His Secret Life

POV MAEVIA

The silence that settled over the vast Drakos estate after the call severed carried an oppressive, suffocating weight. It felt like a physical pressure bearing down against my lungs, forcing the air from my chest in shallow, uneven gasps. I sat motionless at the long, polished oak dining table, staring blindly ahead. My eyes remained locked on the inert, dark surface of the communication tablet resting next to my untouched dinner plate.

Torin had sworn he was stationed at the northern border. He claimed he was neck-deep in resolving critical territorial clashes with rogue factions, assuring me his duties demanded absolute focus. Yet, the final transmission from his end continued to reverberate through the echoing walls of my mind like a deafening death knell.

*Daddy… Mummy said you should come help me shape the clay figure.*

Those innocent words played on an agonizing loop in my head.

Without warning, the communication stone resting on the table lit up again.

It pulsed with a faint, steady blue light, casting eerie shadows across the silver utensils and untouched food. Torin had initiated an incoming link. My breath hitched, trapping a quiet gasp in the back of my throat. My inner wolf paced violently beneath the surface of my skin. Her hackles stood on end, her raw instincts shifting into a state of severe, chaotic alert. I placed my trembling hand upon the smooth, cool surface of the stone to accept the magical feed.

I parted my lips to speak, desperate to hurl a dozen demands through the link.

Before I could utter a single syllable, a voice slipped through the static of the speaker.

It was not Torin.

"Daddy?"

The young, tender voice piped up through the open frequency. The tone was devastatingly sweet, high-pitched, and utterly innocent.

I froze in place, unable to drag oxygen into my starved lungs. My fingers curled tightly inward, digging my blunt nails so hard into the carved edge of the wooden table that my knuckles turned stark white.

"Daddy, are you coming back?" the little girl asked into the receiver.

A beat of heavy, crushing silence dragged over the open line. I could hear the faint, distant rustling of fabric on the other end.

Then came the familiar, controlled baritone of Torin speaking in the background. His voice lacked the rigid, authoritative edge he used with me and his warriors. His tone rang gentler and softer than I had ever heard it in all our years together.

"I will call you later."

Click.

The line went dead. The blue glow of the stone faded back to a lifeless, flat black.

I stared down at the cold communication tablet, unable to blink. He had severed the connection himself the very moment he realized the child had called through his private channel. The sprawling, empty halls of the Alpha estate seemed to expand around me, stretching outward into an endless, barren wasteland.

*Daddy.*

That single word clawed at my chest, ripping open deep, festering wounds I had spent years trying to stitch closed. Throughout five long years of our union, Torin had never once spoken of fatherhood with warmth. He had avoided the topic of heirs entirely, shutting down my subtle requests to expand our family. He treated our physical coupling as a stark obligation rather than an act born of real desire, leaving my bed the moment his duty was fulfilled. He demanded distance, space, and a silent, compliant Luna. Yet here was a young child who addressed him as her father with effortless, undeniable familiarity.

My inner wolf retreated deep into the dark corners of my subconscious. She whined into the void, wounded, rejected, and violently distrustful.

The mate bond between Torin and me had always been strained, stretched thin by his calculated emotional distance. Now, it felt completely severed. A massive, impenetrable wall of thick ice slammed down over the tether in my mind, blocking out his energy and his presence.

My knees buckled under the unbearable weight of the betrayal. I slipped from the heavy wooden chair and sank directly onto the bare stone floor in the center of the dark hall. The raw, undeniable reality crashed down upon my shoulders with the destructive force of an avalanche.

Torin was not stationed at the northern border. He was not protecting our perimeter. He was tucked away in secret, comfortable domestic bliss with Vanya Kaelen and their child. He lived an entire parallel life in the shadows, building a private family dynamic from which I was entirely excluded.

My chest heaved as the dam holding back my grief shattered. My shoulders shook violently, and I broke down in agonizing, solitary sobs. The painful sounds of my weeping echoed off the high vaulted ceilings of the estate. I wept for the five wasted years of my life, scrubbing at the hot tears soaking my pale cheeks. More than that, I wept for the innocent life hidden deep within me.

