SERAPHINA’S POV
My hand froze where it was stroking Daniel’s hair.
For a mont, I thought I’d misheard him.
My son’s voice was soft, heavy with sleep, but the words were clear enough to steal the air right out of my lungs.
“Congratulations on finally getting your wolf,” he’d said.
The room seed to still around us—the moonlight pooling faintly through the curtains, the steady rhythm of his small breaths, the echo of everything that had happened today.
My heart stuttered, a fragile, startled thing.
“How...how did you know?” I whispered, barely trusting my voice.
Daniel blinked up at , smiling sleepily. “I just do.”
Before I could say anything more, Alina’s voice stirred softly inside my mind—warm, delighted. Proud.
‘He sensed , Sera,’ she said. ‘That’s no ordinary intuition. Our pup is very special.’
I could almost see her smile in my mind’s eye.
The idea that Daniel could sense her, too—that he’d sohow recognized what even three powerful Alphas hadn’t—left shaken in the best way.
“Mom?” Daniel murmured, half-yawning. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. I know you have your reasons for keeping it a secret.”
My throat constricted. He was only nine, yet his emotional intelligence never failed to surprise .
There was a depth in his gaze sotis that reminded too much of Kieran—steady, intense, resolute.
But that glint in his eyes, that keenness well beyond his years—that was all Daniel.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” I said softly, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. “You’re right. She doesn’t want anyone else knowing about her just yet.”
He nodded solemnly. “I won’t say anything. You can trust , Mom.”
I smiled. “I know I can.”
After a pause, he whispered, “Can I know her na? Your wolf.”
I hesitated. I had said her na aloud before, but saying it to soone else felt strangely reverent—like breathing life into sothing sacred.
“Alina,” I told him finally. “Her na is Alina.”
He smiled faintly. “It sounds kind.”
A laugh caught in my throat. “She is. She’s super cool, too. I couldn’t have passed the Trials without her.”
“Really?” Daniel said, his eyes drifting shut. “Tell her I said thank you.”
‘I should be the one thanking him for giving you strength where I was unable,’ Alina said.
My smile widened. “She’s happy to et you,” I murmured. “And she’s thankful to you, too.”
Daniel’s eyes fluttered open again. “Can she hear ?”
“Yes, love.”
He smiled wider at that, eyes hazy with sleep but shining with curiosity. “Tell her I said hi. And that she has a pretty na.”
Alina’s voice softened like velvet in my head. ‘He’s going to be formidable one day. But gentle and kind, too. That’s rarer than strength itself.’
I swallowed against the lump of emotion rising in my throat.
Daniel yawned, curling closer until his head rested under my chin. “Do you think...when you can Shift, we could go running together? You and your wolf—and ?”
The image blood vivid and tender in my mind: moonlight spilling across the forest floor, Daniel running ahead, laughing, while Alina and I followed close behind, paws hitting the earth in rhythm with his heartbeat.
And then, when he was older and he got his own wolf, we would race through the forest, leaving all our cares behind.
I smiled, pressing a kiss to his hair. “Yes, baby. I’d like that very much.”
“ too,” he murmured, and for a few quiet seconds, I thought he’d fallen asleep.
Then his voice ca again, small but clear. “Mom... do you think Lucian’s gonna join our family soday?”
My chest tightened. I’d guessed it was only a matter of ti till that question dropped.
I smoothed my hand down Daniel’s arm, buying myself ti to think. “Why do you ask, honey?”
He shrugged lightly against . “You like him, don’t you?”
I hesitated too long, and he must have taken that the wrong way, because he said, “It’s okay, Mom. I don’t mind. He’s nice.”
“He is nice,” I agreed carefully. “But you don’t have to worry about things like that right now. You don’t need to force yourself to like him just because I—”
He cut off with a firm tone that again, annoyingly, reminded of Kieran. “Mom.”
I blinked. “Yes?”
“You always put first, but it’s okay if you don’t this ti. You should do what makes you happy. I’m happiest when you’re happy.”
His words undid .
I stared at him, at the little boy who had once clung to my legs with trepidation on his first day of kindergarten, who had refused to leave my side in the days after—and now here he was, all grown up, telling to choose myself.
I could barely breathe. “Daniel...”
He smiled, sleepy but sure. “Besides, I think Lucian’s cool. At least he’s great at video gas. I wouldn’t mind playing with him again.”
That made laugh softly, even as tears pricked behind my eyes. “Oh, would you now?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “He helped beat Dad and Uncle Ethan.”
