Of all the places in the luxurious Beta home, Trinity always found herself coming back to the same spot. The very back of the house, in its most secluded region, held a massive floor-to-ceiling glass door. All one had to do was push, and the whole thing slid open, seamlessly bridging the opulent interior with the wild exterior. She knew she wasn't allowed to open it, to go outside alone or at all, not with her heat still a dangerous beacon. So, in moments of quiet reflection, she would find herself sitting on the cool, polished tiled floor, staring out at the ancient trees and distant, hazy mountains. Close enough to see, yet divided by this impenetrable glass wall.
Today was the last day. Tomorrow, she was finally allowed out. Despite the comfort she'd found here, a strange sense of impending doom settled in her gut. It had been nice, peaceful even. Fun at times. Exchanging barbs with Alana, no matter how hostile, had been entertaining in its own messed-up way. Boris, too, was like a typical goofy sitcom dad brought to life, and it made her feel lucky. Lucky that she could finally see it and not shy away from the kindness he showed her. But it felt like tomorrow, everything would be different. She wouldn't have to be here anymore, and it made her wonder if she was even allowed to stay.
From what she had learned about Warrior training, most unmated men and women stayed at the Warriors' house, a barracks-like dwelling separate from the family homes. There were a few exceptions, of course; anyone part of the Alpha's immediate family would go back to their own lavish residences, unless they didn't want to. Normally, the same could happen with the Beta's family, but given Alpha Adrian's disdain for her, Trinity wasn't sure. Also, it just didn't seem right to stay here, knowing that Ryan and Jess would have to stay in the training house. That weird man Meyers words from the first day still echoed in her head: they would be "prostitutes and punching bags." As much as she would like to avoid every facet of that fate, she didn't feel it was right to just leave Ryan and Jess to theirs. She missed them desperately.
Just on schedule, she watched one of the patrolling warriors run towards the edge of the forest. He stripped down naked, unashamed, his powerful muscles rippling in the sun, before shifting into his massive wolf form, vanishing into the trees. Moments later, a new warrior emerged from the other side, taking up the vigil. She had noticed how diligently they all kept watch. Not a single one of them looked idle, maintaining a constant, watchful eye on the forest, diligent in their charge of her safety.
"I don't always look at the view the way you do," Boris said, his voice soft, as he came to sit beside his daughter. He was clad in a comfortable, dark t-shirt and well-worn jeans, a testament to his salt-of-the-earth nature despite his lofty position. His eyes, the same crystal blue as hers, were fixed on the panoramic view she so admired. She got to see things with new eyes. He'd spent his entire life in this house, looking at the towering pine trees behind his home; they had long since lost their appeal, just the common view, nothing to marvel at anymore. He wasn't sure if he had ever looked at it with the same reverence Trinity did.
"My room didn't have windows," Trinity murmured, more to herself than to him. The basement of his house, where she grew up in had no light. She would always be charmed by a beautiful view. She knew what it was like to go without one, for the only thing you saw day after day was just concrete walls holding you captive. It was a blessing to simply see the sun, the light, the trees—anything beautiful.
Boris wondered how someone could live in a room without windows. From what he knew, there was no such thing; every bedroom in the pack had to have a window, no matter how small. He swallowed, the urge to ask more about her past warring with the deep sense of her discomfort.
"You know, I want to hear about your life. All of it," Boris said lightly, sensing her withdrawal. He knew there were things in her past she never wanted to think about; Ryan had alluded to as much. But he wanted to know about the life his daughter had before she got here.
Trinity didn't think she'd ever speak about her life before to Boris. The only person she ever talked about it with was Ryan. She wasn't even comfortable talking to Jess, and they'd shared in the nightmare together. Her memories of that time were vivid. Something as simple as the smell of damp concrete would bring her right back into that basement, trapped within those walls. Sometimes the only thing she would be doing throughout the day was trying to fight off the sensory triggers that brought her right back into that room. Everything surrounding her felt so real, so brutal and present. Trinity wasn't sure if she'd ever be in the space to talk about it. She was always living it; the last thing she wanted to do was talk about it as well.
"What was it like, back then with me?" Trinity asked instead, pulling her knees just below her chin, still keeping her blue eyes fixed on the beauty just outside the glass.
Boris didn't need her to ask the question in full to understand what she meant. She wanted to know what it was like, what happened when he gave her up. A tremor ran through his large frame.
"Adrian gave me an extra few days to say goodbye. Most just hand off their kids. Let someone else drop them off. I could barely let you out of my arms." Boris felt his throat go tight, the raw emotions of that time, a familiar, agonizing ache, getting the best of him.
He thought about how he hadn't slept the night before, knowing she had to leave. How he'd held her in his arms, refusing to put her down for even a second. Just held her tight to his chest, trying to memorize her scent. So no matter what, he would know his daughter. If somehow he couldn't recognize her, he'd smell her and know instantly that she was his. He also just wanted to imprint his scent on his daughter for her to remember him, a futile hope he clung to.
"You had this hideous wolf teddy," he began, a wet chuckle escaping him. "It had been through everything. We'd washed it a few times, but it was a definitely gross yellowy-green color. It was the stuffy I had as a kid. That I gave to you."
Boris could barely believe the wave of emotion coming over him. His eyes began to fill with tears. She was right here in front of him, and he felt like he was reliving the hardest day of his life, stuck in a loop he could never escape.
