CHAPTER 4 — Childhood Sweethearts

Alec stayed in the chair beside Ivy's bed until he drifted into a shallow, fitful sleep. His hand remained loosely anchored around their daughter's, as if his body refused to let go even after his mind shut down. Maya sat across from them, elbows on her knees, waiting for her heartbeat to settle. It never really did.

Every time she tried closing her eyes, the moment replayed in high definition: Ivy calling him Daddy, Alec jerking as if the sound had hit him in a place he'd never guarded; Ivy relaxing the second her fingers brushed his; the monitor smoothing out as if her body recognized a frequency she wasn't awake enough to understand.

Maya shifted in the chair, the vinyl creaking beneath her. She glanced at the clock—3:47 AM. Time moved differently in hospitals, stretched thin and merciless.

She covered her face with both hands. The past didn't stay buried. Not tonight. It pressed up in jagged pieces, familiar enough to hurt. The boy Alec used to be lived under her skin with an inconvenient loyalty. She'd pushed that memory down for years, yet it rose the moment she stopped holding it back.

And once the floodgates opened, there was no stopping it.

In the begining

The Stonehaven mansion never felt like a place someone actually lived. The ceilings were too high, the rooms too polished, the silence too careful. Maya learned early to keep her steps small and her voice low; noise simply didn't belong there. Her mother showed her how to fold rags the "proper" way, how to dust without leaving streaks, and how to move as if she expected to be overlooked. But Alec never overlooked her.

The first time he brought her lunch, she didn't know what to do with it.

She'd been scrubbing baseboards in the library for hours, stomach growling quietly enough that she thought no one would notice. But Alec walked in with two plates—one for him, one for her—and sat down cross-legged on the floor beside her like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"You didn't eat breakfast," he said.

She stared at the sandwich. "I'm not supposed to—"

"I know what you're supposed to do." He took a bite of his own food, unbothered. "But you're going to pass out if you don't eat, and then my mother will blame you for making a scene."

She didn't have an argument for that.

So she ate. And he stayed.

It became a thing after that—this quiet rebellion neither of them named. He'd find her mid-afternoon with food she hadn't packed, water bottles that appeared beside her cleaning supplies, snacks tucked into the pockets of her apron she wasn't looking. He noticed things she didn't think anyone paid attention to: that she always worked through lunch, that she'd forget to drink water until her hands trembled, that she stretched her rations to make sure her mother had enough.

"You do that a lot," he said one afternoon in the greenhouse.

"Do what?"

"Put yourself last."

She kept wiping down the potting table, not looking at him. "That's my job."

"No," he said quietly. "Your job is to clean. Disappearing is something else."

She didn't know how to explain that disappearing was survival. That being unnoticed meant being safe. That needs were luxuries people like her couldn't afford.

But Alec didn't wait for an explanation. He just kept showing up with water bottles, with food, with the kind of attention that said I see you in a house designed to make sure no one did.

His parents had a way of entering a room that made everyone adjust their posture. His father held his disappointment like a weapon he was proud of. His mother smiled without letting the expression reach anything real. Maya understood quickly that Alec's quietness wasn't shyness; it was survival.

One afternoon, his mother walked by while Maya was polishing the mahogany staircase. The woman let her eyes slide over Maya like she was a piece of furniture forgotten on the floor.

"Tell the girl she missed a spot. Several, actually." Her eyes moved over Maya like she was inspecting something unpleasant tracked in from outside. "Though I suppose you can't expect much from her kind."

Alec didn't hesitate. He stepped into his mother's path before Maya could even drop her gaze. "You don't need to talk about her that way," he said.

His mother didn't raise her voice or frown—she simply aimed a look at him that felt like a warning wrapped in silk. She walked off without responding.

Once she was gone, Maya whispered, "You shouldn't do that."

Alec kept watching the empty hallway. "She's wrong," he said quietly.

"It doesn't matter," Maya murmured.

"It does to me."

She didn't have an answer for that, so she turned back to the stairs and kept polishing, her cloth moving in slow careful circles over wood that was already clean.