I wrapped both arms tight around my abdomen, curling forward over the stone tiles. I mourned for the unborn pup growing quietly in my womb. I had meticulously planned this evening to share the news. I had arranged the food and waited for his return, hoping a pup of our own would finally bridge the growing canyon between us. Instead, I sat alone in the frigid dark, mourning a family that would never actually exist.

Hours crawled by as the darkness deepened across the night sky. The silver moonlight stretched through the towering windows, casting long shapes across the dining hall floor. Slowly, the chaotic storm of grief ran dry. My wolf's desperate whining quieted, fading into a profound, chilling numbness that froze the blood in my veins.

I lowered my hands to the floor. I wiped the dried, sticky tears from my face with the back of my bruised hand and forced myself to stand up.

My limbs felt incredibly heavy and leaden, but the fog clouding my mind was crystallizing into absolute stillness. I turned my back on the dining table and walked slowly out of the room, my footsteps sounding unnaturally loud in the empty manor.

I crossed the grand gallery, stopping dead beneath the massive oil portrait of my late mother.

Her calm, piercing grey eyes looked down at me through the canvas stroke. The artist had captured her unyielding strength flawlessly.

"You would have told me to stand up." I murmured aloud to the portrait.

My voice raspy from hours of crying, but a burgeoning steel coated the edges of my tone.

"You would not have let this break you."

The spoken memory of her fierce strength anchored something deeply fractured inside my chest. I took a long, steadying breath, rolling my shoulders back to realign my spine. My inner wolf lifted her large head, shedding the cloak of rejection. She turned watchful, sharp, and ready for war.

I would not chase after Torin. I would not beg for scraps of affection from a man whose heart lived elsewhere. I would not grovel for an explanation I did not deserve. If there was an ugly truth festering in the shadows of this pack, I would walk straight into the daylight and see it with my own two eyes.

Early the next morning, the grand stone walls of the estate felt like a suffocating stone cage. Unable to breathe the stale, empty air any longer, I slipped out of the side doors well before sunrise. I walked toward the far perimeter of the Drakos pack lands. The dawn air carried a crisp, biting chill, shocking my skin and keeping my swirling thoughts grounded.

I met my closest friend, Nia, by the tree line where the dense northern woods met the open training fields.

Nia stood waiting near a rushing creek. She turned the moment I stepped out from the thick brush. She took one sharp look at my pale face. Her keen eyes scanned the dark purple crescents bruised beneath my eyes and my slightly swollen lips. Her brow furrowed with immediate, unspoken worry.

"You look exhausted, Maevia. What happened?" Nia asked, closing the distance between us.

She reached out to firmly grasp my cold hands in her warm grip.

"I did not sleep well." I replied quietly, looking away from her intense gaze.

I was unwilling to unleash the torrent of pain just yet. Speaking the words aloud out here in the open air would cement the reality of Vanya and the child, shattering the last thin wall of composure holding me together. I needed to keep the deeper secrets guarded to protect my own fragile sanity.

Nia searched my guarded expression for a long moment. She sensed the razor-sharp boundaries I had erected overnight to protect myself. Rather than prying into the fresh wounds I was not ready to expose, she gave my fingers a gentle squeeze and released my hands. She reached into the worn leather pouch tied securely at her waist.

She retrieved a simple, tightly woven bracelet. It was strung with polished, slate-grey beads that emitted a gentle, rhythmic pulsing warmth.

"I made this for you." Nia stepped closer, taking my wrist to secure the metal clasp against my skin. "It is Wolfstone. It grounds your inner wolf and keeps your emotional fluctuations steady. Wear it. When the pack pressure closes in, it will help more than you think."

I traced the smooth, rounded cool stones with my fingertips. I instantly felt their magical, grounding vibrations seep through my pulse point, wrapping my frayed nerves in a soothing blanket of heavy energy.

"Thank you, Nia." I whispered, staring at the grey stones.

The Wolfstone energy settled deep into my skin, drawing me out of my spiraling, dark thoughts. The forest grew quiet, the morning breeze picking up speed and rustling the tall canopy of pines high above our heads.

But as the wind shifted, hitting my face directly, my wolf suddenly stiffened.

Her head snapped up, throwing herself against my ribs in a wild surge of sudden aggression. The calming magic of the bracelet faltered under the sheer weight of her roaring instinct. We caught a heavy, distinct scent rolling in hard on the morning wind.