full weight of my fury and grief. Not in front of all these people. Not when she had already sacrificed so much to protect me from it.

And yet the need to be near her, to claim what was mine, to demand answers, was almost unbearable. I could feel the wolf pressing at the edges of my control, coiling tighter with every heartbeat. My chest ached. My hands shook. I could barely breathe.

I stepped closer, lowering my voice, trying to hold back the howl rising from inside me. “Esther… Why did you go this far?”

Her eyes were impossibly sad. Trembling lips parted, but no answer came. I could feel the weight of her protection, the immense burden she carried even in that simple, horrifying truth.

“I couldn’t handle it,” she admitted, barely audible. “I;d lost our children. I didn’t know what to do with myself. So I ran.”

The words hit me harder than any blow could. Rage, grief, and helplessness collided in an explosion behind my ribs. Norman howled, rising from the depths of me, echoing the agony of what had been taken, what I had failed to protect. The world tilted. Every piece of control I had ever held evaporated.

I stumbled backward, pressing my palms to the nearest chair. My breath came in ragged bursts. My vision blurred. My chest felt hollow, a cavern of loss that could never be filled.

The summit, the people, the applause, none of it mattered. Everything faded except her, trembling, trembling under the weight of the truth she had hidden from me.

I wanted to hold her, to shake her, to scream at the unfairness of it all. I wanted to rage against the world, against the fate that had stolen our children, against myself for ever letting her go. But I couldn’t. I had no right to disrupt this carefully maintained moment, no right to destroy her dignity with my grief.

All I could do was turn, shoving past the stunned crowd, past the murmurs, past the curious eyes of people who had no idea what had just unfolded. My hands shook at my sides, my wolf howling inside me, and I walked out of the hall in torment, leaving her there on the stage, pale, trembling, almost fainting from the weight of her lies.

Even as I left, I knew I could not stop thinking of her. I could not stop thinking of what had been stolen. Could not stop thinking of what remained of us. The summit, the program, and the world no longer mattered.

All that existed was the void where our children should have been, the brilliance and danger of the woman who had survived me, and the storm raging in my chest that no wealth, power, or control could ever quench.