Chapter Four

The cold breeze blew past me as I made my way out of the café where I worked.

"Mum! Mum!"

I heard him before I saw him. I looked across the road and there he was. Eli, standing beside his daycare teacher, waving like I'd been gone for years instead of hours.

My eyes lit up.

I waited for the cars to pass, then crossed over and scooped him up.

"My sweet boy." I said, brushing my nose against his.

"Mummyyy!" He giggled, wrapping his arms around my neck.

I thanked his teacher and took his bag from her. I set him down and held his hand as we walked home.

"I love his eyes," a woman said as she passed us on the pavement, smiling down at Eli.

"Thank you." I said.

The smile left my face the moment she was gone.

Eli had silver eyes, his father's eyes and that was what got me every single time. Every stranger who noticed them, every compliment, every innocent remark. It always brought me back to a place I had spent three years trying to leave behind.

The breeze picked up and I felt him shiver beside me. I took off my jacket and wrapped it around his shoulders, even though the one he was wearing was already thick. He was only three but he ran cold the way wolves do. His body was already regulating itself like he was older.

Then the downpour started.

"Run!" I grabbed his hand and we sprinted the last half block to our apartment, laughing by the time we got through the door.

"Finally." I breathed, shaking the rain from my hair.

I set the fireplace going, changed Eli out of his wet clothes, and settled him into bed.

"Mum," he said, just as I reached for the lamp.

"Yes, sweet?"

He looked up at me with those silver eyes, completely serious the way he sometimes got. "Why am I different from the others?"

I sat on the edge of his bed. "What do you mean?"

"I'm bigger than the other kids, taller. And my eyes are silver when everyone else's are dark." He paused. "And I don't have a dad but the others do."

The last part hit me somewhere I wasn't expecting.

"You're a special child, Eli," I said softly. I leaned down and kissed his forehead. "That's all you need to know for now."

He looked at me for a moment like he wasn't entirely satisfied with that answer then settled back into his pillow.

"Goodnight, Mum."

"Goodnight, my love."

I turned off the lamp and pulled the door closed behind me.

---

I sat beside the fireplace with my tea, listening to the rain hit the windows. It was a cold night even the warmth from the flames didn't quite reach the parts of me that had been cold for three years now.

I stood and walked to the window.

Three years since I arrived in New York. Three years since I had walked away from the only home I had ever known with a single bag and a secret I had sworn to keep. I had built something here. A quiet life, a steady income, an apartment that smelled like Eli and woodsmoke and the particular peace of a place that belonged to just the two of us.

But three years and I still heard those words like they had been said yesterday.

"I reject you as mine."

I let out a long breath and walked away from the window. I found myself at the door of Eli's room without quite deciding to go there. Watching him sleep was the one thing that always settled me. The one thing that made the weight of everything feel, if not lighter, then at least worth carrying.

A memory came before I could stop it.

"Our child will definitely take your eyes," I had told Caelum one evening, mockingly.

"No! He'll take yours for sure," he had said.

"If you say so."

"How many children do you want?" He had asked as he put my hand in his.

"Just two, I think." I said while my fingers rolled through my hair.

"I want two as well."

He had looked at me then, with a slow smile that said he was certain about something.

"What?" I had asked.

"You're just so beautiful."

"Stop flattering me." I said with a low voice, smiling sheepishly.

"I'm serious. That silver necklace fits you perfectly. It matches your skin."

I had kissed him then. He had taken my hand and I had felt the electricity of the bond run through me like it always did.

I snapped back.

I walked away from Eli's doorway and went to my room. I knelt beside the bed and pulled out the box I had kept hidden for three years and opened it.

The silver necklace lay coiled inside, exactly where I had put it the day I arrived in New York.

I touched it.

What was the possibility of us ever actually ending up together? Why had he done all of it? the visits, the promises, the necklace, the words? if this was always how it was going to end?

The phone rang. Disengaging me from my thoughts.

I picked it up.

"Sera…Seraphina"

It was Aiden. His voice was tight, urgent, like something was genuinely wrong.

"What's going on?" I said immediately.

"It's Dad....." He said with a long pause

"What's going on? What's wrong with dad?" I said with a panicked voice.

"He's worse." He said softly.

My stomach dropped. "What? What exactly is wrong with him?"

"He's been sick for a while. We didn't want to tell you." He said with a low voice.

"Are you kidding me?" My voice came out sharper than I intended and stood up immediately from my bed like that will change anything.

"Calm down. He didn't want you to know. He didn't want you to worry."

I sat down and pressed my free hand flat against the bedsheet. "What do I do now?"

"I don't know." A pause. "But...Sera..."

Aiden let out a deep sigh and stammered. "Can you come home, Sera?"

Silence stretched between us.

"Sera. I know…."

"I will," I said. "I'll come."

"Mum!"

I looked up. Eli was standing in the doorway, rubbing his eyes, his hair messy from sleep.

"I'll call you back." I said quickly, and hung up.

I shoved the necklace back into the box and pushed it under the bed.

"Come here, sweet."

He shuffled toward me, half asleep. "Who were you shouting at on the phone?"

"Your uncle, my brother."

His eyes opened a little more at that. "I've never met him. When will I meet him?"

I looked at my son. At those silver eyes that had been answering that question for me since the day he was born and felt the decision settle into my chest like something inevitable.

"Soon," I said quietly. "Very soon."

I held him close and stared at the wall and thought about the place I had sworn I would never go back to.

I was going back.

What I hadn't let myself think about was that the moment I crossed back into pack territory, he would feel me.

Caelum Voss would know I was coming home.

And I was bringing his son.