9. I'm your son

Elle

I didn’t know why Soren wanted the stranger gone.

I only knew he wanted it badly enough to hurt a dying man in front of witnesses, which meant the stranger was staying.

I bent Soren’s wrist back until his grip broke. He cursed and turned on me, but I shoved him away from the car before he could reach in again.

“Get him inside,” I ordered the nurses.

They moved this time. One lowered the stretcher while the other climbed into the back seat to support the man’s shoulders. He cried out when they freed his injured leg, and his hand caught mine with surprising strength.

“I’m here,” I told him. “They’re going to help you.”

Soren stepped toward us. “He is not a member of this pack.”

“Emergency treatment does not require membership.”

Every territorial law recognized a healer’s right to stabilize a dying wolf. Admission after that required the Alpha’s approval, but Soren was not the Alpha, no matter how many people had begun treating him like one.

“My father will decide whether he stays,” I said. “You will not.”

The stranger’s good eye opened as the nurses lifted him. He looked past me toward Soren, and terror tightened his fingers around mine.

Soren saw it too.

“He attacked me at the boundary,” he said. “If you bring him into Moonlight, whatever happens next is on you.”

You arranged my death and blamed me for loving you. I can live with disappointing you again.

The words almost left my mouth. I swallowed them before anyone heard the truth I still couldn’t prove.

“If he is dangerous,” I said instead, “we’ll deal with it when he can stand.”

Valerie folded her arms. “You rejected your mate, vanished for hours, and came back covered in a rogue’s blood. Do you have any idea what people are going to say?”

“For once in your life, Valerie, try caring whether someone survives long enough to hear the gossip.”

Her face reddened. I turned away and walked beside the stretcher.

The infirmary doors were reinforced for shifted wolves. Inside, antiseptic barely covered blood and medicinal herbs. Moonlight was peaceful, not untouched; border fights, hunting accidents, and bad shifts had filled these rooms.

The nurses rushed the stranger into the emergency ward. I followed until the pack doctor blocked the treatment-room door with his body.

“We need space, Elle.”

“He is terrified of Soren. Do not let Soren near him.”

The doctor’s eyes sharpened. “Why?”

“I don’t know yet.” I looked through the narrow window as they cut the ruined shirt from the stranger’s body. More bruises appeared beneath it. “That is why I need him alive.”

The words sounded cold. He was not evidence or a weapon; he was a person who held my hand because others had taught him touch meant pain.

But the ugly truth remained: anyone Soren feared might help me expose him.

“Save him because he deserves to live,” I said. “The rest can wait.”

The doctor nodded once and shut the door.

Blood dried on my dress. Dominic’s coat lay folded over a chair, its lining dark and wet. Hours ago it had hidden my bare skin from James. Now it carried a stranger’s blood and Moonlight dirt.

Whatever had happened in the hotel already felt like something from another life.

I sat beneath the window, listening to rattling trays and clipped orders: blood pressure dropping, start fluids, prepare imaging.

Wolves healed faster than humans, but starvation weakened the wolf until wounds stopped closing. The stranger’s scent was so faint I barely knew he was one of us.

I scrubbed blood from under my nails and Mom’s bracelet. Pink water circled the drain, dragging up the memory of washing my own blood away in another life.

The treatment-room door finally opened.

“He is stable,” the doctor said.

My knees weakened with relief. “Is he awake?”

“Not properly. We stopped the bleeding, but he is severely malnourished and exhausted. Another hour on that road might have killed him.”

I gripped the edge of the sink. “His leg?”

The doctor glanced back through the window. “It was broken a long time ago and never set. The bone healed badly, and the surrounding muscle has wasted. His right eye is permanently blind.”

“From tonight?”

“No. Those injuries are old.” His mouth tightened. “So are most of the scars on his back. Some are several years old. Others are recent.”

My wolf moved restlessly beneath my skin.

Healthy wolves didn’t carry injuries like these unless someone denied them treatment or hurt them faster than they could heal. He had been starved, beaten, and left to mend wrong.

“How long will he need to stay?” I asked.

“Weeks, at least. He is safe for the moment, but his condition is still critical. If infection sets in or his lungs worsen, we could lose him.”

“Then he stays.”

“Your father will need to authorize that.”

As if the words summoned him, Dad’s voice entered my mind through the pack link.

Elle. My study. Now.

The command carried the weight of his Alpha blood. It was not painful, but every wolf in Moonlight would have felt the instinct to obey.

I’m at the infirmary, I answered. I brought in an injured man.

There was a brief pause. Are you hurt?

No. The blood isn’t mine.

His relief reached me before his next words. Come when the doctor is finished. We need to discuss the Crown’s decision.

I asked the nurses to call me if the stranger woke, then crossed the courtyard to the packhouse. Soren and Valerie were gone from the entrance. I told myself that was a good thing, although my wolf did not settle.

Dad was waiting behind his desk with the royal notice open on his computer. He came around it the instant he saw my dress.

“You said the blood wasn’t yours.”

“It isn’t.”

He checked my arms and face anyway. Only when he was satisfied did he pull me against his chest.

I held him harder than I intended. His heart beat beneath my ear, solid and alive. In my memory, that heart had stopped inside a burning car. Tonight it was racing because he was worried about me.

“I stopped the transfer,” I said into his shirt. “Dominic suspended Soren’s succession. The Crown will not recognize him as Moonlight’s next Alpha.”

Dad’s hand tightened behind my head. “The confirmation reached the registry twenty minutes ago.”

I stepped back. Relief had already hit me in Dominic’s suite, but seeing the notice on Dad’s screen made it real in a different way. Soren’s name was crossed through by a red royal seal. My father’s title remained beside Moonlight Pack.

One future had changed.

Now I needed to change the rest.

“I know you still think my memories could be a nightmare,” I said. “But Soren is hiding something. I will find proof.”

Dad studied me. “Tell me what happened tonight.”

I told him about the man on the road, the Silver Claw insignia, and Soren trying to drag him from my car. I did not mention Dominic’s mouth or the way leaving his suite had hurt. Those things belonged nowhere near the danger surrounding my family.

“Soren said the man attacked him?” Dad asked.

“The man can barely lift his head. He was terrified when he saw Soren.”

Dad’s expression hardened. “Where is Soren now?”

“I thought he came back here.”

“Come meet the man,” I said. “You need to see what Soren did, and he needs your permission to stay.”

We looked at each other.

Then we both moved.

The infirmary hall was quiet when we returned. A nurse pointed us toward the second recovery room, but before we reached it, something struck the wall inside.

Dad opened the door.

Soren stood over the bed with one hand around the stranger’s throat.

The stranger’s good eye was wide with panic. His fingers scraped weakly at Soren’s wrist while the monitor beside him screamed.

Dad crossed the room so fast I barely saw him move. He tore Soren away and drove him into the wall hard enough to shake the framed medical certificates.

Gold flooded Dad’s eyes. Alpha power filled the small room, dense enough to make the nurse behind us drop her gaze.

“Explain,” he said.

Soren’s face went pale. “He attacked me.”

“From the bed?” I snapped.

“I came to ask what he was doing here. He grabbed me first.”

The stranger began to cough. I pushed past them and sat on the edge of the mattress, supporting his shoulders while the nurse silenced the alarm.

“Breathe,” I said. “Soren cannot touch you now.”

His hand found mine. His skin was cold, but his grip tightened when he looked across the room at Dad.

“Alpha Mason,” he rasped.

Dad released some of the pressure on Soren and turned.

The stranger fought for another breath. Tears filled his good eye.

“I came here to find you,” he whispered. “I’m your son.”