Page 28

"Thomas." Her voice stops me. When I look over, her eyes are filled with tears. "I need to tell you something. About Maisie."

My heart lurches against my ribs. "What about her?"

"If we don't make it out of here—" her voice catches, "—if something happens to me, you need to know."

"Nothing's going to happen to you," I insist, but she shakes her head.

"Please. Just listen."

There's something in her voice I've never heard before—a desperation beyond our current danger, a secret she can no longer bear to carry.

"Maisie isn't four years old," she says finally, the words coming out in a rush. "She's five. Almost six."

I blink, trying to understand why this matters now, why—

And then it hits me. The math.

The timing.

"Five," I repeat, my voice strangely distant to my own ears. "Born when?"

Fiona meets my eyes directly, tears spilling down her cheeks. "March 12th. Six years ago. Eight and a half months after you left."

The world tilts beneath me.

"She's mine." The words emerge as barely more than a whisper.

Fiona nods, a small, broken movement. "I found out I was pregnant weeks after you disappeared. But you’d—you’d cut contact. And I couldn't—I didn’t—”

"Fiona—" My throat closes around her name.

"I was so scared." Her words spill out now, years of pent-up truth breaking free, as tears well in her green eyes. "Pregnant and alone, and my father watching my every move. When my father found the test, he was so angry. Said I'd ruined myself, letting an animal impregnate me. That's when I ran."

My mind races to catch up with this revelation, images flashing before me—Maisie's eyes, the same amber as mine. The way she tilts her head when thinking, just like I do. Her premature shifting, explained by her true age and her bloodline. My bloodline.

My daughter. I have a daughter.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I manage, though I already know the answer.

"How could I?" Anger flashes through her grief. "You left me without a word, Thomas. No goodbye, no explanation. Just vanished. What was I supposed to think?"

"That I would have stayed if I could," I say, my own voice breaking. "That I would never have left you if there'd been any other choice."

She stares at me, confusion replacing anger. “Don’t lie to me, Thomas—”

The truth I've carried for six years rises in my throat, demanding release. If I'm going to die tonight, I won't do it with this lie between us.

"Your father came to me the night before I left," I say, the memories sharp as broken glass. "Cornered me in the woods, on our territory. Told me he knew about us, about what we were to each other."

Fiona's expression shifts, disbelief warring with hope. "My father..."

"He said if I didn't leave Silvercreek—leave you—immediately, he'd kill you." The words taste bitter, the threat as real now as it was then. "Said he'd make it look like an accident, just like he did with your mother."

"What?" Fiona's face drains of color. "What about my mother?"

I realize too late she doesn't know this part. But there's no going back now.

"He told me he'd been poisoning her for years.

Small doses of wolfsbane in her food, her tea.

Not enough to kill her outright, but enough to weaken her, prevent her from shifting, make her sick.

" My voice drops to a whisper. "He was proud of it, Fiona.

Bragged about how no one ever suspected, how he watched her die by inches. "

A sound escapes her—not quite a cry, not quite a word—as six years of believing a lie collapses around her.

"He killed her," she whispers. "All those years of illness, her weakness... he was poisoning her."

"I believed him when he threatened to do the same to you. That's why I left. To keep you safe." I strain toward her, desperately wishing I could touch her, hold her. "I never knew about Maisie. If I had known—"

"You would have stayed," she finishes, understanding dawning in her eyes. "You would have risked it."

"I would have found another way," I say fiercely. "Any other way than leaving you both."

The silence that follows is filled with six years of lost moments, of grief for what might have been. Fiona's tears flow freely now, tracking silver paths down her cheeks in the dim light.

"All this time," she says finally. "All these years running, hiding, lying about who she is... and he was the monster all along. Not us."

"I'm so sorry, Fiona." The words are painfully inadequate. "I thought I was protecting you."

"And I thought you'd abandoned me." She laughs bitterly. "What a pair we make."

Despite everything—the silver burning my wrists, the knowledge of what awaits us upstairs, the years lost to Edward Wright's hatred—I feel something unfurl in my chest. A truth finally spoken. A connection reforged.

"Maisie," I say, testing the name with new meaning. "My daughter."

Fiona's expression softens. "She has your eyes. Your stubbornness. The way you get quiet when you're thinking hard about something. She’s always asking about her dad.”