By the time she turned fourteen, she'd stopped pretending to be surprised when he appeared with lunch. By fifteen, she'd stopped arguing when he handed her a water bottle mid-afternoon, his brow furrowed in that particular way that meant he'd been watching her work too long without a break.

"You're going to dehydrate," he'd say.

"I'm fine."

"You're not." He'd press the bottle into her hand anyway, fingers brushing hers for just a second longer than necessary. "Drink."

And she would. Because somewhere along the way, his care had stopped feeling like pity and started feeling like something far more dangerous.

Something that made her heart beat faster when he walked into a room. Something that made her save him the spot beside her even when she knew she shouldn't.

By the time Maya turned sixteen, something had shifted. She noticed it first in the way he'd go quiet when she walked into a room, like he'd forgotten what he was about to say. The way his eyes would track her movements when he thought she wasn't looking. The careful distance he kept now, as if standing too close might give something away.

She told herself she was imagining it.

But then she'd catch herself watching him too—the way his shoulders had broadened, the new edge in his jaw, the way he ran his hand through his hair when he was nervous. And she'd have to look away before the heat in her chest became something she couldn't hide.

They didn't talk about it. They both knew what acknowledging it would cost.

One afternoon in the greenhouse, he reached past her for a watering can and their hands brushed. It was nothing. It was everything. He pulled back like he'd been burned, and for a moment neither of them breathed.

"Sorry," he said, though they both knew he wasn't apologizing for the touch.

"It's fine," she whispered, though they both knew it wasn't.

The air between them felt different after that—charged with all the things they couldn't say, heavy with a want that had no safe place to exist.

"You don't have to follow me everywhere," she told him once, though part of her hoped he would anyway.

"I don't," he said, but his eyes said otherwise.

"You kind of do."

He shifted his weight, close enough now that she could feel the warmth radiating off him. "If I leave, I think too much."

"About what?"

His gaze dropped to her mouth for half a second before he looked away. "Everything I can't fix. Everything I can't have."

The words hung between them, dangerous and true.

Graduation night had a strange energy from the start—all adrenaline and relief. Maya felt like an outsider, watching someone else's celebration from the margins. But Alec found her before the ceremony began. He stared at her a little too long, as if he needed a moment to believe she was actually standing there in her cap and gown.

"You look—" He tried again, slower, searching her face for an answer he'd been afraid to want. "You look like you walked out of every dream I keep pretending I don't have."

She didn't know what to do with the way those words landed in her chest.

He stayed close during the speeches. Every time she glanced aside, he was already looking at her. They ended up by the lake afterward without even discussing it. The bonfire crackled in the distance. The water pulled at the shore in small, steady motions.

Alec kept moving his hands like he didn't know where they belonged. He stood close enough that Maya could smell his cologne—something woody and warm that made her want to lean in.

"I was going to say something tonight," he said. "I don't know if I'll get another chance."

She waited, her heart hammering, knowing what was coming and terrified of it anyway.

"I love you." His voice cracked on the words. "I've loved you for years. I've tried not to. God, Maya, I've tried so hard not to, but I can't—" He stopped himself, jaw tight. "I can't keep pretending you don't own every thought I have."

She went still, the words a beautiful, terrifying death sentence.

He took a step closer, close enough that she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. "Tell me you don't feel it too, and I'll walk away. I'll stop. Just... tell me."

But she couldn't. Because it would be a lie.

"Alec," she breathed, and it came out like a prayer and a warning all at once.

He lifted his hand slowly, giving her time to pull away. When she didn't, his fingers brushed her cheek, tentative and reverent, like he was touching something sacred he'd been forbidden to want.

"I love you," he said again, and this time it sounded like a vow.

She closed her eyes against the sting of tears. "This is going to destroy us."

"I know." His thumb traced her jaw. "But I needed you to know. Before everything changes. Before I lose my chance to tell you that you're the only thing in my life that's ever felt real."

When she opened her eyes, his face was so close she could count his eyelashes in the firelight.

"I love you too," she whispered, and watched something break open in his expression—relief and agony all at once.

