The voice rumbling in my chest stirs me awake, but I drift back toward the fading edges of a dream already slipping through my grasp.
Blue skies and butterflies.
Devotion too profound to understand.
Too perfect to have imagined.
Too close to keep denying.
I roll onto my side, turning away from the voices. Pulling the blankets tighter around me, I give my back to the eager morning sunlight filtering through the slats of the window shades, as though it refuses to let me sleep any longer. It's the first time I've awakened without Jaeger beside me, without his warmth and comfort. It’s disconcerting, and I feel less confident without him by my side.
Papa speaks in hushed tones, but I let his words fade into the background. I sink back into the comforting haze between sleep and wakefulness, where every thought drifts apart, and my senses soften to a distant murmur. I hover on the brink of unconsciousness, ready to tumble back into the dream. Then the other man speaks, and a tremor rolls through my body, the sound of his voice reaching someplace deeper than memory.
“Because she recognized me, despite everything you've done to keep me from her.”His voice is cold and growly.
Papa exhales sharply. “She deserves a better life than her mother had. Diana died exiled and alone because she made the wrong choice. Exiled and alone because she chose wrong. Had Diana picked him, he would’ve given her everything a queen deserves.”
“She chose love,” Darius’ smooth voice murmurs with the melancholy of an immortal whose loved and lost too often.
“You saw what happened last night, Edgar,” the other voice says, the one I know but still can't bring myself to place because it tastes too much like betrayal. “She isn't the little girl you've been hiding anymore. She's the queen who must be prepared.”
His words, more than the sound of his voice, wrench me fully awake. The memories of last night's battle rush back in jagged fragments. Therians in their animal forms.
Instinct. Aggression. Violence. Numbness.
Power. So much raw, untamed power.
“I’m the one to lead her there.” The declaration carries the unmistakable dominance of an alpha.
“A bastard,” Papa spats with disdain. The silence that settles between them is answer enough, confirming the suspicion I'd been too afraid to admit.
Malcolm!
I bolt upright in bed, my heart pounding as recognition crashes over me. I know who he is and what I've lost by finding him again. He is the boy with winter-sky eyes and the hand that once held mine. The one who stepped between me and the Therian boys in middle school before quietly walking me home. He is Jaeger, my protector, my constant companion since I was six, the friend who never left my side. The boy I loved.
Malcolm waits just beyond my bedroom door. Even through the wall, I swear I can hear his heartbeat answering my own. The connection sends a thrill through me, fierce enough to steal my breath, yet terror follows close behind. I don't know if I'm ready to face him, or the truth of what we are to each other. But my questions refuse to let me hide. I won't imprison myself behind fear.
I hurry into my private bathroom, splashing cool water across my face before dressing in jeans and a soft sweater. I pull my hair into a ponytail, each motion steadying me. If Malcolm has answers, then Papa has secrets, and it's painfully obvious he hasn't told me everything about my place in the Therian world. Drawing one deep breath, I leave the safety of my room.
Papa and Malcolm wait in the living room, both silent as I approach, but I force myself forward. Beside the worn coffee table that once belonged to Mama's grandmother stands Malcolm. My heart clenches. His long dreadlocks are the same rich brown as Jaeger's pelt. A neatly trimmed beard shadows the sharp lines of his jaw, lending him a maturity the boy I remembered never possessed. His storm-gray eyes are as stern and serious as I remember them. Yet everything else has changed. The awkward teenager who once walked beside me has become a man of effortless authority, carrying himself with the quiet majesty of a modern pharaoh disguised in blue jeans.
Incongruously, I notice the way morning light spilling through the living room window catches threads of dark russet and deep umber in Malcolm's dreadlocks. I'd always thought they were black. Beneath the fitted gray T-shirt, broad shoulders taper into a powerful chest, the sleeves stretched taut across sculpted biceps. His faded jeans do little to conceal the strength of long, muscular legs that easily account for his towering height. When my gaze finally reaches his face, I find him watching me. His gray eyes shimmer with quiet nostalgia as they follow my every glance, and heat floods my cheeks at being caught staring.
"Deeana," Papa says quickly, eager to break the silence, "this is Malcolm Jaeger of the Damon Pack from the Northern Territories."
“I know who he is,” I reply coolly, but Malcolm doesn’t react, my heart beating his name with every frantic pulse. It yearns for something my mind still refuses to accept, though somewhere deep inside I know I've carried it since I was six years old.
"Well..." Papa clears his throat awkwardly. "Since you already know him—"
“I don’t know this man,” I clarify, the bitterness breaking through each syllable until they splinter my heart. “I just know his name from long ago.” Malcolm's eyes flash silver before his expression shutters, every emotion disappearing behind practiced restraint. The loss of that openness twists something inside me.
Unable to bear it, I turn on Papa instead. "How could you keep this from me?"
Sadness settles over his face, aging him in an instant. For the first time, I truly see that he is no longer the young father who raised his only daughter alone.
"You were so young when Diana died," he says quietly. "I didn't know how to explain Malcolm's place in your life."
