Fenris still hesitated before he spoke, his voice low and careful, like he was afraid of what the words themselves might do.
"Well… uh… we thought that… since you're a wolf, you had to come from one of the packs, so we started digging through their history," he said quietly.
His fingers wrapped around mine, tight but grounding, like he was holding on for both of us.
But he still wouldn't look at me.
His eyes stayed fixed on our hands instead, and that alone made something inside me start to shake. The hesitation in him, the way his voice kept catching, the fact that he couldn't meet my gaze… it made my panic rise before he even finished. Whatever fragile confidence I had been holding onto started slipping away completely.
"And eventually…" he added, "We found something."
I didn't respond. I couldn't. I just forced myself to stay still, to listen, even though every part of me was already bracing for impact.
"Your father had a male mate," he continued.
