Aya drifted upward through layers of darkness and warmth, her body heavy, her mind fogged with fragments of memory—fangs in the dark monastery, the London underground, the fight in the alley, the assassin’s silver-white hair, Maxx’s voice ordering her to stay still—then, light. Her eyes gradually opened.

  Soft gray curtains billowed by the windows. Warm lamplight shone over polished black floors and a wide bed covered in slate sheets. The air smelled faintly of cedar, steel, piano strings, and something older—something familiar in a way she couldn’t quite understand.

  Beside her, someone cleared their throat. Aya turned her head.

  Seated by the bedside, a girl, likely in her late teens, had one leg casually crossed over the other, her attention captured by the book she held. Her long, dark hair tumbled in soft waves, framing a face so perfectly symmetrical it resembled a masterfully crafted painting. She didn’t look up at first.

  “Finally awake?” she asked, turning a page.

  Aya blinked. “Where…where the hell am I?”

  The girl closed the book and rested it on her lap. Only then did she look directly at Aya with deep amber eyes, shining like moonlit water. “You’re in our home,” she said. “The DeSilva penthouse.”

  Aya tried to sit up and gasped as pain shot down her ribs. Elegant piano music drifted into the room from somewhere in the background, a delicate melody filling the air.

  The girl rose, placing one hand behind Aya’s back to steady her. “Easy,” she murmured. “You’ve been unconscious since last night.”

  Aya’s heartbeat quickened. “Last night, the fight, my pendant—”

  The young woman shook her head. “I don’t know anything about a pendant. I just know our father brought you home. You were bleeding and half-conscious. He didn’t tell us much more.”

  “Your father?” Aya whispered. “Who are you?”

  The girl sat back down. “My name is Seraphine DeSilva.” She paused, watching Aya closely. “And you?”

  Aya hesitated, her throat tightening. “Aiyana. Aiyana Lin. How long have I been unconscious?”

  “Almost twelve hours. You lost a lot of blood.”

  Aya inhaled to reply, but froze in place. A complex scent surrounded her—two distinct smells: warm fur and cold stone, moonlight and nightshade, wolf and vampire.

  Aya recoiled. “Your scent. It’s wrong.”

  Seraphine raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

  “You smell like both. Like him.” Aya’s voice shook. “And something else.”

  Seraphine’s expression softened with a sigh. “My mother is a vampire,” she said in a calm tone. “Father is a werewolf.”

  Aya stared. “That’s not possible.”

  Seraphine gave a slight shrug. “And yet here I am.”

  Aya placed a hand on her head, trying to understand the madness of it. “Then who is your mother?”

  “Sofia DeReyes,” Seraphine said. “You’ll meet her soon.”

  Aya frowned. “Is she—alive?”

  Seraphine gave a half-laugh, half-sigh. “Yes. And no. Vampires are complicated.” Then her voice softened. “What about your mother?”

  Aya’s gaze drifted to the soft, woven blanket draped over her. “She’s dead.”

  Seraphine’s demeanor softened. She leaned forward, her voice quiet. “So is mine… in a manner of speaking.”

  Aya’s gaze shot upward with sudden intensity.

  Seraphine offered a small, sorrowful smile. “I wish I could explain it better.”

  The door swung open, and a woman entered the room like a streak of midnight silk: dark hair flowing, posture perfectly straight, her eyes stormy gray. She looked at Aya lying there with Seraphine beside her, then moved to the foot of the bed, her gaze sharp and scrutinizing.

  “So,” she breathed. “You’re awake. I’m Sofia, Seraphine’s mother…and Maxx’s wife,” she added with a bitter tone.

  Aya swallowed hard. The air around Sofia felt cold and threatening. She had faced vampires before, but none like this one.

  Sofia tilted her head and asked, “Can I get you anything? Food? Drink?”

  Aya’s eyes narrowed. “Where is he?”

  Sofia’s lips twitched with irritation. “Nearby,” she said, “playing the piano—as usual.”

  Seraphine sighed. “He always plays when they fight,” she muttered.

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  Aya blinked. “Fight?”

  Sofia glared at Seraphine, but the girl just shrugged.

  “When she asks questions,” Seraphine explained, “he gets quiet and plays.”

  Aya tried to push herself up again. “What does he want with me?”

  Sofia folded her arms, watching the girl with calm detachment. “We all have questions. But first, tell me. Why were you looking for him?”

  Aya’s jaw clenched. “To kill him.”

  Seraphine gasped.

  Sofia didn’t. Instead, her face darkened, a dangerous glint flashing in her eyes. “Well,” Sofia said with a bitter smile, “take a number.”

  The piano music stopped. The three women turned toward the open door leading to the main room. Heavy footsteps grew louder.

  Maxx DeSilva entered the room—clean, dressed in dark slacks and a fitted sweater, still damp around the temples from his shower. He paused in the doorway, eyes fixed on the young woman in bed.

  Seraphine rose immediately. “I’ll give you both some space,” she whispered. She and Sofia headed toward the door. Seraphine stopped for a moment, then glanced back at Aya. “It was nice meeting you,” she said with a gentle smile. “And... I hope you’ll reconsider that part about killing our father.” Then, she walked past Maxx and disappeared down the hallway.

  Aya looked at Maxx, fighting the urge to snarl, run, or collapse.

  Maxx pulled a chair closer to her bed and sat, his face unreadable. “We have a great deal to discuss,” he said in a low tone.

  And Aya, despite everything burning inside her, nodded. A storm decades in the making was about to break.

