I exhaled slowly, forcing my voice to stay steady even as my instincts churned beneath my skin. "No, Dad. It has nothing to do with him. Elliot cares for Jared… but whatever bond I thought existed between us, it's gone now."
Saying it out loud felt like tearing through my own wolf-marked skin. Somewhere deep inside, my instincts still reacted to Elliot's name, still registered him as someone once close to my mate-line. But I crushed it down.
Francis studied me carefully, his expression unreadable. "Then why does your aura feel fractured every time you speak of him?"
I hesitated, then looked at him fully. My father had lived long enough within pack politics and loss to understand what it meant when a bond broke under pressure. He had buried a Luna once—my mother—and never truly healed from it.
"Dad… have you ever hated the Presgrave bloodline?"
