Sylvia's Cold Truth

Chapter 23 

 Sylvia’s Cold Truth

 POV: SYLVIA 

The world looked better from above.

Sylvia Reyes had always known that.

From the east-facing terrace of the Silver Fang estate, Aspen sprawled below her like a docile pet gleaming rooftops, ribboning streets, and, beyond it all, the jagged winter peaks. This high up, the air was thin and biting, but it sharpened her mind.

A cup of perfectly brewed black tea steamed in her hands. She let it warm her fingers, even as the rest of her body sat poised, unyielding, in the tall-backed chair.

Control the view, she thought. Control the game.

The Silence Between Mother and Son

Daxon hadn’t spoken to her in three days.

Not since their last argument in the council chamber, when he’d dared to accuse her of manipulating the pack’s archives. He had stood there in front of the elders her son, her heir and all but called her a liar.

In some ways, Sylvia almost admired his courage. He’d inherited that streak of steel from her.

But he hadn’t yet learned the truth that came with it.

Steel wasn’t enough. You had to be ice as well.

Steel could be broken. Ice survived.

She sipped her tea slowly, letting the bitterness coat her tongue.

The Visitor

Her secretary, a thin, wiry omega named Callen, appeared in the doorway. “Lady Reyes,” he said with a respectful bow. “He’s here.”

She didn’t ask who.

Only one man had the audacity to keep coming back after she’d dismissed him twice already.

“Send him in.”

The man who stepped onto her terrace was not a wolf. That much was obvious in the scent, the gait, the faint sheen of sweat despite the cold air. He was human—but not ordinary. A hunter’s mark glimmered faintly at his collarbone.

“I don’t recall inviting you to return,” Sylvia said coolly.

“You’ll want to hear this,” the man replied. “The girl’s alive.”

The Game Moves Forward

Sylvia’s fingers tightened on her teacup. Alive.

So Adelina McKenna hadn’t perished in the mountains as some had claimed. That meant the child the child still existed.

“Details,” she said.

“She’s built herself a small group. Rogues, mostly. They’ve been seen near the Appalachian borderlands. And she’s pregnant. Close to term.”

The words landed like cold drops in Sylvia’s veins.

It wasn’t the pregnancy itself that chilled her she’d known about it. No, it was the idea that Adelina had built something outside of her control. Rogues were dangerous when they were desperate. They were lethal when they were united.

“And the father?” she asked.

The hunter gave a thin smile. “I assume you know.”

The Truth Sylvia Told Herself

When the hunter left, Sylvia sat very still.

She told herself, as she always did, that this was not personal. That everything she had done, from steering the pack’s politics to ensuring Daxon’s rejection of Adelina, was for the good of the Silver Fang line. Blood purity. Stability. Survival.

It was true… but it was not the whole truth.

The whole truth was messier.

Sylvia had been an omega once. Before she became Luna, before she married into the Reyes name, she had been nothing—a pretty, clever girl from a midline family, with no claim to power. She’d clawed her way upward by learning to anticipate danger before it came for her.

And she recognized danger in Adelina.

Not because the girl was weak, but because she was strong in the wrong ways.

Strong women who had no leash were dangerous. They could upend a council. They could split a pack.

They could take a son’s loyalty away from his mother.

The Conversation She Had Been Avoiding

That night, she found Daxon in his office. He was at his desk, sleeves rolled up, the glow of a single lamp casting sharp shadows over his face. He didn’t look up when she entered.

“Mother.”

“You’re avoiding me,” she said.

“I’m working.”

“On what? Tracking her?” Sylvia stepped closer, letting her heels click on the marble floor. “You think finding her will make things right. But you haven’t thought about the after. What happens when she walks back into this house, belly full of your child, and the council sees her?”

Daxon’s jaw tightened. “The council will accept her.”

“They will not,” Sylvia said sharply. “They will tear her apart. And if you force the matter, they’ll tear you apart with her.”

The Cold Truth

Finally, Daxon looked at her. His eyes were so much like his father’s dark, piercing, unwilling to yield once they’d fixed on something. “Then maybe it’s time they did.”

Sylvia felt the old heat rise in her chest. “You don’t understand. You think you’re fighting for love, but love is nothing compared to power. Power decides who lives, who dies, who gets remembered and who gets buried. Power is why you are Alpha and not another man’s son.”

He pushed back from the desk, standing tall, his voice hard. “Maybe I don’t want to be your kind of Alpha.”

For a long moment, they stared at each other. The air between them was brittle, dangerous.

Then Sylvia spoke, her voice low but cutting:

“If you bring her back, you doom us all. That is the truth you refuse to see.”

What She Didn’t Say

She didn’t tell him that the council had already discussed Adelina’s death in quiet, casual terms. She didn’t tell him about the agreements she had made with certain hunters agreements meant to keep their family name above reproach.

And she didn’t tell him the part that kept her awake at night:

That she had once seen a girl much like Adelina full of fire, stubborn to her core rise from nothing and dismantle a Luna’s power from within.

Sylvia had sworn never to let that happen to her.

After Daxon left, the office felt emptier. Sylvia returned to her terrace, the cold biting at her cheeks. Somewhere in the mountains, the girl lived. Somewhere, the child grew.

Sylvia closed her eyes and let the wind whip her hair.

The hunter had been right this wasn’t over.

And if Daxon refused t

o act, she would.

Because Sylvia Reyes did not lose. Not to the council.

Not to a rogue-born girl.

Not to fate itself.