Chapter 136: His son

"Drop the act and tell me where my mate is. You have no right to hide her from me."

"I’ll repeat myself, Rainn. You’ve lost your mind."

But Magnus wasn’t listening anymore. The sudden, agonizing rush of her proximity sliced through his veins like a blade. A single glance upward was all it took to catch her silhouette at the second-story window. A fleeting, terrified gaze—an instant of scorching eye contact—before she darted back into the shadows of the room. He felt her scent flare, bright and panicked.

"I saw her. If you don’t hand her over right now..." Magnus released his Alpha aura, the sheer force vibrating through the air until the windows of nearby armored cars rattled in their frames. The atmosphere grew heavy, suffocating.

"Then what?" Askold struck a match, squinting through the rising smoke as if immune to the crushing pressure—though it was clear he was fighting it with everything he had.

"Tell me, Pharean," Magnus purred dangerously. "How does it feel? You know what it’s like to have your true mate out there somewhere, just out of reach. Except there’s one difference: you always knew yours was alive. I was left to believe mine was dead for five years."

"I am not like you..." Askold’s jaw twitched, muscles flexing violently.

"You’re no different than me, Askold. Not one bit. Your wife fled from you. I doubt she ran because you were some model mate. Hiding so deep that even you couldn’t track her down takes great skill. A clever girl, I’ll give her that. And let me tell you—it took a massive amount of effort on my part to finally find her."

"Where is she? If you so much as harmed a single hair on her head..." Askold lunged forward, grabbing Magnus by the collar of his shirt and yanking him close.

"Relax. I simply located her," Magnus murmured coldly, peeling Pharean’s fingers off his chest one by one.

"Where?!"

"I want to go inside," Magnus stated flatly. "And see my true mate."

Magnus summoned every last drop of his patience to keep from crushing the bastard where he stood, every primal urge screaming at him to cave Askold’s face in. Yet reason reminded him that Askold had his own true mate out there—meaning Jane wasn’t necessarily staying here out of any romantic devotion to him.

But that didn’t mean other males in a house full of starving wolves hadn’t looked at her with hunger. That single thought alone was enough to completely shatter his sanity.

"You can go in," Askold growled, his jaw tight. "But if you lay a finger on her or cause her any pain, I won’t give a damn about the warriors surrounding this place. My men will step in. And believe me, nobody in the Lower District tolerates Upper District scum—we won’t hesitate to turn this yard into a slaughterhouse."

Magnus gave a brief nod, utterly unbothered by the threat. He had no intention of hurting his girl. He needed to talk to her. Just talk. Though as for touching her—he would. Absolutely, without a doubt.

He strode into the safehouse, guided entirely by her scent. It smelled strange now, layered—as if it didn’t belong solely to her anymore. Following that fragrant thread through the halls, he stepped into the room. The air instantly turned to a searing mix of smoke and shattered glass, because the scene before him felt utterly surreal.

A small, light-haired boy was clinging tightly to his mate. The child’s scent, blending so seamlessly and naturally with hers, revealed the indisputable truth: this was her child.

Their child.

Raw realization scorched his soul like acid—she had borne him a son. He knew it instantly, unmistakably. He saw his own features reflected in every line of the boy’s face.

Deep within his chest, his wolf let out a low, approving rumble, instantly recognizing the tiny boy as his own.

His son.

His own blood.

If this was madness, he begged never to be cured. Because this madness was overflowing with a joy so intense that the battered fragment he called a heart would have burst under the weight of it had he been in his right mind.

Magnus stared at the tiny hands, the pale hair, the way the boy perched in Jane’s arms, pressed close against her. Suddenly, the child peeked out from behind her shoulder.

Dark, intense eyes locked onto his, twisting Magnus’s insides into a burning knot—as if he had swallowed molten lava. The boy tilted his nose, briefly fluttering his eyelids closed as he sampled Magnus’s scent in the air.

There were far too many sharp, ancient instincts awake inside the little Alpha for a child his age. Far too many correct instincts.

"Daddy?"

Magnus learned what it truly meant to be torn apart. Because in that single second, his heart and soul shattered into a million pieces at once.

He stepped cautiously toward Jane, who remained frozen, refusing to turn around. Her delicate, tense frame held the boy tighter, wrapping around him as if he were made of fragile glass.

Touch her, and she might break.

Her vulnerability was as palpable as her sheer terror, bringing a tight, unfamiliar ache to his chest—a feeling that fluttered like delicate wings against his soul.

He closed the remaining distance between them. Slowly, reverently, his hands slid over her trembling shoulders, catching the violent shudder that ran through her body. He wrapped his arms around her with infinite tenderness, leaning down closer to the boy to inhale the soft scent of his hair.

"Yes, little one. I’m here."

The word washed over his soul, radiating with colors he had never known existed. He drew his mate closer against his chest, burying his face in her disheveled hair and pressing a deep, lingering kiss to the crown of her head.

If he had lost his mind, he prayed he would never be sane again.

It felt divine to be so utterly mad—mad enough to hold the very reality he had never dared to dream of.