Chapter- 3 The Reckoning

The word hung in the air like a thunderclap.

Daddy.

Alec flinched as if struck. His hand came up halfway—a raw reflex of shock. The word was a title he hadn't earned, a claim he had no right to, and yet it settled into the hollowed spaces of his chest like it had been waiting there all along.

Maya's reaction was immediate—a panicked defense. "Ivy—no, baby—she's just scared. She's confused."

"She said it like she knew me," Alec murmured. He wasn't angry. He was in awe.

"She doesn't," Maya insisted, but her voice wavered. She heard the lie in her own words.

Alec stood frozen for a moment, staring at the small girl in the hospital bed like she was a miracle he didn't understand. Then, slowly, carefully, he moved closer.

He approached the bed like he was nearing something sacred. He lowered himself into the chair beside Ivy with a gentleness that made Maya's chest ache. Up close, in the dim hospital light, he looked exhausted—like he'd been carrying a weight for seven years and only just now understood what it was.

Ivy's eyes were still half-open, clouded with sleep and whatever strange power had seized her earlier. But when Alec settled beside her, something in her small face softened. The tension in her jaw released. Her breathing evened out.

She smiled.

It was barely there—just a faint curve of her lips—but it was real. Peaceful. Like she'd been waiting for him without knowing why.

Then her eyes drifted closed, and sleep took her under.

Maya watched it happen, her heart doing something violent in her chest. Ivy never settled that easily. Never relaxed that completely. Even on good nights, she slept restlessly, twitching and turning like she was fighting something in her dreams.

But now, with Alec beside her, she looked... safe.

The silence stretched between them, heavy with everything they weren't saying.

"How did she know?" Alec asked finally, his voice barely above a whisper. His eyes never left Ivy's face.

Maya wrapped her arms around herself. "I don't know."

"You never told her about me?"

"Never." The word scraped out of her. "I didn't even keep pictures. There was nothing—" Her voice broke. "She shouldn't know who you are."

Alec was quiet for a long moment, studying their daughter's sleeping face. "Pack bonds," he said finally. "They run deeper than memory. Deeper than logic."

Maya's breath caught. "What?"

"Werewolves recognize their own. Their pack. Their—" He stopped, swallowing hard. "Their blood. Even if they've never met. Even if they don't have words for it yet." He looked up at Maya, something raw and unguarded in his expression. "She knew me because she's mine. Because I'm hers. It's not something you can teach or hide. It just... is."

The truth of it settled over Maya like a weight. Seven years. Seven years of running, of hiding, of trying to keep Ivy away from this world. And in one moment, biology had undone all of it.

"I would have come back for you," Alec said quietly. "If I'd known. If you'd told me—"

"I know." Maya's voice was barely audible. "That's why I didn't."

He looked at her then, really looked at her, and the hurt in his eyes was devastating. "You didn't trust me."

"I did." The confession scraped out of her, raw and honest. "I knew exactly what you'd do. You would have burned down your entire world for us. Your family, your pack, your future—you would have sacrificed all of it." Her voice cracked. "And it wouldn't have worked. The Council has too much power. They would have taken her anyway, and you would have lost everything for nothing."

Alec's jaw tightened, but he didn't argue. He looked back at Ivy, his expression softening. "What's her name?"

Maya blinked at the abrupt shift. "What?"

"Her name," he said gently. "You haven't told me her full name."

"Ivy," Maya said softly. "Ivy Rose."

"Ivy Rose," Alec repeated, testing the words like he was learning the shape of them. A faint smile touched his lips—sad and wondering at the same time. "It suits her."

"She turned seven today," Maya added, the words slipping out before she could stop them. "The episode... it happened right after her birthday party."

Something in Alec's expression cracked. "Seven years," he murmured. "I've missed seven years."

"I'm sorry." Maya's voice broke on the words. "I'm sorry you missed her first word, her first steps, the first time she—" She couldn't finish.

"I'm not asking for apologies, Maya." He met her eyes across the bed. "I'm asking you to trust me. You should have seven years ago." A beat of silence. "Don't make the same mistake twice."

Before Maya could answer, Ivy stirred.It was small—just a shift of her shoulders, a soft sound in her throat. But her hand moved across the blanket, searching. Her fingers curled and uncurled, reaching for something she couldn't name.

Alec didn't hesitate.He reached out, his large hand extending toward their daughter with a gentleness that made Maya's throat tight.When his fingers grazed Ivy's tiny ones, the world shifted.Ivy exhaled—a small, shuddering release, like her whole body had finally unclenched. Her hand curled around his finger, holding on with a strength that seemed impossible for someone so small.And on the monitor, something miraculous happened.The jagged, frantic heartbeat that had been skipping and stuttering all night—the rhythm that had terrified doctors and defied every intervention—smoothed out. It fell into a perfect, steady pulse. Strong. Even. Normal.

Maya watched Alec's hand wrapped around their daughter's, watched the steady rise and fall of Ivy's chest, watched the monitor trace its perfect, rhythmic line.

And the thing she felt wasn't what she expected.

Relief.

Not the sharp, adrenaline-soaked relief of crisis averted. Something deeper. Something that reached back through seven years of running and hiding and making every decision alone in the dark.

He was here.

The boy who had always stepped between her and anything that wanted to hurt her. Who had pulled her out of the river when they were tweleve, who had stood between her and his father's worst moods without being asked, who had always somehow known when she needed protecting before she knew it herself.

That boy was a man now. An Alpha. And he was sitting in a hospital chair at dawn with his whole world rewritten, holding their daughter's hand like he'd been doing it her entire life.

Maya had spent seven years carrying this alone. Every decision, every fear, every sleepless night watching Ivy for signs of something she didn't understand.

She didn't have to do that anymore.

The realization didn't arrive like a revelation. It settled over her quietly, like the moment a storm finally breaks.

He was here. And whatever came next, they would face it together.