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His words are harsh, but his eyes tell a different story.

Confusion. Pain.

I swallow. “You’re right.” Letting out a gust of air, I force myself to relax and think things through. “You’re right. But this is a lot to process, Cedric. This morning, the palace, then Harriet shows up, then you and I, and now this…”

He studies me, and I sort out my thoughts before continuing.

“It’s overwhelming. All of it is. Seeing you again, having to accept what really happened, letting go of my own anger. Everything is crashing around me. Your presence here is disrupting my life, and that scares me. But I don’t want you to go, either. I don’t know if I’m making sense—”

“You don’t have to make sense,” he says quietly. “I understand. We want two very different things. You want this life, and I just want my mate.”

Everything within me goes still.

He just wants me?

“It’s not—” My fingers dig into my sleeve as shame washes over me. “There are things you don’t understand, that I can’t explain to you, Cedric, because you haven’t stood in my shoes. You’ve been free your whole life, while I was little more than a slave. I always belonged to somebody. I never had autonomy over my own body, never was able to make my own decisions. My life, my worth, even my very existence were decided by Vivian and then by you. The two of you always held my fate in your hands.”

I’ve never been someone who sheds tears openly. But lately, it seems I can’t stop crying.

“This small house that you look at so disdainfully? It belongs to me. Everything in here, I picked out myself. I learned what I like, what I don’t like. Did you know that I didn’t even have my own favorite color? For the first time, I’m free and allowed to decide things for myself. Nobody controls me. I don’t have to clutch somebody’s legs simply to survive. I don’t have to debase myself in front of anyone just so they grant me a few more days to live. I don’t have to listen to anybody insult or humiliate me and not react because my very survival depends on them.”

I’m shaking, but not out of anger toward him.

“How can I expect you to understand what this life means to me? You’ve known freedom your whole life, Cedric. I haven’t. In the castle, in the North, the only way to survive was to subordinate myself to you, to please you. I didn’t even know who I was, the kind of person I was, till I came here. And now, you want me to give it all up, to go back to a life of servitude again—”

“That’s not what—” He looks horrified, but my emotions are running high: guilt, shame, this terrible ache in my chest, and a crippling fear.

“That’s exactly what it is!” I cry out, louder than I wanted. I feel my air passages constrict. Why can’t he understand? Why can’t he—

“Mom?”

Chapter 20

Cedric Raine

Harriet once told me that one needs not to hear but to listen.

I never understood the difference. Hearing is the same thing as listening, isn’t it?

But as my mate looks at me, her voice ragged, her eyes devastated and filled with tears, I finally understand.

I’ve been hearing her ever since I found her again, but not once have I tried to listen to what she has been saying. My stomach churns.

A slave.

That’s how she viewed herself? Even when she was with me? Did I make her feel that way?

For the second time in my life, I feel helpless. I don’t know what to say to her. My mate—This is my fault. Of course it’s my fault.

I’m almost glad when our son interrupts us. Leanna is shocked, and she turns around quickly. “Finn. I—Did we wake you?”

The boy steps down from the stairs, looking upset. “Why’re you crying?”

My mate instantly wipes away her tears. “I’m not. Why aren’t you in bed?”

“Is it because of him?” There’s a wealth of anger in his voice. He comes to stand in front of his mother protectively, and his tone turns a little rude. “Why are you here? Go home! We don’t want you here!”

“Finn!” Leanna quickly slaps her hand over his mouth, muffling his next words. “You can’t speak to him like that!”

He pulls her hand away. “Why not? Because he’s my dad?”

I freeze at his words, and Leanna pales. “Who—Who told you that?”

“I’m not stupid, Mom. He looks like me, and I heard you talking.” Finn glares at me. “I don’t need a dad who makes my mom cry. Go away!”

I’m torn between feeling hurt and proud. He’s protecting her. Our son is shielding his mother, even if it is from me.

Right now, though, both of them are upset. I know I should leave. Leanna needs to handle this situation, and I—well, I don’t have a place in her life. Maybe that’s something I should accept.

It’s amusing to think that I have spent my life seizing what I want by force, but the one thing I need, I can’t take. Because if I drag this woman back with me, it’ll kill her spirit.

A slave. A prisoner.

“Go!” Finn yells at me, clutching his mother’s hand. “We don’t need you.”

“Finn!”

“I’m going,” I say calmly. My wolf slumps within me, aching, miserable.

“No, you’re not!” Leanna says fiercely. “You’re not going anywhere. Finn, you don’t talk to your father like that.”

“But he made you cry!” Finn’s face is red with anger. “We don’t need—”

“He is your father. And he didn’t make me cry. We were having a discussion. Which we”—her voice softens—“which we shouldn’t have been having here. You shouldn’t have heard any of that. I’m sorry.”

“Mom—”

Leanna crouches before him and cups his face. “He’s a good man, Finn. And it’s high time you two had a proper introduction. Cedric?”

She looks at me, and the previous anger and frustration in her eyes have disappeared. Instead, she looks nervous. It would have been so easy for her to use this opportunity to turn my son against me. The easiest thing in the world. And given her conflicted feelings toward me, that would have been the route I expected her to take.

Why does she keep defying my expectations? Where do I stand in this woman’s eyes?

When I don’t move, Leanna propels Finn toward me. “Finn, this is your father, King Cedric Raine.”

“King?” Finn’s eyes widen, and he studies me. However, he doesn’t seem too pleased. “I don’t care if you’re a king. I don’t care if you’re my dad. You made my mom cry!”

“It wasn’t his fault,” Leanna lightly chastises him. “Look, he came all this way to see you. And”—she pauses before continuing—“he’s going to take you out every night so that you can run and play in your wolf form. He’s going to teach you a lot of things, so I want you to behave.”

“But Mom—”

She shakes her head. “No. Whatever happens between your father and me does not concern you. He’s your dad, and he wants to get to know you. And”—another struggling breath—“I know you want to get to know him. That’s what I want, too.”

Finn crosses his arms over his chest, his lower lip jutting out in a petulant manner. “If he makes you cry again—”

“I won’t,” I finally say. “I won’t hurt your mother again. You have my word. And a man’s word is his bond.”

Finn looks doubtful, and when he steals a glance at his mother, she nods. “He’s right. And he didn’t do anything to hurt me before.”

My son holds on to his mother for a few seconds before asking her quietly, “So, why is he here now? Why not before? And what’s he king of? Where’s his crown?”