He kissed her like he was memorizing her. Soft at first, almost careful, then deeper when she sighed into it. His hand tangled in her hair. Her fingers gripped his shirt.

The kiss deepened, became something urgent and desperate. His hands found her waist. Her back pressed against the old oak tree by the water's edge. Every touch sparked heat that had been building for years, carefully buried under propriety and fear and all the reasons they weren't supposed to want each other.

"Maya," he breathed against her mouth, and it sounded like a question and an answer all at once.

She pulled him closer, eliminating what little space remained between them. This was inevitable—had been since the first time he'd sat beside her with lunch, since the first time his fingers had brushed hers passing a water bottle, since the first moment she'd realized his care wasn't charity but something far more dangerous.

They found their way to the old boathouse without discussion, drawn there by mutual need and the privacy it offered. His jacket became a makeshift blanket on the weathered floor. Their hands trembled—not from fear but from finally allowing themselves to have what they'd wanted for so long.

What happened between them felt like the only honest thing in a world built on lies. Two people who'd spent years dancing around their feelings finally giving in to what had always been there. He touched her like she was precious. She held him like he was hers to keep.

Afterward, they lay tangled together in the darkness, his heartbeat steady beneath her ear, both of them knowing this changed everything.

"Three months," he whispered, fingers tracing patterns on her shoulder. "I'll come back. We'll figure this out. We'll find a way."

The Rites of Passage weren't optional—not for a Stonehaven heir. Every alpha-blooded son had to complete the three-month isolation in the northern territories before they could claim their place in the pack hierarchy. It was tradition, ritual, law. Alec had known it was coming since he was old enough to understand what his last name meant. But knowing didn't make it easier. He'd spent weeks trying to find a way around it, some loophole that would let him stay, but his father had made it clear: refuse the Rites, and he'd forfeit his claim to everything—his inheritance, his position, his voice in the Council. He'd become nothing. And if he became nothing, he'd have no power to protect Maya from the world that would destroy them both.

She pressed her face against his chest, memorizing the sound of his breathing, the warmth of his skin, the way he held her like she was the only real thing in his carefully constructed world.

"I love you," she whispered.

"I love you too." He kissed the top of her head. "Wait for me."

She nodded against his chest, wanting to believe it was possible.

The next morning, the Stonehaven machinery moved faster than their hearts could. Alec's father had been waiting. Before the sun was fully up, Alec was packed into a black SUV and sent north.

He didn't get to say goodbye. He only had time to press a folded, frantic note into her hand while his mother watched with cold, narrowed eyes.

Wait for me. I'm coming back to change everything.

Maya stayed. She went back to the rags, back to the dust, back to moving like a ghost through the high-ceilinged rooms. She waited.

She waited until the morning sickness hit three weeks later. She waited until the realization settled in her gut, heavier than the "properly folded" laundry in her arms. A half-blood heir. The Council wouldn't just be angry; they would be lethal. They would take the baby, and they would break Alec to do it.

She looked at his note one last time before burning it in the kitchen grate.

She knew that if he came home and saw her—if he felt the new, flickering life inside her—he would never let her go. He would fight a war he couldn't win, and he would lose everything.

So, she didn't leave a note. She didn't send a text. She gave him nothing he could use to find her. She packed a single bag, kissed her mother's cheek while she slept, and woke her with a whispered plea: "Come with me."

Her mother didn't ask why. She saw the terror in Maya's eyes, the protective hand Maya pressed to her still-flat stomach, and she understood. They walked out of Stonehaven together while Alec was still a hundred miles away, dreaming of a future Maya knew she had to kill to keep him safe.

They disappeared before he could return and make a choice they weren't built to survive.

Her mother lasted six months. The cancer had been there for years, the doctors said—silent, growing, patient. By the time they found it, it was too late. It ate through her fast and vicious, before Maya had made it through her second trimester. She died in a rented room, holding Maya's hand, whispering that the baby would be strong.

Maya buried her alone.

She didn't see Alec again. Not until seven years later, when Ivy blinked in a hospital bed and spoke a word she couldn't have understood, but said as if it had belonged to him all along.

Daddy.