"Why is she shifting so young?" I ask, remembering the glow in Maisie's eyes.

"Strong bloodline. My mother's family were all early shifters. Combined with yours..." She shrugs slightly. "The healer said her wolf is exceptionally strong. The stress is probably accelerating things."

Pride mingles with fear at the thought of our child experiencing her first shift in a cage, terrified and alone. "We have to get to her."

Fiona nods, determination replacing despair in her eyes. "If we both pull against the support beams at the same time, maybe we can break them. They're old, rotted in places."

We position ourselves, backs against the wooden posts, arms straining against the silver restraints. The burn intensifies, but I welcome the pain now, let it fuel my strength. For Maisie. For the years stolen from us. For the future we deserve.

"Thomas," Fiona says suddenly, pausing in her efforts. "If we get out of this—when we get out of this—I don't want to waste any more time."

I meet her eyes across the dim cellar, seeing in them everything I've longed for since the day I left.

"Never again," I promise. "Nothing will separate us again."

She nods once, fierce and certain, then resumes pulling against her restraints. Above us, footsteps move across the floor—Edward's men preparing for their demonstration, for our execution.

But they've miscalculated. They've chained two wolves who now have everything to live for, everything to fight for.

And somewhere upstairs, our daughter waits for us to find her.

The wooden post gives way with a splintering crack, sending me lurching forward. My restraints are still attached to the broken fragments, but I'm free from the support beam. I twist my body, ignoring the burn of silver against my wrists as I work to loosen the chains.

Across from me, Fiona pulls with renewed determination, her eyes fixed on my progress.

"Almost," she grunts, muscles straining. "Almost there."

With a final heave, her post fractures, wood splintering like gunshots in the quiet cellar. She pitches forward, catching herself on her knees, the chains still trailing from her wrists.

"The lock," I say, nodding toward a toolbox in the corner. "There might be something—"

She's already moving, dragging her chains as she searches through the abandoned tools. Her fingers close around a rusted screwdriver, triumph flashing across her face.

"Hold still," she says, kneeling beside me. Her hands tremble slightly as she works the screwdriver into my restraint's locking mechanism. Each touch sends silver burning through my skin, but I bite back the pain, focusing instead on her face—so close, so determined.

The lock gives with a click, and the first restraint falls away. The relief is immediate; the skin is already beginning to heal as I take the screwdriver and free her left hand. We work quickly, methodically, until all four restraints lie discarded on the concrete floor.

For a moment, we simply stare at each other, the reality of what we've learned—of what we've found—hanging in the air between us. Six years of separation. Six years of believing lies. Six years of our daughter growing up without me.

"Thomas," she whispers, my name a question and an answer all at once.

I reach for her, unable to form words for the storm inside me. My hands cradle her face, thumbs brushing away tears I hadn't noticed falling. Her skin is warm against my palms, achingly familiar and new all at once.

She leans into my touch, her eyes never leaving mine.

"I never stopped loving you," she confesses, voice breaking. "Even when I thought you'd left us, I couldn't stop. I tried, but I couldn’t.”

"Fiona." Her name contains everything I can't articulate—regret, hope, a future reclaimed. "I've loved you every day since I left. Every single day."

We move together like gravity, inevitable and necessary. Her lips meet mine, tentative at first, then with a desperation that matches the roaring in my blood. Years of longing poured into a single kiss, her body fitting against mine as though we were never separated.

I taste salt from our mingled tears, feel the tremble in her fingers as they tangle in my hair. My arms wrap around her, pulling her closer, as though I could erase the time and distance with this embrace.

When we finally break apart, breathless, she rests her forehead against mine.

"We have a daughter," she whispers, wonder threading through the words.

"We have a daughter," I repeat, the truth of it settling into my bones, reshaping everything I thought I knew about myself, about my future. "And we're going to get her back."

Fiona nods, drawing strength from certainty. She rises to her feet, extending her hand to me. I take it, our fingers interlacing, palms pressed together in silent promise.

Whatever awaits us upstairs—whatever Edward Wright has planned—he'll face us not as broken individuals, but as what we truly are: a family, a pack, a force he cannot possibly understand.

"Ready?" she asks.

I squeeze her hand once, feeling the wolf rise within me, fierce and protective. "Ready."