Rhys stood by the large map in his den, but his eyes barely registered the strategic markings. His mind was miles away, tormented by a single, agonizing thought: What if I was wrong? Torvin's words, the elder's persistent nudges, had finally cracked the formidable wall around Rhys's convictions. The rising tide of rogue activity, coupled with the precision of their attacks, no longer felt like random opportunism. It felt… personal. Calculated.
He replayed the memory of the ambush that had crippled his father and decimated their warriors, years ago. He had been a young Alpha-in-training then, consumed by grief and a fierce, unshakeable need for justice. The evidence against Anya's grandmother had been compelling, meticulously laid out by the Alpha and elders of the time. Mara, her cousin, had vanished, making the case against the Whisperwood lineage seem even more damning by association. Rhys had absorbed that truth, making it his own, a shield against future betrayal.
Now, that shield felt like a blindfold.
He walked over to a heavy chest, pulling out old scrolls and ledgers, dusty with disuse. These were the archived records of that devastating period – patrol logs, witness testimonies (some fragmented, some contradictory), and reports on the swift, efficient way Mara had supposedly disappeared. He spread them out on a smaller table, lighting a lantern to cut through the dimness.
For hours, he sifted through the brittle pages, his Alpha mind, trained for pattern recognition and strategic analysis, now applying itself to unraveling a decade-old mystery. He cross-referenced dates, compared accounts. He noticed discrepancies he'd overlooked before, small inconsistencies that, on their own, meant little, but together, painted a disquieting picture.
A specific detail jumped out at him: a single patrol report, filed by a now-deceased veteran scout, mentioning an odd, shifting scent near the ambush site after Mara was supposedly gone. The scout had dismissed it as confusion from the chaos, but now, it niggled at Rhys. And then there was the perfection of the scapegoat – Anya's grandmother, a gentle Luna, completely out of character for such a brutal act. It had always been convenient. Too convenient.
The mate bond, which he had so brutally severed, chose that moment to twist sharply in his chest, a searing echo of the pain he'd inflicted. He closed his eyes, clenching his jaw. He could almost hear Anya's soft, bewildered voice: "I don't understand." Back then, he'd seen it as a sign of her deceit, a feigned innocence. Now, he saw the genuine confusion, the terror of a gentle spirit wrongly accused.
The weight of his mistake settled upon him, cold and heavy. He hadn't just rejected a mate; he had rejected innocence. He had condemned someone based on a lie, fueled by his own fear and the manipulated truth of his pack's past. His profound shame was a bitter taste in his mouth.
He pictured Anya now, lost somewhere in the vast, unforgiving wilderness. Alone. Vulnerable. Because of him. The thought twisted a knot of dread in his gut. His Alpha instincts, usually directed outwards, now turned inwards, a harsh self-reproach. He had been so focused on protecting his pack from external threats that he had become blind to the internal rot, the lingering falsehood that still festered.
He realized, with horrifying clarity, that his own actions had wounded Stonehaven more deeply than any rogue attack. By rejecting his fated Luna, by allowing an ancient lie to dictate his judgment, he had fractured the very foundation of his pack's stability.
Rhys pushed away from the table, the old scrolls scattered around him. He had to find her. He had to unravel this truth, not just for Anya, but for his pack. For his own soul. The path ahead was daunting, fraught with the humiliation of admitting his grievous error. But for the first time in a long time, Rhys felt a flicker of clear purpose, unclouded by fear. He would face this storm. He would find the truth. And he would, somehow, seek to atone.