Page 75 of Bitten, Marked, Obsessed

“She was never supposed to end up here.”

“But she did.”

“She was hidden for a reason.”

“Because you couldn’t keep it in your pants?” I bite out.

His jaw clenches so tight I hear the crack of his teeth. “Because if they knew what she was, she’d never be safe. Not from the wolves. Not from PEACE. Not fromme.”

That lands heavy. And worse, honest.

I push, quieter now. “Does she know?”

Mathis finally turns to face me again. And gods, he looks older than I’ve ever seen him. Not in the lines around his mouth, or the few silver strands in his dark hair. But in hisregret. It hangs off him like a soaked cloak.

“No,” he says. “Her mother swore never to tell. She made it clear I was to have nothing to do with her. She came here once—when she was still pregnant. Stood right in that doorway and told me to stay out of her life.”

I blink. “Shewhat?”

“She said I would not ruin her marriage. That she would raise the child as Edmund’s. And if I said a word, she’d see to it that I never saw either of them again.”

I stagger a step back, stunned. Not because it’s hard to believe—I heard the mother’s always been a mystery—but because of the wayhe says it. Like he’s never said it aloud before. Like the words still cut on their way out.

“She robbed me of her,” he says, low now. “Of my daughter.”

I stare at him. This man who raised me with iron discipline, who rarely flinched in battle, looks like he’s standing in the ruins of something he thought he buried decades ago.

Mathis Wulfson is steel. Fire-forged. Hardened by law, war, and power.

But right now?

He’s just a father who lost something.

“Did you ever try?” I ask, softer now. “After that?”

His throat works again. “I wanted to. But what good would it have done? She was safer without my name. Withoutme.”

“But now she’s here. Awake. Changed.”

He nods, eyes rimmed in shadow. “And already spiraling.”

“Then don’t you think she deserves to know why?”

Silence.

Again.

And it says everything.

I clench my fists. “You keep telling me to think bigger. To see beyond myself. But you—you left her in the dark. You let her suffer.”

He steps forward suddenly, shoulders squared. “I left heralive.That was the deal. It wasn’t perfect, but it kept hersafe.”

“No,” I snap. “It keptyousafe. From the responsibility. From having a daughter who was born from chaos.”

His nostrils flare. “You think I haven’t paid for that choice every day since? You think I didn’t watch the news for a name, for a sign, for a hint that she was alive and thriving?”

He exhales hard, looking away again. His voice drops. “Now she’s here. And I don’t even know if I should tell her or protect her from the truth.”

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