The storm that hit the city at 3:00 AM mirrored the chaos inside Ryan Lycan. Thunder rattled the tempered glass of the skyscrapers, but it was nothing compared to the fury of an Alpha who had found his stolen legacy.
Ryan didn't call. He didn't make an appointment. He drove his car onto the sidewalk in front of Elara's private residence—a fortress-like penthouse overlooking Central Park—and slammed the door, leaving the engine running.
The doorman, a burly human who looked like he bent steel for fun, stepped forward to intercept him. "Sir, you can't—"
Ryan didn't break stride. He didn't touch the man, but he flared his Alpha aura, a focused wave of dominant energy that hit the human's primitive hindbrain like a physical blow. The doorman froze, his instincts screaming predator, and stepped back, pale and shaking.
Ryan swept past him to the private elevator. He punched in the override code he had hacked from the building's schematics during his earlier surveillance. The doors slid shut, sealing him in a steel box rising toward the woman who held his life in her hands.
He held the DNA results in his fist, the paper crinkled and damp from the rain. It was his weapon. His shield. His key.
The elevator opened directly into her foyer. It was dark, silent, and smelled of lavender and her—that maddening mix of vanilla and cold, hard cash.
"I expected you sooner," a voice said from the shadows.
Elara was sitting in a high-backed armchair by the floor-to-ceiling window, silhouetted against the lightning fracturing the sky. She held a glass of red wine, her silhouette calm, composed, and terrifyingly ready. She wasn't wearing her CEO armor; she was in a silk robe, her hair loose. It was the most vulnerable he had seen her in five years, yet she felt more dangerous than ever.
Ryan stalked into the room, throwing the crumpled papers onto the low coffee table between them. They landed with a heavy slap.
"99.999 percent," he growled, his voice vibrating with the thunder outside. "You can't lie anymore, Elara. You can't hide them behind lawyers or mergers. They are Lycan blood. They are mine."
Elara didn't look at the papers. She took a slow sip of her wine. "I never lied about their blood, Ryan. I simply chose not to expose it to the man who called it 'corrupted' and 'weak.' Tell me, do the results mention that? Do they mention the rejection?"
"They mention that they are dominant heirs!" Ryan shouted, the control snapping. "They are the strongest lineage in three generations! And you—you kept them in a human daycare, oblivious to what they are. You're suppressing their nature!"
"I'm suppressing their danger," she shot back, standing up. The silk robe swirled around her ankles as she closed the distance, her human eyes flashing with a fire that matched his wolf's. "They are four years old. They don't need to know how to kill. They need to know how to read, how to think, and how to be kind—things your pack never taught you."
"They belong to the pack!"
"They belong to me!" Elara's voice cracked like a whip, silencing him. "I gave birth to them alone in a motel room while you were being crowned Alpha. I fed them. I held them through their first shifts when they were terrified and crying because their bones were breaking. I did that. You were gone."
The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating. Ryan felt the truth of her words gut him. He had missed it all. The pain, the fear, the first moments of their lives.
"I didn't know," he whispered, the rage bleeding out to reveal the agony underneath. "Elara, I didn't know."
"Because you didn't want to know," she said coldly. She walked to a side table and picked up the thick leather folder he had rejected in the conference room. The ACCESS AGREEMENT.
She held it out to him.
"This is the reality, Ryan. You have the DNA proof. Congratulations. You can take that to your Council. You can demand custody under Pack Law."
Ryan reached for it, confused. "Then you yield?"
"No," she smiled, a sharp, razor-edged thing. "If you file a claim under Pack Law, I will file a claim under Human Law. I will expose the existence of werewolves to the Global Media. I will drag Lycan Holdings into a public custody battle that will reveal every secret your family has hidden for centuries. I will bankrupt your company, I will expose your species, and I will burn your entire world to ash before I let you take my sons away from me."
Ryan stared at her, horrified. "You would expose us? You would risk a war?"
"To keep my children? In a heartbeat."
She stepped closer, pressing the folder against his chest. "Or... you sign this. You accept that I am the primary parent. You accept that you visit on my terms. You accept that you are a father first, and an Alpha second. If you do that, you get to know them. You get to teach them. You get to be part of their lives."
Ryan looked down at the leather folder. It was a cage. A paper cage designed to strip him of his authority.
But then he thought of Leo's eyes in the playground. He thought of the stabilize-hum Elias had used. He thought of the empty, aching hole in his chest that had been there for five years.
He couldn't risk her exposing the pack. He couldn't risk losing them entirely.
"If I sign this," Ryan said, his voice raspy, "I want to see them this weekend. No glass walls. No lawyers. Just me and them."
"Supervised," Elara corrected instantly. "By me."
"Fine," Ryan spat. "Supervised."
Elara pulled a fountain pen from her pocket—a heavy, expensive instrument—and uncapped it. She held it out.
Ryan took the pen. His hand shook, fighting the instinct to tear the contract apart. He was the Alpha. He did not submit. He did not bow.
But for Elias. For Leo.
He placed the folder on the coffee table, right next to the DNA results. He signed his name at the bottom of the final page, the ink dark and permanent.
Ryan Lycan.
He felt a strange sensation as the pen lifted—a weight settling around his neck. He had just signed away his dominance to a human.
"Done," he said, straightening up, trying to salvage his pride. "Now, when do I see them?"
Elara took the folder, checking the signature with a meticulous eye. She closed it with a satisfying snap.
"Saturday," she said. "10:00 AM. My estate in the Hamptons. It's neutral ground. Don't be late, and Ryan?"
He paused at the elevator doors, looking back at her.
"Leave the Alpha at the door," she warned, her eyes glowing in the lightning flash. "My sons don't need a leader. They need a dad."
Ryan stepped into the elevator, the doors closing on the image of the woman who had brought him to his knees. As the car descended, he leaned his head against the cool steel wall and let out a long, shuddering breath.
He had access. He had a way in.
He would play by her rules for now. He would be the perfect father, the submissive ex. But he was still a wolf. And sooner or later, wolves always found a way to break out of their cages.