Aria’s POV
The mont the words left his mouth, I felt the snap, like brittle bone breaking.
My smile froze, then shattered.
“Nathan,” I whispered, my voice trembling with wrath. “You don’t get to lecture . Things ended between us when you sent to jail and abandoned .”
My wolf snarled, pacing in the cage of my ribs. How dare he? He of all people should know what I endured.
Because of him.
Because he had thrown into a cell like a feral stray, left to rot as rumors ate alive.
“Are you blaming ?” Nathan stepped forward, but I stepped back, my teeth clenched, widening the gap like a chasm that could never be bridged.
“If you hadn’t stolen the Hemsworth Group’s secrets, I would’ve never sent you away,” he said, voice breaking. “You served a year and six months. You returned with a child and I never judged you. Not once.”
Child.
The word hit like a blow.
His words echoed. It was ugly and festering. He was insinuating that the origin of my child was unknown.
Before I knew it, my hand had his collar in a grip that trembled with rage.
“What did you say?” My voice warped, layered with my wolf’s snarl.
His eyes widened, his scent spiking with a mix of confusion, fear and regret. He reached for , and I reacted.
SMACK.
The sound ricocheted through the night like a gunshot. Nathan staggered, his cheek blooming red. He didn’t move, didn’t speak.
My eyes burned gold, then crimson.
“Nathan,” I said, my voice raw, “Lana is your child.”
There was silence. Even the wind dared not breathe.
His pupils dilated in shock, like the world had just cracked open beneath him. He stumbled back.
“That night,” I continued, my pulse hamring in my veins, “when you forced yourself on , overpowering , I got pregnant.”
Nathan’s entire body trembled.
Nathan’s POV
“What?”
The word ripped from my throat, raw and trembling. My voice didn’t even sound like mine, it was too ragged and too shaken.
Pregnant?
My child?
Lana... my daughter?
A thousand conclusions snapped into place like bones resetting, and with it ca a pain so sharp my wolf howled inside , claws raking at my ribcage.
“Why...” My voice cracked, it was hoarse. Regret and confusion tanglingo like barbed wire in my chest.
I lifted my head to look at Aria, her scent was icy, laced with pain. My vision blurred at the edges, blood pounding behind my eyes until they burned crimson.
Before I could think, I stepped forward and grabbed her wrist. My grip trembled.
“Why didn’t you tell Lana is my child?”
My wolf pressed forward in my mind, snarling desperately. She was ours. How was she ours and we never sensed it?
I’d had Collins investigate the mont she returned to Hemsworth Villa.
I couldnt help but think of the fevers, the hunger, the struggle to protect a pup alone.
I thought she’d betrayed ... that Lana was a product of her infidelity.
I never let myself feel guilt.
I never allowed myself to believe she still had any right to my sympathy.
And now...
Now the truth gutted clean.
I staggered back, the world tilting.
“Why?” I whispered again, my voice breaking like thin ice.
She looked at ... and then she laughed.
It wasn’t a sound of joy, It was a sound from the dead. A ghost in the shape of a girl I failed to love right when I had the chance.
“Nathan, what good would it have done for and Lana to tell you?” she asked, her voice slicing open.
“That’s what you think?” I rasped. “That’s why you kept Lana’s identity from ?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.
“If you had told she was mine,” I forced out, my chest heaving, “I would have protected you both. Do you have any idea how much you two suffered after you left prison? If you had just told sooner, none of this would have happened.”
My emotions tore loose, surging like a storm. My wolf pushed at the barrier of my skin, desperate to shift, to howl, to fix sothing that was already shattered.
She stared at with the coldness of winter.
“So you knew we suffered,” she murmured, each word dipped in frost, “and did nothing because she wasn’t your child?”
Her words hit harder than claws.
“Nathan,” she said, “you’re not fit to be Lana’s father. Not because of how she was conceived... but because of your cold-blooded nature. And your arrogance.”
A growl crawled up my throat but I didn’t let it out. I couldn’t, not when every accusation she made was a truth I couldn’t escape.
“It’s not like that... Aria, it’s not—” My voice splintered. I reached for her, but she moved away like I was venom.
“Over a year ago, I was stupid enough to believe that if I tried hard enough, you would see my worth.”
Her voice drifted like ash in the wind.
Panic clawed up my spine.
“You...” I tried to speak, but the word died, strangled.
“In prison for a year and six months” she continued, turning to face fully, her gaze like silvered steel, “Lana and I suffered so much. Thanks to you and Sophia.”
Sophia.
Her na was a blade.
“I’m dealing with Sophia already,” Aria said. “And as for you? Consider yourself lucky I haven’t gone after you yet.”
My breath stopped.
“Aria,” I struggled to ask, “how did you suffer while pregnant? With your status... with my na... no one should’ve dared...”
My voice choked off. I didn’t want to finish the sentence.
She t my eyes, my disbelief, my fear, my denial and smiled.
“You don’t believe ?”
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