Chapter 105
Faith’s Pov
I pretended to be asleep and it wasn’t hard because of the darkness of the room
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I heard the door open softly. Not a bang, not a swift entry, just a careful click and I was disgusted by the fact that he went there and he decided to come back here like it was nothing.
He didn’t come to the bed though. He stopped right by the foot of the mattress, and I could feel the change in the air, like static electricity before a storm. I kept my eyes closed, focusing entirely on the feeling of him.
Astor sat down hard on the floor and he wrapped his arms tightly around his head, cradling it in his knees, and he started to rock. Slowly at first, then faster. It was the movement of a man trying to physically shake off something terrible, something that had burrowed deep
inside his skull.
I tried to ignore it for a couple of minutes. I really did. I told myself he was having a hard day, that whatever fight he’d had with Alice that brought him back here but the feeling was too
intense.
As his mate, I don’t just hear or see his emotions but I feel them your bones. I could feel the storm raging inside him, it was a mixture of confusion and a cold, deep heartbreak that felt like it might shatter him. It was distracting, mostly because I loved him too much to let him
break alone.
I sat up, the sheets sliding down my shoulders.
“Astor?” my voice was thick with sleep I hadn’t actually had. “What’s wrong?”
He didn’t move. He didn’t even look up at me. He just rocked, his breathing ragged.
I couldn’t stand the distance anymore. I climbed out of the bed and walked around. The floor was cold beneath my bare feet. I went to him and carefully lowered myself down, sitting right
next to him on the floor.
I didn’t push. I just waited.
After a long moment, he shifted. He leaned over and rested his head on my shoulder. I wanted to move away but my wolf wouldn’t let me.
“I should have known,” he whispered, the words coming out of his throat.
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“Known what?” I asked, trying to keep my voice gentle even though I wanted to explode on
him.
My mind has already jumped to the worst possible conclusion: Alice. She must have broken his heart completely. She must have done something awful, and now he was crawling back to me for comfort, the stupid and forgiving onr.
My heart and soul began to darken. It was the familiar, painful jealousy.
But the words that came out of his mouth next were so unexpected that I was completely
shell–shocked.
“the first day Isabella was born, everything suggested that she wasn’t mine. The months… the timeline was always a little off. Her scent, even.”
I froze. Isabella. The little girl he seemed to love more than life, the one I had tried desperately not to think about too often because she had everything I wanted for my son.
He continued. “But none of that stopped me, Faith. None of it stopped me from loving her and taking care of Isabella.”
I couldn’t speak. Isabella was not his biological daughter. This was the most unbelievable thing I’ve heard.
And the first thought that hit me, the one that brought my heart the most crushing pain, was horrifyingly simple. He must have loved Alice so much that he didn’t care if she gave birth to somebody else’s child. That level of devotion, even after everything, was a knife twist.
“I should have known,” he repeated, tapping his fingers against my arm rhythmically.
And that bugged me. That phrase. What should he have known? He had just admitted that he knew the child wasn’t his, but he loved her anyway. What else was there to know?
I finally pulled back slightly so I could look at him.
“Astor,” I said firmly, grabbing his arm. “Stop. What should you have known? What are you talking about?”
He lifted his head for the first time. His eyes were red, but they weren’t seeing the room. They were seeing something terrifying inside his own mind.
He reached up, wrapping his large, warm hands around my face, forcing me to look only at
him.
“Faith,” he breathed. The sound of my name was shaky. “I should have known that Isabella is our daughter.”
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The world went silent.
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The shock hit me like a physical blow, a massive wave of cold water. It stole my breath and locked my muscles.
“You have to be joking,” I whispered, scrambling to my feet. I backed away, shaking my head violently. “You are joking. Or dreaming. That is impossible, Astor. We-”
He stood up quickly, his movements fluid and urgent. Before I could back away further, he pulled me into a hard, desperate hug, pressing my face into his chest.
“She is, Faith. She is our daughter.”
I pushed against him, still fighting the sheer craziness of what he was saying. “No! You’re wrong! You’re mistaken! This is crazy!”
He held me tighter until I stopped struggling. He spoke directly into my hair, his voice low and serious, trying to force the truth into me.
“I met a seer in my trip, she told me a dark magic had been done around my pack, right under my nose, to hide something vital. I didn’t want to believe her. I thought she was crazy.”
He explained how the seer had done some kind of washing ritual on him, giving him a temporary ability to see through the glamour and veils that witch magic can hide things behind. He still thought it was probably a mistake.
“Then you called me,” he continued. “You told me Alice was involved in our daughter’s kidnapping.”
My heart twisted. I hate how he treated me and I will never forgive him for not trusting me.
“I brushed you off, Faith, but not because I didn’t believe you entirely. I brushed you off because I knew if you went with that thought, you would have confronted Alice, and that wouldn’t have been the right thing for either of us. I decided I had to come back and try to get to the bottom of everything myself. What the seer told me, and what you said, made me doubt Alice completely.”
He paused, collecting himself but I was shocked because I thought it was actually the opposite of what he is saying right now.
“The first reason I ever believed Alice was pregnant was that the first day she announced it, I felt a strong heartbeat inside her. A wolf heartbeat. But a month later, it was gone. Completely gone. I pretended like I didn’t notice and to be honest I wasn’t even pretending half the time because the only thing I could think about was you but you were gone.”
He sighed, the sound rattling in his chest. “I kept pretending until the day Isabella was born.
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That’s when I finally told Alice the truth–I knew the baby wasn’t mine. And she confirmed it. She told me Isabella was not my biological daughter.”
I gasped, pulling back enough to look at his face. This was unbelievable.
“And you just… let it go?”
“I let it slide, even though I had a lot of questions. But then she was born and she looked at me with expectant eyes that I had no choice but to step up.”
He pulled me back against him gently. “My bond with Isabella has always been the strongest. thing I’ve ever felt. It was a bond formed purely out of love, not biology. For some reason, that little girl has always made me feel complete. I didn’t know why.”
He swallowed hard. “I didn’t know we shared blood.”
I felt like I was living and I dream because I could understand and articulate what he was saying but it just wasn’t sinking in.
“Today, when I looked at her, I felt like I was seeing her for the very first time. The veil was lifted. And Faith, when I looked at her, I felt like I was looking directly at you. She has your eyes, your mouth. And most importantly, her scent… her true scent is quite similar to both of us. Me and you. She resembled us, Faith. Both of us.”
He let the heavy silence hang in the air, he was trying to get a reaction out of me but I still couldn’t say anything because my wildest dream was coming through and the only thing on my mind was knowing that I’m not dreaming.
“I
Alice was using dark magic to cloud her,” he finished simply. “To make her seem like someone else’s child, But she is ours.”
I stood there, swaying slightly, the truth finally sinking past my denial and striking my core. All the pieces, the kidnapping warning, the strange birth, and everything were coming together.
My throat was dry, my mind reeling, but there was only one clear thought left.
I looked up at him, tears finally stinging my eyes, and asked the question one final time, needing him to confirm the impossible miracle:
“Isabella is mine?”