  Aya sat at the edge of the bed, her legs slightly drawn beneath her, eyes fixed on Maxx with a predator’s stillness. The morning light, now filtering through the penthouse windows, cast a silver glow on her face, turning the old pain behind her eyes into something sharper and colder.

  Maxx settled into the leather armchair opposite her, the corners creaking under his weight. He appeared drained—ancient in a way only immortals could be—yet he remained composed and steady; a commanding presence she had loathed and sought after for centuries.

  He folded his hands. “Aiyana,” he started.

  She didn’t let him finish. “You left her,” she said, her voice cracking like iron under pressure. “You left my mother.”

  Maxx remained still, but a subtle shift in his eyes revealed a hint of vulnerability behind his composed exterior. “Aya—”

  “No,” her voice rose sharply. “You abandoned us long before I even knew who you were. You left her alone in that monastery with nothing but her faith and… and that.” She pointed to the nightstand.

  The pendant rested there—the tear-shaped silver charm, featuring a crescent moon against a wolf’s paw, polished through generations of handling. Aya’s breath caught as she gazed at it. It was the only piece of him she had ever possessed.

  Maxx followed her gaze. “So, Sachi kept it.”

  “She put it around my neck herself,” her voice trembling with past rage. “The night she died.”

  Maxx believed he was prepared for this conversation, but hearing her say it with her mother’s grief still in her voice struck him like a blade.

  Aya leaned back against the pillows. Exhaustion took over, but she didn’t look away.

  “It was in southern Spain,” she said. “A monastery hidden among the cliffs. We sought refuge there after she fell ill. Then, the vampires attacked.”

  Aya’s breath trembled as the memories came flooding back — the flames, the screams, her mother’s body lying still within the circle of light.

  “I was still young. Too young. I didn’t know who or what I really was. I watched them tear into the sanctuary. I saw my mother fall.”

  Her voice grew thin. “I felt something inside myself break so violently that I no longer knew my body. I shifted for the first time and killed those who murdered her.”

  Maxx exhaled with a low, tortured sound.

  “The monks took me in, hiding, feeding, and protecting me. They shared whatever they knew—scriptures, healing arts, and philosophies about our kind. They also helped me learn to manage my transformations.”

  Maxx whispered, “They saved you.”

  “Long enough for the world to change around me,” she said with a bitter smile. “Long enough for me to walk through centuries alone. Long enough to be rejected by every pack I encountered because of my blood and my mother’s humanity.”

  Her fingers dug into the blanket. “I traveled, learned, and survived. But no one ever stayed. Humans aged and died. Wolves sensed I was different. I was half wolf, half mortal, and completely unwanted.”

  She looked straight into his eyes. “You understand what it means to be an outcast. You taught me that, even without knowing me.”

  Maxx flinched, but Aya noticed it.

  “And all I had of you was this.” She grasped the pendant and lifted it. “A fragment of metal crafted like a lie.”

  Maxx drew in a sharp breath, a look of pain crossing his features. “It wasn’t a lie.”

  Aya lowered the pendant. “Then why did you leave her?”

  Maxx got up from his chair and went to the window, gazing out at the shining city below.

  His voice, when he spoke, was deep and heavy. “In the 1200s, I wandered alone,” he began. “I had escaped Europe after losing many loved ones and enduring countless wars. The groups in my homeland viewed me as unsteady—too fierce, too risky, and unwilling to conform to their politics. I left because remaining meant turning into the monster they feared.”

  He moved slightly, stealing a glance at her from the corner of his eye.

  “I traveled east seeking peace,” he said. “Or whatever was left of it for someone like me. When I met Sachi, I was... fragile. Lost. And she was a light. The first gentle presence I had felt in a long time.”

  Aya’s throat tightened.

  “I didn’t tell her everything,” Maxx admitted. “Not at first. I didn’t want to pull her into the shadows I carried. The packs in Japan wanted me dead. I was a foreign wolf, unwelcome, hunted. And I knew the danger would reach her if I stayed.”

  He closed his eyes. “So I made the hardest choice I have ever made.”

  “Leaving her,” Aya said flatly.

  “Protecting her,” Maxx corrected. “If they believed I’d gone, they would stop hunting in the region. I meant to return, Aya. I swear it. But I had no idea she was with child.”

  Aya looked down at the pendant in her hand. “You made this?”

  “Yes.”

  She swallowed, emotions painfully knotting in her chest. “You told her it would remember you.”

  Maxx nodded. “Because I feared memory would fade before I returned.”

  Aya’s voice cracked. “She never spoke your name.”

  “She wanted to protect you,” Maxx said. “And maybe protect me as well. At that time, my enemies were all around.”

  Aya closed her eyes for a long moment. “I’ve hated you for so long,” she whispered. “But now I understand why she never called you a monster.”

  He approached her slowly and cautiously, like he was handling a wounded animal that could run away at any moment.

  “Aya,” he said in a soft tone, “I’m not asking you to forgive me.”

  “Good,” she muttered. “Because I don’t.”

  He nodded once. “But I am asking you to stay. To give me a chance to prove I would have chosen differently, had I known.”

  Her voice softened just a little. “And what happens if I don’t?”

  Maxx didn’t smile, threaten, or command. “Then I will still protect you, because you are my daughter. You are my blood.”

  Aya looked at him, conflict raging like a storm. “I’ll try,” she whispered. “But I won’t promise anything.”

  Maxx bowed his head, like a warrior accepting terms after a long, brutal war. “That’s fair enough,” he whispered.

  Aya leaned back against the pillows, still holding the pendant in her hand, her breath slow and uneven. Outside, dawn crept across the skyline. It was the first light Aya had seen since she was no longer completely alone.