"What place?" My voice rises despite myself. "He could've protected me as a Therian instead of pretending to be my pet!” I shoot Malcolm an indignant glare. “Pretending to be my best friend!” He stiffens and draws a breath to answer, but Papa speaks first.
"It was the only way to keep him close to you. You were six, innocent, curious, and already able to tell Therians from humans. You accepted Jaeger far more easily than you ever would've accepted Malcolm."
"Then why not tell me when I was twelve?" I demand. "My entire world changed overnight."
Then it hits me, and I whirl toward Malcolm. "That's why Jaeger disappears every month."
“I can barely resist the allure either,” he admits. His deep voice vibrates through my chest with a warmth that staggers me. I shake my head, but my body ignores me, trembling beneath the force of a bond I suddenly understand because I already know what it is. I’ve always known.
Papa releases a weary breath. "It was already difficult enough explaining why you became a woman almost overnight," he says. "How every unmated Therian male, and especially every Alpha, would instinctively be drawn to you." His words fade as his eyes drift toward Malcolm.
“He is an alpha Therian,” I accuse sardonically. Papa flinches at my tone. “So why not let him claim me as his mate?” My words shock both men because the air in the room thickens and compresses. I dare not glance at Malcolm despite the heat burning across my face.
Papa clears his throat. “You hadn’t evolved yet.” Malcolm turns toward him, irritation rippling through his otherwise controlled expression.
I frown. "What do you mean, evolved? Evolved into what?"
"A queen." The heaviness of his statement presses against me as much as the reverence in which he says it. I recognize the expression on his face, the same awe he'd worn when I was six. Back then, it made me feel special. Now it only makes me feel like a freak. Last night proved what I could become and am capable of doing.
I tear my gaze away. “Why reveal yourself now?” I demand. His jaw remains rigid. His gray eyes stay fixed on mine with the patient intensity of the wolf he is, saying everything his silence refuses to voice. That silence hurts, wraps around every memory I'd treasured of the boy with winter-sky eyes until each one is threaded with betrayal.
Anger surges through me. "Then get your rumbling out of my chest!" I snap. "You don't have the right to invade my thoughts—to know me—after lying to me for all these years."
"I never lied,” he growls dangerously, but his growls have never frightened me.
"I waited for you," I whisper, the words escaping before I can stop them. My voice rises again, fueled by years of hurt. "For years I wondered why you disappeared, and now you expect me to believe hiding in plain sight wasn't a lie?" I fight the urge to run away from this heartache. I refuse to be anyone’s prey, especially his.
“I was always there,” he persists with certainty, memories crashing into me.
My cheek pressed against Jaeger's shoulder.
Strong arms wrapped around me.
The deep, possessive growl that sent the eighth-grade boys stumbling backward without a fight.
The absolute certainty that nothing could hurt me while he held me.
The warmth of it threatens to break me.
I crush it before it can.
“I loved Jaeger.” The fury drains from my voice, collapsing beneath the weight of those three words, and grief takes its place because the boy I loved feels lost even as he stands right in front of me.
“I am Jaeger.” The familiar timbre of his voice ripples over my skin, awakening memories my heart recognizes long before my mind is willing to.
"You're Malcolm," I scoff. The name leaves my lips like a challenge, but the moment I speak it, warmth tingles across my mouth. Our hearts stutter in unison, the bond between us tightening until I can scarcely breathe. His name settles low in my belly, stirring something ancient and instinctive that refuses to be denied.
Malcolm feels it too, the guarded hardness in his face softening. His storm-gray eyes drift to my lips, lingering there as though he can still hear his name echoing from them. I hate myself for responding to him.
I love Jaeger. I should hate this Therian for stealing him from me. Instead, every instinct draws me toward Malcolm with the same irresistible pull that lures a hummingbird to nectar.
"No!" The word tears from my throat, loud enough to shatter the silence, and I tremble beneath the war raging between instinct and indignation.
"Jaeger would've ripped you apart before he'd ever let you hurt me." The tears burning behind my eyes become impossible to ignore. I want to run and mourn the boy I've convinced myself is gone. Instead, I lock my knees, force my spine straight, and hold my ground.
"He would've never done this to me." The words splinter as they leave my mouth.
I swallow hard, trapping the sob clawing its way up my throat, then turn my back on both men and force my legs to carry me away in slow, rigid steps. Every stride feels like betrayal. Not just Malcolm's but mine, too. For nearly fourteen years, Malcolm had hidden behind Jaeger's fur. But I had hidden too. If I'd truly wanted to know, I could've recognized the Therian beneath the wolf. I would've caught the scent of the man beneath his pelt, tasted his essence on my tongue, or felt the truth every time he brushed against me. Maybe I'd buried that truth the day I was six years old. Maybe some frightened part of me had chosen the lie because it meant I could keep the boy with winter-sky eyes beside me. Even if he could only stay as my wolf. Even if my first friend had been disguised as my pet.
One good cry is all I give Malcolm.