4: What my real mother left

Cryssara's POV

Dorian yelled. "Shut the gate!"

Guards sprint forward, slamming their bodies across the road. The lawyer's car lurches to a stop. My heart hammers against my ribs, each beating a drum of panic I cannot silence.

Caelus steps into the road without hesitation. He says nothing. He stands there as if he has weathered worse storms than this one. The guards falter, exchanging glances, and back away. Nobody wants to test a rogue Alpha with his reputation. Then he enters the car. The car surges through the gap. I refuse to look back, though every instinct yells at me to check whether Dorian still watches, still waits, still plans his next move.

The road stretches open ahead. Trees smear past the window in a blur of silhouette and shadow. In the back seat, my breath ripped out of me in ragged gasps, my hands shaking in my lap like leaves caught in the wind.

Lyanna is already pressed against my side. She had chased the car down, and I yanked her through the door seconds before it locked. Her warmth seeps into me, grounding me in a moment that still feels unreal.

I turned toward Caelus in the front seat. "Why are you in this car?"

Quill cuts in first, his eyes fixed on the road. "The Ashfang guards refused to trade with him. They impounded his truck at the gate. Our paths run in the same direction, so I offered him a ride."

I stare at Caelus, demanding more. "Why are you helping?"

He does not turn around. "I'm not helping you. I'm simply going the same way."

I don't believe a word of it. Something about the flatness of his tone tells me he has rehearsed that answer, polished it like it meant to deflect questions.

A memory claws up from my first life—a rumor about a rogue Alpha and his small pack, one of the few survivors spotted alive on the ice long after every other pack had collapsed. He scans the road like a predator sizing up prey. His fuel tank sits full. Supplies stack high in the back. Who prepares for catastrophe before it strikes? The question gnaws at me, refusing to let go.

If he is that Alpha, I need him as an ally. If he turns against me, he could destroy everything. I study the back of his head, searching for some clues, some crack in his composure, but he gives me nothing.

Lyanna's fingers close around my hand. "Did you really reject him?"

I nod, unable to trust my voice. The words still feel too raw, like a wound that has not yet healed.

She draws me into a hug, and we cry together; her shoulder is warm on my cheek. The same shoulder I once shared a paper-thin mattress with, back at the orphanage. We are friends clinging to each other against a world that offers us nothing.

Lyanna Frost is my best friend, and I can remember splitting up meals and curling up in the same narrow bed. Seven years ago, a family from another pack took her in, and our connection faded. In my first life, she alone kept writing to me, letter after letter, even though I never got a chance to meet her because of the confinement I had, till the cold came and took her life away.

Her phone vibrates sharply in her pocket. She glances at the screen, then shoves it away before I could catch a glimpse. Something flickers across her face. Maybe fear, but it was gone before I could name it.

The car jerks to a stop outside Quill's office. We file inside, where papers wait stacked across his desk.

Quill flips open a folder. "Your biological mother left three things: money, land, and a letter."

I'm not surprised, because I already know that I have a biological mother in my first life.

In my first life, I only cared about the money. I handed every coin to Dorian without a second thought, I was too foolish and too in love to see what I was giving away. This time, I steady my voice and meet Quill's eyes directly. "I want every paper. All of them."

He slides the stack toward me without argument. I take each page and read slowly, line by line, while silence presses down on the room like a breath held.

The land bears a name: Evenmoor Hold. It's a stone lodge tucked into the mountains, warmed by natural springs, its cellars sunk deep into rock.

This is the one place that could outlast the Freeze.

Caelus hears the name and freezes entirely, his body rigid with recognition. It seems like he knows this place. Yet he offers nothing, no explanation, no reaction at all.

Quill taps the final page insistently. "You must sign for the land yourself. You must claim it within three days."

Three days? The clock is already ticking, relentless and unforgiving, each second a reminder of how little time I have to secure what might save us all.

He adds one more detail, almost as an afterthought. "The ceremony papers for you and Dorian were never signed."

The revelation snags in my mind, though I cannot yet grasp why it matters, only that it does.

He places the letter before me. My mother's handwriting stares back, which is the first thing I have ever owned that came from her hand. I unfold it, half-afraid the paper might dissolve before I can read every word.

The words are simple, yet act like a warning.

"If you are reading this, then you're at the right place. Go to the Hold. Do not tell anyone where you are going."

I fold it again and clutch it tight, refusing to let go, as though the paper itself might vanish if I loosen my grip.

Quill's phone broke the silence, ringing sharply. He answers, and his face turns pale as he listens. He sets the phone down, his hand lingering on the receiver as though bracing himself.

"Miss Wolfe, the Ashfang elders just filed a claim at the courthouse. They say a share of everything belongs to Alpha Dorian."