“Well,” I whispered, “that practically makes him a superstar.”
He laughed weakly, a small sound that soon faded into the rhythm of his slow, even breaths. He’d finally drifted off.
I lay there for a long while, just holding him, tracing tiny circles over his back.
Even now, after all that had happened, I still couldn’t quite believe this mont was real—my baby, back in my arms. My wolf, alive inside .
And there was sothing beautifully poetic about Daniel being the one to sense Alina first.
Though I’d accepted her decision, it had bumd out a little that I couldn’t share her existence with anyone.
But tonight, as my son’s words echoed in my head, I realized I didn’t need to share her with the world. It was enough that Daniel knew. After all, he was my world.
‘...do you think Lucian’s gonna join our family soday?’
His words rang in my mind. My world was expanding. Maya, Judy, Roxy, Finn, Talia...Lucian.
I’d caught the end of their video ga tournant earlier. It had filled with warmth to see Daniel and Lucian getting along great.
I didn’t think synergy with my son was going to be a problem. But...
‘Lucian once had a mate he actually loved...’
I’d pushed the revelation out of my mind when Roxy first ntioned it, brushed it away as a tactic to unsettle .
But now that I was no longer in survival mode, I was free to worry and overthink and fret.
Luckily, this ti, I didn’t have to do it alone.
“Alina,” I whispered into the dark, “what do you think of him?”
‘Him?’ she echoed.
I exhaled softly. “Lucian.”
There was a pause—long enough that I began to think she might not answer. Then, slowly, her tone shifted into thoughtful caution.
‘He carries an enigmatic aura,’ she said. ‘Sothing mysterious. But not tainted. I sense no malice in him. Only shadows that haven’t decided what they want to be yet.’
“Shadows,” I repeated softly. That seed to be the running the when it ca to Lucian. “That’s..forting.”
‘You’re disappointed,’ she observed gently.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
Truthfully, I’d expected a different answer. I wanted her to say she felt a connection between and Lucian. Sothing...more.
‘Alina,’ I started hesitantly, ‘If...if we ca in contact with our destined mate, would you be able to sense him?’
Another long silence. The kind that fills with too much aning.
When she finally spoke, her voice was softer than ever. ‘Tell , Sera. Do you still want a destined mate?’
The question hit deeper than I expected. I looked down at Daniel, his face peaceful in sleep, his hand still gripping the edge of my sleeve.
‘I used to,’ I answered honestly. ‘When I was younger, I used to dream about it. About what it would feel like to belong to soone completely. To be loved so deeply and unconditionally.’
‘And now?’
‘Now...’ I sighed. ‘After everything that’s happened—after being bound to soone who wasn’t truly mine—I think I’ve learned to be okay without it.’
‘You don’t sound like you’re okay with it,’ she murmured. ‘You sound sad.’
‘I’m...not.’
Was I?
‘I’ve made peace with it,’ I continued quietly. ‘I’m not that girl anymore—the one who kept trying to earn her worth by being perfect. If I don’t have a destined mate, it doesn’t an I’m incomplete.’
There was warmth in this silence. Then: ‘You’ve grown stronger, Sera.’
‘I have,’ I agreed. I’d overco the Trials. The world had seen not as the ex-wife of an Alpha or the stigmatized, discarded daughter of the Lockwoods—but as a leader. A champion.
‘I’ve co this far already. I’ll be fine.’
Alina was quiet for a mont longer before she said, almost hesitantly, ‘You can’t feel the bond yet because you can’t Shift. When the ti cos—when your body and my soul are one again—you’ll see what fate has in store. The truth doesn’t hide forever.’
Her words should have soothed, but they only elicited an ache in my chest.
I smiled faintly anyway. ‘That sounds like sothing you’d say to make feel better.’
‘Maybe it is,’ she admitted, amusent flickering. ‘But that doesn’t make it untrue.’
I closed my eyes; the room was silent except for Daniel’s soft breathing and the faint hum of night beyond the window. I let my scattered thoughts still, let the steady rhythm of his heartbeat calm .
I must have dozed off for a mont because the sudden vibration of my phone on the nightstand startled .
I reached over, blinking against the glow of the screen. Kieran.
I hesitated, thumb hovering above the answer button as my insides knotted. Why would he be calling this late at night? What could he possibly want?
‘Well, you won’t know until you answer,’ Alina nudged, her tone indecipherable.
The phone kept buzzing, and sowhere inside , a pulse of old, familiar electricity responded.
I exhaled slowly, trying to steady my heart before pressing accept.
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