5

Elara’s Pov

Pain was the first thing that welcomed me back to the living. It felt like a heavy truck was parked right across my chest, pressing down so hard I could barely pull air into my lungs.

When I finally managed to force my eyelids open, the bright white lights of the room burned my eyes. I blinked several times, trying to clear the fuzzy blur in my vision.

I wasn't on the cold, wet highway. I wasn't falling into that dark ravine. I was lying in a narrow hospital bed, surrounded by quiet machines that beeped softly in a steady rhythm. My whole body throbbed with a dull, sickening ache, as if every single bone in my frame had been broken and glued back together.

For a terrifying second, my mind panicked. Lyra. Where was my baby? Did Darian even know I was gone? Did he care?

Before I could lift a hand or call out for help, the door of the private room clicked softly and slowly opened. A man stepped inside, and the air in the room suddenly felt heavy and tight.

He looked nothing like the men I was used to dealing with in the high-society world of Rooke Global. He wore a sharp, dark suit that fit him like armor, but it was his face that caught my breath.

He looked to be in his early thirties, with sharp, chiseled features, dark hair, and intense, stormy eyes that looked like they could cut through steel. He carried an aura of absolute power and fierce, dangerous protection, making him look like a predator who had just stepped into a room of sheep.

He froze the moment he saw that my eyes were wide open. He walked slowly toward my bed, his footsteps completely silent on the shiny floor, his gaze locked directly onto my face.

"You're awake," he said. His voice was deep, smooth, and laced with an emotion he was trying very hard to hide. "The doctors said you might sleep through the entire day after a crash like that. You gave us quite a scare."

I swallowed hard, my throat feeling as dry as sand. "Who... who are you?" I whispered, my voice sounding weak and shaky. "Where am I? How did I get here?"

"My name is Kael," the man replied, stopping right beside the edge of my bed. He didn't smile, but his stormy eyes searched my face with a desperate kind of hunger. "You are in a private medical facility. My security team pulled your car out of the ravine after someone tried to run you off the road. You were lucky to survive."

My heart skipped a terrified beat. Someone tried to run me off the road? It wasn't an accident. Someone had deliberately chased me into the dark. Was it one of Octavia's men? Was it a warning from someone at Rooke Global? Panic flared up in my chest, but before I could ask any more questions, Kael’s eyes suddenly dropped down from my face.

They locked onto something resting right against the collar of my hospital gown.

I watched as Kael's breath hitched in his throat. His entire body went completely rigid, as if he had just been struck by lightning. His hands, which had been resting casually at his sides, clenched into tight fists so hard his knuckles turned stark white.

I looked down and realized what he was staring at. It was the silver pendant. The small, intricate silver bird with a tiny sapphire stone nestled in its wings—the only piece of jewelry I had worn every single day of my life, the only thing I had left from the orphanage where I grew up.

"Where did you get that?" Kael asked, his voice suddenly dropping to a harsh, breathless whisper that sent a cold shiver racing straight down my spine.

I instinctively pulled back, my fingers brushing against the cold metal of the pendant. "It... it belongs to me," I stammered, confused and suddenly defensive. "It's mine. It's the only thing I've had since I was a little girl. The people at the orphanage told me it belonged to my mother before she passed away."

Kael closed his eyes for a brief second, taking a deep, shaky breath like he was fighting off a wave of overwhelming emotion. When he opened them again, tears shimmered dangerously along the edges of his dark lashes.

"No," Kael whispered, shaking his head slowly from side to side. "That isn't true. That pendant didn't belong to your mother. It belongs to our family. It was custom-made for our youngest sister before she was stolen from us twenty-four years ago."

I stared at him as he had completely lost his mind. A cold, defensive wall shot up around my heart. "What are you talking about? You're crazy. I don't know you. I am an orphan. I grew up with no family until I married into the Rooke family—"

"The Rookes mean nothing," Kael interrupted, his voice thick with a fierce, burning intensity that left no room for argument. He reached into his coat pocket with a trembling hand, pulled out his phone, and typed a quick message before pocketing it again. He had just sent a secret signal to someone. To his brothers, though I didn't know it yet. "You aren't an orphan, Elara. You are a Veyne. You are our blood."

"Stop it!" I cried out, my voice cracking with rising panic as I pushed myself up slightly against the pillows, wincing as the pain shot through my ribs. "I don't know what kind of sick game you're playing, but I'm not interested! I have enough problems! My husband doesn't love me, my daughter has been turned against me, I have six months left to live, and now some stranger walks into my hospital room telling me fairy tales about a family I never had!"

Kael didn't flinch at my anger. Instead, his stormy eyes softened with a deep, crushing sorrow that made my chest ache even more. He reached into his jacket pocket once more, pulling out a small, old, folded photograph that looked like it had been handled a million times.

He stepped closer to the bed, holding the photograph in his palm. My breath caught in my throat as he leaned over me, placing the picture gently on the white blanket right next to my face.

I looked down at the photograph. It was a faded Polaroid picture of a little toddler with big, dark eyes, wearing a little pink dress, clutching a silver pendant that looked identical to the one resting against my own chest.

Kael looked down at the picture, then back up into my eyes, a single tear finally escaping his eye and rolling down his cheek.

"You don’t recognize her because you were too young to remember," Kael whispered, his voice breaking softly in the quiet room, "but that little girl is you."