Chapter 10: Father and Son

The council dispersed in tense silence, leaving only Lucian and his father in the sacred grove. The ancient stones seemed to loom larger in the fading light, their weathered surfaces bearing witness to countless generations of pack secrets and difficult truths.

The Alpha Elder stood with his back to his son, staring into the depths of the forest where Mira had vanished. The weight of revelation hung between them like a physical thing, pressing down on both men with the force of unspoken knowledge.

"The child," the Alpha Elder said finally, his voice quiet but commanding. "Tell me the truth, Lucian. Whose child does she carry?"

Lucian's jaw worked silently, the words catching in his throat like thorns. He had carried this secret for days, letting it eat at him from the inside, but now, faced with his father's direct question, he found he could no longer hide behind half-truths and careful omissions.

"Mine," he said, the single word falling into the silence like a stone into still water. "The child is mine."

The Alpha Elder went rigid, his shoulders tensing as if he'd been struck. Slowly, he turned to face his son, and Lucian saw something he had rarely witnessed in his father's eyes—fury, raw and burning.

"Yours," the Alpha Elder repeated, his voice dangerously low. "You lay with her. You awakened Luna blood in an unbonded female. You got her with child. And then you chose another as your mate."

Each accusation hit Lucian like a physical blow, but he forced himself to stand straight, to meet his father's condemning gaze. "Yes."

The Alpha Elder's control snapped. "Do you have any idea what you've done?" he roared, his voice echoing off the standing stones. "A Luna, Lucian! A true Luna! The first in three generations, and you drove her away for a pretender with the right bloodline but none of the power!"

"You think I don't know that?" Lucian shot back, his own temper finally breaking free. "You think I don't feel it every moment of every day? The bond we could have had, the power we could have shared?"

"Then why?" The Alpha Elder's voice cracked with a mixture of rage and desperation. "Why did you choose Selene when you had found your true mate? When you had awakened the most powerful magic our pack has seen in living memory?"

Lucian's hands clenched into fists at his sides. "Because you forced my hand!" The words erupted from him with the force of pent-up resentment and pain. "You demanded I choose a mate by the full moon. You paraded eligible females before me like cattle at market. You spoke of duty and bloodlines and the good of the pack, but you never once told me the truth!"

The Alpha Elder stepped back as if slapped. "What truth?"

"That Mira carried Luna blood!" Lucian's voice rose to match his father's earlier roar. "You knew, didn't you? All these years, you suspected what she was, but you said nothing. You let me believe she was just another orphan, another mouth to feed out of the goodness of the pack's heart."

The accusation hung in the air between them, and Lucian saw the truth of it flicker across his father's face—guilt, shame, and the terrible weight of a secret kept too long.

"I wasn't certain," the Alpha Elder said, but his voice lacked conviction. "Looking back, there were hints—her unusual strength, her intuitive connection to the pack's needs. But without true Luna power manifesting, they were just... possibilities."

"Don't lie to me," Lucian snarled, stepping closer. "Not now. Not after everything. You knew what she was, or at least suspected it strongly enough to worry. But you said nothing because an orphan with no family, no connections, no political value wasn't the choice you wanted me to make."

The Alpha Elder's face went ashen. "That's not—"

"Isn't it?" Lucian's voice was bitter with betrayal. "You wanted a Luna who came with alliances, with a powerful family behind her. Someone who could strengthen the pack's position, not some foundling who might complicate your careful political calculations."

The silence stretched between them, broken only by the whisper of wind through the trees. When the Alpha Elder finally spoke, his voice was hollow with defeat.

"I thought I was protecting the pack. Protecting you. Luna bloodlines bring power, yes, but they also bring danger. Other packs would have come for her, would have tried to claim her for themselves. I thought... I thought if she never awakened, if she remained just another member of the pack..."

"She would be safe," Lucian finished, understanding flooding through him along with a fresh wave of pain. "But you were wrong. The blood awakened anyway, and now she's out there alone, carrying my child, with power she doesn't understand and enemies she doesn't even know exist."

The Alpha Elder aged a decade in the space of a heartbeat, the weight of his choices settling on his shoulders like a physical burden. "What have we done?" he whispered.

"We've lost her," Lucian said, his voice breaking on the words. "We've lost them both. My mate, my child, and the future of our pack. All because we were too proud, too afraid, too bound by tradition to see what was right in front of us."

Father and son stood facing each other in the gathering dusk, both broken by the consequences of choices made in ignorance and fear. The forest around them seemed to mourn with them, the very air heavy with loss and regret.

"Can she be found?" the Alpha Elder asked finally, his voice small and defeated.

Lucian looked toward the forest where Mira had vanished, his heart aching with the distance between them. "I don't know," he admitted. "But I have to try. I have to bring her home, bring them both home, before it's too late."

The Alpha Elder nodded slowly, suddenly looking every one of his many years. "Then we will find her," he said, his voice gaining strength with purpose. "Whatever it takes, whatever the cost. We will bring our Luna home."

But even as they spoke of hope and determination, both men knew the truth that hung unspoken between them: some mistakes could never be undone, and some losses were too great to ever truly heal.

The moon rose over Blackpine territory, casting its silver light on two wolves who had learned too late the true cost of pride and tradition over love and truth.