The night was heavy with unsaid words when Caveen stood before his parents once more.
Maika's brows were furrowed in concern, her hands folded in front of her like a queen restraining herself from reaching for her son. Carl, as always, was a pillar of quiet strength, but even he couldn't hide the tension coiled in his shoulders.
Caveen kept his tone firm. Detached. Almost too calm.
"I'm going back to the Human City. There are patients waiting. Lives I need to save."
Carl folded his arms. "You're running."
"I'm working."
"Working," Maika echoed, her voice sharper. "While your child grows inside a woman you refuse to even look in the eye?"
Caveen's jaw clenched, but he didn't waver. "That's why I need you to keep watch. If anything happens—anything—send word. I'll be back in an instant."
Maika's golden eyes searched his face. "She asks about you. Every day."
"She'll survive."
"And if the child doesn't?"
That struck him.
Hard.
He looked away, teeth grinding as the weight of her words sank into his chest.
Carl stepped forward, placing a firm hand on his shoulder. "You can be angry, Caveen. You can feel betrayed. But don't let that turn into cowardice. That child is a fusion of powers that should never exist—witch, vampire, lycan. Do you understand what that means?"
Caveen exhaled through his nose, emotion flaring in his throat.
"I know exactly what it means."
"Then don't act like you don't care," Carl said, stepping back. "Because if the Council even suspects what's brewing here… that child becomes the next target."
Silence stretched between them.
Finally, Caveen nodded once. "That's why I'm trusting you both. You're the only ones I trust."
---
Hours later, the sun had barely risen over the eastern towers of Santossa when Caveen mounted his motorcycle and pulled on his coat. The city was waking, birds chirping, streetlamps flickering off one by one as day broke.
He didn't look back at the mansion.
Didn't dare.
Inside that estate… was the witch who turned his world upside down.
Inside her womb… was his legacy.
But his place, for now, was elsewhere.
He had lives to save. Bones to mend. Blood to draw.
And maybe, just maybe, distance would give him the clarity he needed.
Or bury the truth a little deeper.
---
Meanwhile, within the Landon Mansion…
Lysandra sat on the veranda, wrapped in a velvet shawl. The breeze tugged gently at her hair as she stared at the horizon.
Maika's voice from earlier echoed in her memory:
> "He's gone back to his work. He said… he needs time."
Lysandra hadn't said anything in reply. Just nodded. Smiled. Pretended it didn't hurt.
But it did.
A lot.
The child inside her fluttered—an odd pulse of energy brushing her magic like a whisper of comfort.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, hand over her belly. "He'll come around. I'll protect you. Until he does."
She didn't know how long that would take. Or if it would ever happen.
But for now, she would learn. Prepare. Endure.
And wait.
------
The hospital's fluorescent lights hummed faintly above Caveen as he walked through the corridors of the pediatric wing. He had asked for this shift. Insisted on it, even. He thought that drowning himself in routine, in healing others, would silence the storm inside his head.
He was wrong.
A nurse approached, clipboard in hand. "Dr. Landon, the Cesarean in Room 302 just wrapped up. Baby girl. Healthy lungs. Mother's stable."
Caveen nodded absently. "I'll do the postnatal checkup."
The nurse blinked. "You sure? You've already—"
"I said I'll do it."
He needed to.
He needed to prove—to himself—that he could face this.
He pushed open the door to Room 302 and stepped into soft murmurs and the sterile scent of antiseptic. The mother lay exhausted but radiant, a sheen of sweat on her brow, hair plastered to her temples.
And in her arms…
A newborn.
Tiny.
Pink.
Squirming.
Alive.
The moment his eyes landed on the baby, everything inside Caveen halted. His breath caught somewhere between his lungs and throat.
That heartbeat. That small, steady rhythm. The light aura barely blooming in her tiny chest. She was human, fully so, and yet… the miracle of her was blinding.
The mother looked up, smiling through exhaustion. "She's perfect, isn't she?"
Caveen tried to respond.
Tried.
But no words came.
The baby let out a soft cry—a fragile, breathy wail that shattered something inside him.
It wasn't his child.
And yet, in that single moment, he saw a flash—
Golden curls. Bright eyes. A laugh that sounded like bells. A child running toward him in a field of moonflowers, arms stretched wide, whispering, "Papa."
His knees buckled.
Not physically. Not in front of them. But something deep inside him collapsed—like a dam breaking. His hands trembled as he stepped back.
"I—" he began, voice hoarse. "I'll send the pediatrician for the full exam. Congratulations."
He turned too quickly. Left too quickly. His lab coat flared behind him as he tore down the hall, ignoring every question, every nurse's call of, "Doctor! Are you—"
The bathroom door slammed behind him.
And there, in the cold sterility of tile and porcelain, Caveen Landon fell to his knees.
He braced both hands on the sink, gasping.
Tears he didn't permit himself to shed broke free—hot, angry, silent.
His reflection in the mirror looked nothing like the composed doctor. Just a man drowning in guilt and fear and something he couldn't even name.
A father.
He was a father.
He had a child—a hybrid child, carrying power the world wouldn't understand.
And he had walked away.
He had walked away.
"What the hell is wrong with me?" he whispered, voice cracking.
No answer.
Just the hollow echo of his own breath.