MATED TO FATHER, FATED TO SONS Chapter 149: FIRST, FREYA

ALPHA CORVIN

TWO HOURS AGO

The cell was colder than the rest of the lower level prison and I stood outside it and did not go in.

Freya loves the cold. I had told Marco when he placed her here.

Freya was at the far wall when I ca down the corridor and she turned when she heard , and for a mont I forgot what I had co down here to say.

A year. A whole year of believing she was ash and bone in a burned-out building, of carrying that around behind everything I did, and she was standing in front of now with longer hair and new scars on her arms and she had not aged a single day.

She was still the most beautiful thing I had ever put my eyes on.

"You look—" I started.

"Different." She cut in before I could finish.

"Beautiful."

She smiled.

It was the sa smile. The one she gave out rarely and on her own terms, the one that lit her whole face when she decided soone had earned it, and it hit in the chest exactly the way it always had and I held myself still against it.

"Why am I here, Corvin?" She tilted her head, studying .

Always straight to the point, always asking the hard questions first.

She had not changed a bit and it was sothing I admired about her.

I ca a step closer to the bars. "I’m sorry I had to put you in a cell. It’s temporary. The twins don’t know yet that you’re here."

She went very still. "They don’t know I’m alive."

I held her gaze and let the silence stretch before I answered.

"They know. They just don’t know you’re here."

She crossed to the bars, slow, and stopped close enough that I could see the brown of her eyes in the low light. They had not changed either. She fixed them on and I felt the pull of her the way I had felt it the first night I t her.

"What I want to know," she said, wrapping one hand around the iron, "is why you sent Marco for . You could have left in the cabin."

I moved closer to the cell and then made myself stop.

I knew what proximity to her did to . I knew what my wolf did when she was within reach, the way he ca up against the inside of my chest and pushed, the way he had been pushing since the second I caught her scent on the full moon. I kept the distance deliberately. It was the only intelligent thing I had done all day.

"So you would rather I left you in that cabin." I kept my voice level. "Now that I know you’re alive."

"Yes." It ca out of her in a whisper. "I would rather you had. Because now you’re bringing back to be a witness at your mating ceremony. Why would you want that."

I said nothing, holding her eyes, because I did not have a clean answer.

"Freya. I want to ask you sothing."

"You haven’t answered yet." She did not move from the bars.

"What."

"Why would you bring here to watch you mate soone else." Her voice stayed level, her knuckles tightening slightly on the iron. "Or do you want to be your mistress again. Is that it."

I had no answer for that one either, because I had not thought about it. That was the truth I did not want to look at directly. The mont I knew she was alive every other part of my mind had gone quiet, and I had reached for her the way a drowning man reached for anything solid, and I had not once stopped to think about what reaching for her would do to her.

I was repeating myself. The sa pattern. The exact sa one.

"I’ll answer you," I told her. "As soon as you answer this one thing for ."

She searched my face. "What is it you want to know?"

"Why did you stay away for a year?" My voice dropped lower than I ant it to. "You knew I was in pain. You knew I was mourning you. Why."

She held my eyes a mont longer, then turned her back to and faced the far wall.

"It wasn’t that simple." Her shoulders rose and fell once. "A lot was happening. And I didn’t want to co back, not at first. When I got out of that fire it was a miracle. I shouldn’t have survived it. And I wanted to heal. Not just the burns. The rest of it."

She stopped.

"The things I went through in there, Corvin." Her voice thinned. "The children. I could hear them burning and the mothers screaming and I couldn’t do anything. I was powerless. And Victor—" She broke off, her arms coming around herself. "Victor would rather have watched die than let go. That’s the kind of man he is. That’s the kind of man you handed to in a battle alone while dealing with the grief of Zoya."

I gripped the iron bar without deciding to.

"And when I thought about coming back," she went on, "I thought about what was waiting for here. Everyone blad for Zoya. Ryker wanted dead. Rowan and Lila could barely look at . And you—"

She turned around.

A line of wet tracked down one cheek and she left it there, not lifting a hand to it.

"You never said it." Her voice cracked at the edge. "But part of you blad too. For Zoya. She wouldn’t have lost her mind the way she did if I had never walked into your life. You’ve always thought about it."

"That isn’t true." It ca out fast and rough and I stepped in toward the bars without aning to. "I never blad you. That’s why I never let the twins know it was you who—"

I caught myself.

The sentence had gone sowhere I had not intended to take it.

I cleared my throat and brought it back clean. "I took the bla for what happened. I let them put it on . Because you ca first. You have always co first."