Aria stared at him.
She didn't move and didn't speak.
Her hands trembled at her sides, though she kept her face still.
But inside?
Chaos.
It cracked something open inside her. Something she'd buried so deep, she'd nearly convinced herself it had never existed.
A soft cry.
A heartbeat that once fluttered beneath her ribs.
She took a slow breath. but it did littke to steady her chaotic heart.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly, her voice thin. "About your...heir."
His jaw clenched. "You say that like you know what it means."
"I don't," she lied.
But her wold twitched beneath her skin, agitated by the falsehood.
He looked away, staring into the fire like he could burn the past out of himself. "I lost her in the war. My mate. My son. All gone in one night."
Mate.
Son.
Aria's breath hitched, but she forced herself to breathe.
"I know loss," she said after a long moment.
He didn't answer.
"I had achild once, too." she added, quieter. "People said he didn't survive. I never saw the body."
The Alpha's head snapped up. "What?"
Her throat tightened. She shouldn't have said that. She never talked about it.
But something about him called to her in a way she couldn't ignore. It hurt in the same shape her's did. His story.
"You said 'they ttold you," she went on, voice horse.
"About your son. That he died."
"Yes."
But you never saw the body?"
"No."
She took a step forward. "Then maybe we've both been lied to."
Their eyes locked, two souls tethered by loss, and questions not one of them had any answers to.
"Who are you?' he asked again, softer this time.
Aria hesitated.
If she told him the truth, that she wasn't just a rogue healer, that she had once been marked by a royal Alpha, that she'd once carried a child who never should have existed, could it destroy her?
But something in her pushed her hard, wanting him to know.
But she could not, she was not ready to dig all the pain she had kept buried deep inside her.
For now she gave him the only answer she could.
"I'm the one who kept you alive."
The fire crackled.
Darius, she was sure now that was his name, slumped onto the floor, muscles still trembling form the near shift and pain.
His voice, ragged with exhaustation, cut through the silence.
"Do you believe in second chances?"
Aria didn't answer at first.
She sank into the chair opposite him, watching him from behind her lashes.
"I believe in scars," She said finally. "And that sometimes, the wors ones never show on skin."
He gave a humorless smile. "You talk like someone who's lived through a war."
"I have," she said. "Just not the kind that leaves bodies behind."
Their silence stretched. The wind howled outside the cabin, snow whipping against the windows.
"I was betrayed," he said at last. "By someone I trusted. Someone I....loved."
A name sat on the edge of his tongue, but he did not speak it.
Aria looked away.
You're not the only one, she thought.
And suddenly, her mind was back there.
Year ago.
She was barely seventeen, wild with dreams and too stubborn to listen.
He had come to her in the woods, cloaked in shadow and scent. He was a royal without a doubt, his attire sold him out.
He said she was special.
Sais her wold was rare.
Even promised to be her knight in shinning armour; as so do all the rest of men.
And just like the rest of his species, He lied.
When she found herself pregnant, her body changing and her magic shifting, he disappeared just as fast as he had first appeared.
His family sent forth assassins. They couldn't risk a bastard heir with rogue blood.
They said the baby died after birth. Said it was for the best.
But she never saw a body.
And somme nights, when she dreamt...she still heard that infant cry.
............................
Back in the present, she rose abruptly.
"You should rest," she told him.
"I don't sleep much," he replied.
She paused at the door.
"Try," she said. "You'll need your strength. Whoever's hunting you...they won't stop."
She left him there, in the firelight, surrounded by ghosts.
But clearly she also carried her own with her.
And in the silence of her own room, Aria finally allowed herself to whisper the truth:
"If my son is alive...then he's out there. And I'm going to find him."