Chapter 32

Nicholas’s POV

My vision tunneled, narrowing until everything but her—the faint, quivering shape of her—vanished from my sight.

On her skin, faintly red as if mocking me, was undeniable.

“Kevin’s,” I spat, the venom sharp and bitter on my tongue. “It has to be Kevin’s.”

Her eyes went wide, impossibly wide, and I could almost see her lungs freeze mid-breath.

“What—” she began, and then stopped, as if the words died in her throat before they could even think of leaving her lips.

“Don’t lie to me!” My voice boomed, echoing in the narrow, dimly lit space. Norman roared with me, a deep, primal sound that shook the walls around us. “You carry his scent. You hide his children. And now this?”

I could feel the madness clawing at the edges of my mind, sharp and merciless. The idea of another man touching her, claiming what should have been mine, letting his teeth, his hands, his fire imprint itself on her soul, made my blood run hot and cold at once. It pushed me to the edge of feral, and I could barely stand the thought of looking at her without seeing him there instead of me.

She shook her head violently, but the motion barely registered.

All I could see was Kevin’s phantom hands across her skin, his teeth biting where only mine should have been. The image burned itself into my mind, leaving a raw, aching hole where hope had once lived.

“I’ll tear him apart,” I growled, trembling with the force of it. My claws of fury dug into the air between us. “I’ll tear him apart for daring to touch you.”

Her lips trembled. Her hands scrabbled at her collar, pulling it tight around her throat as though it could shield her from me.

Still, she said nothing. That silence, that suffocating, heavy silence, was confession enough.

It shattered me.

Esther’s POV

He was going to kill me.

I could see it in his eyes. A dark storm brewed there, wild and unforgiving, burning with a fury that would not stop until someone was broken or destroyed.

I weighed my options in a heartbeat, and each one felt like a blade poised over my throat.

If I told him the truth—that Carl and Sofia were his—he would take them. He would rip them from my arms, drag them into his cold palace, and raise them under the same cruelty he had once inflicted on me.

They would never know softness. They would never know safety.

No. I couldn’t let that happen.

My chest heaved as I forced the words out, raw and trembling:

“They’re Kevin’s.”

The silence that followed was suffocating. It wrapped around me like a wet, heavy blanket, and I felt myself shrink beneath its weight.

Nicholas froze. His lips parted slightly, as if I’d struck him. I could almost see the storm building behind his eyes. Disbelief, fury, and heartbreak all tangled together into something sharp enough to pierce bone.

I swallowed hard, bile rising at the back of my throat. “They’re Kevin’s children. Not yours.”

The lie tore through me. It carved out my lungs, my heart, every fragment of hope I had held onto for years. Yet, I spoke it anyway. The words were a protective talisman. They were the only shield I could raise against the storm of his fury.

Nicholas’s face twisted in ways that made my stomach turn. Devastation warred with rage, grief clashed with anger, and all the while his hands curled into fists at his sides, shaking.

I felt Sharon stir faintly inside me as if she too sensed the danger, the hunger, the impending violence, even as if it were in her dreams. I rarely felt her presence, but this was a rare occasion I need to take seriously.

I shut my eyes tightly and braced myself.

Then the storm broke.

Nicholas lunged forward, not like a man, but like a wolf starved and furious. The ground seemed to shiver beneath the force of his movement. I stumbled back, barely catching myself on the edge of the table behind me.

“Don’t lie to me!” His voice cut the air again, sharper this time, like a whip. “Tell me the truth, Esther. Now!”

I shook my head, backing away, but the lie was already lodged between us like a dagger.

“It’s the truth,” I whispered, the words brittle as dry leaves. “I lost our children, and shortly after became pregnant again. These children are mine and Kevin’s. Now that you know, you should leave us alone. That goes for the kids too.”

His eyes narrowed, piercing, cutting through the shadows that clung to me.

“You think I’ll hurt them?” he snarled, and it was a question, a threat, and an accusation all at once. “You think I’d—after everything—after all that’s ours—” He stopped, the words strangled in his throat. Rage and longing warred across his face, making him almost unrecognizable.

“You think I’d raise them like you fear?” he asked finally, voice a low growl.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Not when the truth would rip them from safety and throw them into the heart of his darkness.

Nicholas’s breath hitched, his chest heaving, and for a moment, his wolf emerged. He was a shadow behind the man, massive, untamed, eyes glowing with a dangerous light. I could feel the heat radiating from him, the raw power ready to shatter everything in his path.

“I should kill him,” he whispered, voice trembling despite the force behind it. “I should rip him apart, tear him from your arms, make him pay—”

“No!” I screamed, more to the world than to him. “Stop!”

His head snapped toward me.

I saw the conflict, the unbearable conflict that twisted every line of his body. I saw the hunger in his gaze, the old bond flickering like a candle in the wind. It was a look that said he wanted to destroy me for lying, punish me for hiding the truth, and yet… part of him still wanted to hold me, to keep me safe.

I pressed my hands against my chest, feeling the frantic beating of my heart. I felt their tiny breaths against my skin, Carl and Sofia, oblivious to the storm tearing through the room. I would protect them, even if it meant lying to the man who had once been the center of my world, the man I had loved in pieces and in shadows.

“You don’t understand,” I whispered, barely audible. “They’re too small… too fragile. You can’t—”

But he did understand. That was the worst part. He understood, every bone in his body understood, and that made the betrayal cut deeper.

Nicholas’s wolf growled low in his throat, a sound that made the walls quiver. His hands clenched, unclenched, shook violently, and all I could do was stand there, trembling, holding onto the children, feeling the lie coil tighter around my lungs.

“Why?” he demanded, voice barely human now. “Why would you do this to me? To them?”

My throat tightened, and I forced myself to meet his gaze.

“Because I love them more than I ever loved you,” I said, voice raw. “Because I can’t let you hurt them, not even by accident. Not even… because of me.”

The words seemed to strike him like a physical blow. His lips parted, and he looked at me as if seeing me for the first time, and also as if I had shattered his soul into a million jagged pieces.

For a long moment, there was silence. The storm inside him raged, but outwardly, he froze, suspended in a tension so thick it made my chest ache. Norman rumbled in the corner, a warning and a threat, and Nicholas’s gaze flicked to his companion, then back to me, the inner battle visible on every inch of his taut, magnificent frame.

And then, just as suddenly as it had risen, the storm in his eyes faltered, leaving only the raw, aching devastation of a man who had loved too deeply and been betrayed in the cruelest way.

I sank to my knees, the lie heavy on my tongue, heavy on my soul. Nicholas didn’t move toward me, but his presence pressed down like a weight. Every fiber of my being screamed in fear, in sorrow, in longing for him to stop hating me—even if the hatred was deserved.

“Please…” I whispered, though I didn’t know if he could hear me. “Please don’t… don’t lose yourself.”

He said nothing. His jaw worked, his hands shaking at his sides. Though the fury hadn’t left him, though the wolf still glimmered at the edge of his control, there was a strange, terrible clarity in his gaze now.

He either knew it was a lie, hoped it wasn’t a lie, or hated it for being the truth. All of it gave him reason to be angry.

He didn’t strike.

For now, I lived in that fragile pause, in that moment of terror and relief, knowing the truth was a danger that could destroy us all, but also knowing that sometimes, survival demanded a sin heavier than any other.