Chapter 003

Evander's Point of View

I found her. I found her after almost giving up. I found her in this place, and there’s no fucking way I'm leaving her here. She fucking ruined my life, and now she needs to pay for that. 

When the alarm goes off, she takes off running without looking at me. Running from me. Straight toward that room. 

I don't move for a second. My hand is still warm from touching her cheek. From feeling her whole body lean into it before she caught herself. She can lie to me all she wants. Her body doesn't know how to lie. It still remembers who it belongs to, and I can use that to my advantage. 

But there's a strange scent about her. 

I lean into the space she just left, waiting for the familiar, intoxicating rush of her true pheromones. I want the sweet, sun-warmed vanilla and wild strawberries that used to drive my wolf insane. 

Instead, I get nothing. 

The air carries only the smell of hospital bleach, sterile latex, and a strange, bitter chemical undertone. It’s a flat, dead scent. A human scent. 

My inner wolf scratches frantically at my ribs, snarling in frustration. ‘She is right there. She looks like our mate. But she smells like a ghost.’ What the hell did she do to her blood to mask herself this deeply? 

I shake off the thought, returning to the look on her face when the alarm went off. Something is wrong, so I follow her even though I know I shouldn’t.

Fuck. Amma is a doctor. I didn’t think that was possible. 

The hallway blurs. White walls, machines beeping, nurses pressing themselves against the walls to let me through. I don't care about any of it. My eyes are locked on her back, on her shaking shoulders. 

“What happened? She was fine!” She is panicking. 

I'm sure whoever the patient is means something to her. I stop in the doorway, my eyes following where she is currently trying to check everything, but her hands are shaking. She barks out orders to the nurse, who doesn’t protest. 

I don't move. I can't move even as the other doctor pushes past me, apologizing. 

Something claws up my spine. My wolf pushes hard against my ribs, restless, insistent. My wolf stops his snarling and presses his snout against the bars of his cage. My blood recognizes what’s happening long before my mind does.

Amma is bent over the bed, the panic in her voice something I've never heard from her before. Not even during the year she was mine. 

My chest goes tight when I see her hand wrapped around a little girl's small fingers. The child lies in the hospital bed, wires taped to her chest, dark curls damp against her forehead. Her face is scrunched up, eyes closed, and even from here I can see the fever flush on her cheeks. 

Dark curls. My mother had curls like that. They look just like mine. 

"Amma?" 

My voice comes out rough. She freezes but doesn't turn around. 

I step into the room. The doctor attending to the girl shoots me a warning look, but I don't care about hospital rules right now. I care about the way Amma's spine has gone rigid. I care about the way she's not looking at me, the way she's positioning her body like a shield between that bed and me. 

She's hiding something. 

"Amma," I say, my voice dropping low, hoarse. "Who is that?" 

Her hand is still wrapped around the girl's small fingers, and I watch her thumb move in slow circles. A habit. Something she's done a thousand times before. Something a mother does. 

I look down at the tiny girl in the bed. She doesn't have the vibrant, glowing aura of a werewolf pup. She smells flat. Human. But the moment my eyes track the line of her nose, a violent jolt strikes my chest.

The floor tilts under me. 

"Amma." My voice cracks right down the middle, and I don't bother hiding it. "Is that my daughter?" 

She still doesn't turn around. Her shoulders rise and fall, fast, too fast, and I can hear her breath shaking even from here. 

"Evander, not now," she says quietly, looking up at the doctor. 

She doesn't say no. She doesn't say don't be ridiculous. She says not now, and that's so much worse than a lie would have been. I have a daughter.

She asks the doctor, “Were there any complications? Why is she suddenly—” 

“Naya, don’t worry. We knew this would happen. I just have to run a few tests,” the doctor assures her. 

But it kills me. I have a fucking daughter I didn’t even know about, and Amma is acting like I don’t exist. 

"Answer me." I cross the room in three strides. The Doctor steps toward me like she's going to stop me, but one look from me and she backs off. 

I stop beside Amma, close enough to breathe her in. I catch that infuriating wall of lavender and antiseptic. 

"Is she mine?" 

Amma finally turns her head. Her eyes are wet, red-rimmed, and for one second I see her. Not the woman who just told me to go back to my throne. The girl who used to chase me around, trying to get my attention, who used to laugh so loud the whole packhouse could hear her, the girl who smiled at everyone even though half of the pack hated her. 

She looks so tired. 

"Please," she whispers. "Not here. Not like this." 

"Did you keep her away from me all this time? How dare you." The words come out harsher than I planned them to. Five years. Five years I thought I lost my mate. I didn't know I lost a daughter too. "Five years, Amma. You kept my daughter away from me." 

"She’s not your daughter," she says, her voice breaking on the last word. 

I look back at the bed. At the machines. At the small chest rising and falling, carrying my blood in it. She is mine. I can feel it. I know it. 

"What's wrong with her?" I ask, and this time it doesn't come out harsh. The complete absence of a wolf's aura on either of them leaves a hollow, terrifying ache in my chest. If my nose is telling the truth, my child is completely human. 

Amma closes her eyes. 

When she stands up and looks at me, she says, “This is my daughter, Alpha King. Now please get out of here.” 

“Amma…” Her name comes out as a warning even as I try to keep my voice really low. 

“My daughter is in a medical emergency, and you want to talk about this? Are you serious?” she asks through gritted teeth. The monitor beside the bed screams, and her eyes snap there. 

“For fuck’s sake. Can you leave the room? I can't do my job,” the doctor snaps, barking out orders to the nurses. “Naya, please let me do my job.”

It takes everything in Amma to stand and back away from the bed, but she moves away. She steps out, her chest rising and falling as she looks through the window at her daughter. Our daughter. 

“We need to talk,” I say, grabbing her by her elbow so she can face me, but she shoves me back. 

“I'm not talking to you, Evander. Now leave me the fuck alone!” she groans, her chest rising and falling as she looks at me. 

“Oh, we are, Amma, or—” 

“Or what?” she cuts me off, her lips trembling as I step into her space. 

“Oh, Amma, you don’t want to test me right now.” My voice is dangerously low. “Not after keeping my daughter away from me.” 

She looks up at me, her hands shaking and her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. 

“I hate you,” she says, her voice trembling, and I have no doubt she means every word. 

“Oh, Amma, I don’t give a fuck what you feel right now. Now let’s talk.” I grab her by the elbow and drag her away from the door. 

I have no desire to play nice. Not when she kept my daughter from me. Not when she made me believe she was dead for five years.