Chapter 5: The Woman Outside My Door

CHAPTER 5

Rowe's blade never left his hand as he scanned the trees, and for a long, tense moment nothing moved at all. Then a lone figure stepped out from behind a wide oak, hands raised, no weapon in sight. A young man, maybe my own age, in Ashwood colors.

"I'm not here to fight," he said quickly. "I'm here because of what happened in that hall tonight. My name is Cato. I served under Elder Cole directly, and I saw something none of you were meant to see."

Rowe didn't lower the blade. "Talk fast."

"Lady Vivienne didn't find that pouch under Sera's mattress." Cato's eyes flicked to me. "I watched her put it there myself, two nights before the ceremony, while the servants were at evening meal. I didn't understand what I was seeing until tonight, when I watched the whole council condemn a girl over evidence I know for a fact was planted by the woman accusing her."

My chest went tight. "Why didn't you say something in the hall?"

"Because Elder Cole is my father's commanding officer, and speaking against Lady Vivienne would have ended my family's standing in this pack overnight." Shame colored his voice, raw and unguarded. "I've spent every hour since telling myself that was a good enough reason. It isn't. So I followed you to protect you, because it's the only way i could help."

Rowe finally lowered his blade, though his eyes stayed wary. "Why should we trust an Ashwood warrior chasing us into Crimson Hollow territory in the middle of the night?"

"You don't have to trust me," Cato said. "Just take what I know. Vivienne has been planning something bigger than framing a servant girl. I've seen her meeting with a courier from outside pack lands twice this past month, someone Elder Cole doesn't know about. I don't know who, or why, but it isn't nothing."

I thought of the burned letter, the three surviving words. Before the ceremony. Whatever Vivienne had built, it hadn't started with me collapsing in that hall. It had started long before, with plans already moving that had nothing to do with a mate bond she couldn't have predicted.

"Come with us," I said, before Rowe could object. "If what you're saying is true, my Alleged father needs to hear it directly."

Cato hesitated, then nodded, and the four of us continued on toward the Crimson Hollow border as the sky began to lighten toward dawn.

The Crimson Hollow manor was nothing like I'd imagined an enemy pack's stronghold would look. I'd grown up hearing servants whisper about it like a place built out of shadow and old cruelty. Instead I found dark stone, yes, and warriors at every gate, but inside, warmth. Firelight. A great hall that smelled like cedar and fresh bread rather than blood and fear.

He was waiting at the top of the entry stairs when we arrived, and I knew him before Rowe said a single word, some deep animal recognition rising up from wherever it had been buried for sixteen years. Alpha Corin Vane. My father. He looked like he'd aged a decade in the last hour alone, disbelief and hope and grief all fighting for space on his face at once.

"Sera." My name in his mouth sounded like something sacred. "You have your mother's eyes."

I didn't know what to say to that. I didn't know how to fall into the arms of a stranger and call it coming home, even if every instinct in my body was screaming at me to do exactly that.

"I don't remember you," I admitted quietly. "I don't remember any of this."

"That's alright." His voice caught. "I remember enough for both of us, until you do."

He led us inside, and over the following hour, seated by a fire with a cup of something warm I didn't have the heart to drink, I learned the truth of what I actually was. Not just Crimson Hollow's lost daughter, but the last surviving heir of a bloodline older than either pack, a line the Ashwood founders had gone to war over three generations ago specifically to prevent from ever claiming power again. My mother had fled with me not from ordinary raiders, but from Ashwood soldiers sent specifically to end that bloodline for good.

"Damon's grandfather the old Alpha of Ashcroft pack. gave the order," Corin said quietly, watching my face for the impact of it. "Whether Damon himself knows the history is another question entirely. But the pack that rejected you tonight has been hunting your family for longer than you've been alive."

The weight of it settled over me slowly, reshaping everything I thought I understood about the last eight months. I hadn't stumbled into Ashwood by accident, and Vivienne hadn't invented a threat out of thin air to frame me. Some part of what she'd accused me of, the danger, the old history, the reason for fear, had actually been true all along. She just hadn't known how true, or why, or what it would eventually cost her to have provoked it.

"I want to understand everything," I told my father, surprising myself with how steady the words came out. "All of it, not the softened version. And then I want to learn how to use whatever it is I actually am, instead of being afraid of it the way everyone in that hall clearly was."

Corin studied me for a long moment, something sharpening behind his grief. "Careful what you ask for, daughter. That bloodline comes with a price older than the war itself."

Before I could ask what he meant, a warrior burst into the hall, breathless, blood streaked across one arm, boots still muddy from running. "My Alpha. Forgive the intrusion. Ashwood scouts have been spotted crossing our border less than an hour ago. They're not here for a fight, or at least they say they aren't. They're demanding for your lost daughter who just arrived.