LOGINNicole pov But his voice from yesterday fills my head, how he asked me the question and I sat there and said no. I looked him in the eye and told him those children were Marlon's and I watched him take it. I thought I had more time. Oh God. Marlon. He is sitting on a bench somewhere in this building after telling Tate the truth. He held that secret for years, and I wasn't there when it broke. Tate's hands were on him in that corridor—or whatever the careful, diplomatic version of Amber's words meant. This is my fault, I press my palms flat against the wall and breathe. He kept my identity from Tracy, I think. From Lily. From Sophia. He had every opportunity to use it, and he didn't. And I repaid him by lying to his face about his own children. This is my fault. But at the same time, I was trying to protect my kids. I knew what I faced trying to escape from him. I breathe in for four. Out for four. In for four. Out. Then, I push off the wall and go to find Marlon. He is exac
Nicole's POV Amber finds me in the lab at half past nine. I can tell from her face that something has happened. She has never mastered our institutional composure. Right now, she is trying too hard to look neutral, which means the news is big. I close my laptop. "Tell me," I say. She sits across from me and folds her hands. "Marlon called me a few minutes ago. He said he tried reaching you, but your line is unavailable." I exhaled. "I left my phone at the office, what happened?" "He asked me to find you," she says. "He wanted to warn you before you heard it from someone else." Something cold settles in my chest. "Warn me about what?" "Tate had the report this morning," she says. "The analyst's findings. There are no external records for the twins, he found Marlon in the lower corridor and confronted him." I go completely still, my heart beating faster. "Marlon said Tate already had everything," Amber continues. "The documents, the gaps, the timeline. He said the lie
Tate pov I breathe out slowly. The report in my jacket is already confirmation, but hearing the words from the man who was there when they were born is different. "She lied," I say. "She protected them," he says. "She lied to my face." "Yes," he says, "she did. She will lie to your face again if she thinks it keeps them safe. I will stand beside her and let her, because that is what I have always done. That is not going to change just because you have a report in your pocket." He looks at me. "If you want access to those children, you are going to earn it. Not through lawyers. Not through alliance jurisdiction. You are going to earn it by being someone she trusts enough to let near them. That is going to take time, and you are going to have to accept that." "She should have told me," I say. "When?" he asks, and his voice is sharp now. "When exactly was she supposed to tell you? In the pack house where you controlled what she ate? When she was running for her life with a pregn
Tate's POVThe report lands on my desk at seven forty-three in the morning.I have been awake since I left the conference room. I sat in my institute rooms with the lights on, and Storm pressed against the inside of my chest like something trying to break through a wall. I did what I always do when I cannot process something. I worked. I pulled every file the analyst had been building. I read every document, and I looked at every gap.There are a lot of gaps.A child's records, properly filed, leave traces across multiple systems. Pack registry, birth documentation, medical records from delivery, and vaccination logs in the alliance health network. It is a paper trail that begins at birth, accumulating naturally over years. What my analyst found for Rosy and Maple Carter is a clean, internally consistent set of documents. They exist only within the institute's own systems, with nothing before them, and nothing outside them.They were not born into the world. They were constructed in i
Nicole's POVI don't sleep. I sit at the kitchen table for a long time after I get home, still in my work clothes, my hands wrapped around a mug of tea that goes cold before I drink any of it. The apartment is quiet after the twins go down. Usually, that silence settles me. Tonight, it just gives me too much space to think.It won't be funny.I believe him. Not because of the threat, but because of how he said it—quiet, controlled, certain. I can handle him shouting, but his cold intensity is something else entirely.I press my fingers to my mouth. Why did I lie?I was right there. I was about to say it, but I let the moment close around me. I said no, watched it register on his face, and I still don't know what I was protecting.The twins? Myself?The version of this that I can still control?Still, the lie held. He doesn't have proof—only instinct and a boy's face that looks too much like his own. Instinct doesn't work against me. By the time he finds anything, I'll have a plan. Ma
Tate pov "Because when the trial results are published, my real name will be on them," she says. "The methodology will be scrutinized. Someone will eventually connect the anonymous foundational patient to the researcher. I did not want you to read it in a paper."I press my lips together. "You wanted me to hear it from you.""Yes," she says."Even after everything.""Even after everything," she says.I look at her for a long moment. "You used your own brain damage," I say slowly, "to build the treatment that is restoring my mother's mind.""Yes," she says."The mother who" I stop."Yes," she says again, her voice completely even. "That one.""The damage from losing your wolf."Something moves across her face. "From losing Sable," she says quietly. "She went dormant the day of the coronation. That is what I mapped."I hadn't known her wolf had a name. Three years under the same roof, and I never thought to ask. Shame pushes against my ribs, but I don't engage with it. I cannot afford
Nicole's POVThe twins were quiet on the walk home, which with Maple usually meant he was thinking hard about something.It didn't take long."Mummy," he said, tugging my hand, "why did Rosy want that old book anyway? It was really big and boring looking.""It wasn't boring," Rosy said, without loo
Nicole's POVI made it to the library in four minutes and forty seconds. I know because I counted them, the way I counted everything when panic was trying to get the upper hand.I did not forget my mask. Even in those four minutes, even with my heart doing something unpleasant in my chest, I stoppe
The lady in the green dress at the ball gave me a strange sense of déjà vu. I didn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I thought about her.The moments our palms touched, I sensed something unusual.But I was sure I didn't know any lady who looked so gorgeous and glamorous as her, she was really i
Nicole's POVThe mask was white porcelain with gold edging, and it covered everything from my forehead to the bridge of my nose. I had added large tortoiseshell glasses below it on the grounds that two layers of disguise were better than one, and Marlon had looked at the combination and said I rese