Standing to his feet, a towering figure even in his grief, he kept his eyes on the mountains in the distance, trying with everything in him to compose himself. The very air around them felt still, holding its breath. "I dressed you in your purple onesie with your white hat and blue shoes. Tucked your teddy bear, that ugly wolf, under your arm. I held you in my arms the entire drive." The distant, faint hum of city traffic, a sound so foreign yet so deeply tied to that horrific memory, seemed to echo in his ears.
Alana had entered her home, earlier than she had expected to. As she got closer to the house, she could feel Boris, feel his turbulent emotions. His instability. It was odd; he wasn't angry, he was just profoundly, profoundly sad, and the sadness wasn't current, but an echo of a different time. She didn't even need to think about it to know exactly what was going on.
Entering the house, she handed off her expensive leather purse to the nearest maid as she followed the invisible tether that linked her to her mate. Stopping in the hall, she saw Trinity sitting on the ground with her knees to her chest, staring out the back doors. Boris stood, his brown hair gleaming in the sunlight, his eyes fixed on the same distant view.
Alana didn't have the same vivid emotions tied to the memory Boris was reliving. But she remembered how he felt. The pain he was in. Even though it had been a moment of complex relief for her – relief from the constant threat of a defective child, from the scrutiny and the fear of losing her hard-won status – it was also a deep devastation for him. And through her mate bond, she felt what she should have felt that day. She felt the searing pain of a parent losing a child, a foreign agony that wasn't even truly hers, but pulsed through her system. Even though it couldn't fully register as her own, she understood what he lost that day.
Holding back her own complex feelings and thoughts, she stood behind them, listening in the reverent silence.
"I don't even remember how long we drove for," Boris finally managed, his voice thick with unshed tears. "It felt like a second. Didn't want to let you go." He wanted to tell her more, but the tears blurred his vision, and he just couldn't speak, standing silently beside her, trying to compose himself.
"Alpha Adrian sent us with twenty warriors," Alana found herself filling in the unanswered gaps, her voice surprisingly steady. It was hard to hear Boris suffer through the memory when she could articulate it so clearly. "Just to make sure he would give you up. That he wouldn't run with you instead."
Trinity didn't turn, but she was startled at the sound of Alana's voice. She hadn't expected her, or for her to have known what happened. Trinity had always assumed Alana stayed home to celebrate alone.
"We parked down the road from a church," Alana continued, her gaze sweeping over the scene outside, a memory she hadn't touched in years. The scent of urban exhaust, so different from the pack's pine forests, seemed to fill her nostrils. "We watched for hours, making sure the people inside seemed nice. Your dad played with you, and you shared a peanut butter sandwich. No jelly, because it was gross. He waited until you took your afternoon nap. Then he wrapped you tightly in your soft pink blanket that you slept with every night. Tucked you into your car seat." Alana felt like a fraud as tears slipped, unbidden, from her own brown eyes. But she knew it wasn't her pain, not her hurt. It was just the powerful effect of the mate bond, Boris's emotions surrounding this memory were just so potent, how could they not affect her? "He slipped a letter in your pocket. It said your name, that you were loved, and that he couldn't wait till you would find each other again." She could almost hear the last laugh of his daughter, a sound now so precious and rare.
Boris was profoundly grateful for Alana. She was accessing the one memory in his mind that was just too raw to touch for him, narrating his deepest wound.
"I took you from his arms. And I rested you down on the stoop. I kissed you goodbye as they wrapped silver chains around your dad. They injected him with the silver-laced compound that would leave him in a comatose state for a few days." Alana remembered it clearly, the one fleeting moment she had Trinity entirely in her care. Maybe it was just Boris's emotions churning through her system, but in that moment, that one fleeting second, Trinity felt like she was truly hers. And it was the first time she actually had to reject what felt right. But she never felt that feeling again, not before and not after. "They left. Taking your dad back to the pack. And I stayed. I waited till someone found you. After they brought you inside, I made sure you were safe. And then I left too."
Trinity couldn't help the few tears that silently streamed down her face. She had wanted to ask before, How could they just walk away from their child? How come they never made sure she had been okay? Carrying this burden had made her think she would never tell them what had truly happened to her growing up. But now, she understood. Given Alana's cruelty, neither one of them deserved the brutal reality of what her life had been like. In the end, they did try to do what was right. Now that Trinity had understood what it was like to be under the suppression of an Alpha, it made it devastatingly clear what it meant to not have an option, a way out.
"I'm sorry you lost your daughter, both of you," Trinity whispered, her voice thick with emotion. Even though it was at a different time for both of them, Trinity knew that the loss was the same. Alana had lost Trinity the day she was born, while Boris's torture was drawn out for two agonizing years, and then another handful of years until they were back together again.
Alana felt her heart clench, a strange, profound ache. It was what she had wanted someone to have said to her so many years ago, when she didn't form the bond, when she didn't feel that innate connection. She just wanted someone to say, I'm sorry you lost your daughter. And of all people who would ever utter those words to her, she never would have assumed it would be Trinity.
The rest of the evening had a contemplative, almost sacred tone. There wasn't any hostility or unspoken animosity. There was closure in the air. Some sort of final sense of peace between the three of them. It made the house feel immeasurably lighter to live in. Even the staff had noticed the change in atmosphere. At dinner, neither woman sniped at each other. Boris didn't look like he was trying desperately to win the affection of his child. There was just a state of palpable peace between all inhabitants of the house.
That night when Trinity went to bed, she thought she'd drift off into a dreamless sleep, feeling relaxed with how the day had ended. But her sleep had pulled her in another direction.