The name on the record

My father’s name was Aldric Vance.

I just sat there on the floor of the records room, file open in my lap, staring at the faded ink like it might change if I looked long enough. Aldric Vance. Mara Sutton’s mate, father of one daughter, born thirty years ago. Me.

Elder Vance—my father.

The words felt too big to hold all at once, like handling a piece of glass you’re not sure won’t break. I tried out the truth from every direction, poked at it, waited for it to crack. It didn’t. It just sat there, solid and awful.

Suddenly, everything made sense. The targeting before I’d done anything to deserve it. How invested Vance was in getting me out of Damien’s life. The weirdly huge resources deployed against me. The poison. The fake intelligence. Years of careful plotting.

Turns out, I wasn’t just a Luna who’d gotten too successful. I was Aldric Vance’s daughter.

If anyone found out—and if I ever said it out loud—the fallout would bury him. The council’s bloodline law was clear: a senior elder couldn’t stay in power if a direct descendant held real territory under his jurisdiction. Total conflict of interest. One of us would have to step down.

He’d known about me for years.

He watched me take Luna of Darkwood, right in his council territory, and must have realized instantly what would happen if I learned the truth.

So he acted. Used Selene to set me up as a threat, manipulated my mate, sent me across the border empty-handed. When I refused to vanish and instead built something even more visible, he escalated—started poisoning Damien through Selene, hoping to kill the bond by killing Damien.

If Damien died, the bond died for good. With nothing tying me to Darkwood, no bloodline claim, and no legal standing, I’d just be a woman from neutral ground, powerless. He’d be free.

I closed the file.

I sat another minute, breathing, letting myself feel everything I could afford—which wasn’t much. Three minutes, if I had to guess.

Three minutes to admit my mother had never said my father’s name. That she died with the secret and left me ignorant, facing an enemy who shared half my blood.

After those three minutes, I stood up, put the file under my arm, and walked out of the records room.

Marcus was waiting in the corridor. One look at my face and he straightened, ready.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I need to see Damien. Now.”

He didn’t argue. Just led me upstairs.

Damien was in the Alpha’s bedroom, propped against the headboard, wearing the look of a man who’d been forced to rest and hated every second. He glanced up when I walked in and sat up a little straighter, even though it clearly hurt.

“What is it?” he said.

I crossed the room, dropped the file in front of him, opened it to what I’d found.

He read it. The room got heavy and quiet.

“Aria,” he said, slow.

“Elder Vance is my father. I found it in the bloodline records. My mother never told me.” I sat in the chair beside the bed—not because I’d planned it, but suddenly I couldn’t stay standing. “He’s known for years. He targeted me because if anyone found out his own daughter was Luna in this territory, his position on the council would be finished.”

Damien looked from me to the file and back, searching for the catch.

“He sent Selene to get you to reject me,” I said. “When that didn’t get rid of me, he started using her to poison you. If you died, the bond would vanish, and so would my claim to Darkwood.”

A muscle ticked in Damien’s jaw.

“He tried to kill me,” he said. “To hide you.”

“Yes.”

The word dropped like a stone between us.

Damien just looked at me for a long time. Not casually, but searching, careful, almost scared.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

I just stared. I wasn’t expecting that. I’d thought, what now—next steps, tactics, damage control. But he went straight to the real question.

I looked at the window because looking at him felt impossible, too raw. “I don’t know yet,” I said, honest. “I’ll figure it out later. Right now I need to think about what we do next.”

“Aria.”

“Damien.”

“You just found out the man who ruined your life is your father.” His voice was quiet, steady. “You don’t have to be okay with that.”

I looked back at him. The way he watched me—I hadn’t seen that look on his face in three years. The one that meant he saw straight through everything I let people see and went straight to who I actually was. I hated it, and I needed it, and it wrecked me in ways I couldn’t admit.

“I know,” I said. “But not right now.”

He held my gaze—just long enough to check. Then he nodded. He understood. He always had.

“What do we do next?” he said.

“Cassian’s coming tomorrow morning. He’s been watching Vance for over a year, and with this, he’ll have what he needs to make a formal move.” I picked up the file. “But we have to keep Selene away from you tonight. She can’t know I found this before Cassian gets here.”

“Agreed.” He paused. “She came to see me this afternoon. Nadia sent her away.”

“I know. Marcus told me.” I stood up. “I’m going back to the records. Maybe there’s more.”

I got halfway to the door before he called my name.

“Aria.”

I turned.

He was still sitting there, the closed file in front of him, three years of regret and pain and something else in his face I’d avoided seeing all day.

“Please. Stay a minute.”

So I sat down again. We just sat there, quiet, for a while.

Outside, pack territory was sliding into evening. Light slanted golden across the floor—the kind of light I always loved in Darkwood, the kind I’d spent years trying not to remember.

“I used to sit here in the evenings,” I said before I could stop myself. “After duties, when the house was quiet. I’d listen to the pack and think about how lucky I was.”

Damien stayed quiet.

“I didn’t realize that’s what I was thinking then. I only knew afterward, when it was gone. That’s the thing about happiness, isn’t it? You don’t notice you’re inside it. You only see it later, from the outside.”

“I knew,” Damien said. Softly.

I looked up.

“Every day, I knew I was the luckiest man alive. That’s what’s been killing me, since I let her talk me into—” He stopped. His words were steady, but just barely. “I knew what I had. And I still lost it.”

The light moved across the floor between us.

My wolf pressed close inside my chest, not desperate the way she’d been after the rejection. Just a gentle touch, like leaning into something warm.

I pressed back.

Not yet, I told her.

But the not yet didn’t feel quite the same as it had yesterday.

“Sleep,” I said. “Let Nadia’s treatment work. I’ll see you in the morning.”

I stood and made it almost out the door.

“Aria.”

I paused, hand on the frame.

“Thank you for coming back.”

I didn’t turn around.

“I came back for the pack.”

He waited.

“I know.” The way he said it—he knew what I meant and what I didn’t, and he wasn’t about to push either way.

I slipped into the corridor, shut the door softly behind me. I stood there for a moment, just breathing, light from the hallway windows painting everything in gold. My wolf settled—steady and quiet.

Ten seconds, maybe.

Then I straightened up and got back to work.