Chapter 154: The Unfolding Truth XXXIV

Third Person POV

Evening came slowly, the way evenings came in early autumn, the sun taking its time to drop behind the trees, the shadows stretching long and thin across the grass before the light was properly gone.

The bench under the old oak had stopped being comfortable hours ago. Helen had shifted position so many times she had lost count, trying to find somewhere the old wood would meet her kindly. But it would not.

She had made peace with the ache in her back and the stiffness in her legs and simply sat.

She was tired. Not just from the bench. From everything underneath the bench. From the years of watching and waiting and making herself small.

From the weight of Azura against her chest every night, small and trusting and needing her for everything.

From the stone that had settled behind her ribs the moment she understood what Lysander wanted, and had not moved since.

And from the long road that had carried her here, to this small house at the edge of a village she had never expected to find herself in again.

She was about to stand and stretch her spine when she heard it.

Wheels on packed earth. The sound of horses and wood and metal grew louder as it came around the bend. She got to her feet.

A carriage appeared. Dark wood, modest but well kept, pulled by two horses whose heads hung low with the particular tiredness of animals that had covered real distance. It rolled to a stop in front of the small house.

The door opened. And a boy jumped out first.

He was small, maybe four or five, with amber eyes that were warm and bright even from a distance, the color of honey with the sun going through it.

He landed and immediately started running toward the house, arms pumping, feet kicking up small clouds of dust from the dry path.

Another boy came out right behind him.

Same size, same age, same energy. Black hair falling across his forehead, brown eyes that moved over everything the moment they landed on it.

He chased after the first boy, laughing, and the first boy laughed too, and they ran in circles between the gate and the door, shoving and spinning and completely absorbed in a game that had no rules and did not need them.

A third figure appeared in the carriage doorway.

Smaller than the others. Much younger. Two, maybe just turned three. He stood at the edge with both hands gripping the frame and looked down at the ground below him with the full serious concentration of a child assessing a very significant drop.

One small leg reached out. His foot searched for the step that was not there. It swung in the air. Found nothing. Swung again.

A woman laughed from inside the carriage. Warm and easy.

She stepped out behind him, her hands going under his arms, lifting him clear. She set him down on the path and he immediately took off after the older boys, his legs doing the determined sideways run of a toddler who had not quite sorted out the coordination yet, arms spread wide for balance.

Helen’s breath caught.

The woman straightened up and turned toward the house.

Genevieve.

Not the sixteen-year-old with the wooden doll and the blue eyes that were still deciding what they wanted to be.

Not the girl who had looked at white hair and called it beautiful before she had any reason to.

This was a woman. Taller than Helen remembered, her brown hair longer now, falling past her shoulders, thick and warm in the fading light.

She moved differently, too; something settled in how she carried herself, the particular ease of someone who had grown fully into their own life and stopped being surprised by it.

She put both hands on her hips and looked at the two older boys still chasing each other.

"Rhydor. Silas." Her voice carried without effort. "Watch your brother. Do not let him near the road. It is almost dark."

The amber-eyed boy spun around mid-run. His face arranged itself into the expression of someone who had just been given news they found completely unreasonable.

"Mom." He stretched the word. "Why do I have to babysit him? Every time?"

Genevieve kept her hands exactly where they were. "Because an Alpha learns to take care of others first. That includes small, annoying brothers."

Rhydor rolled his eyes. "I am not even an Alpha yet. Can I not have a little bit of freedom before all that starts?"

The smallest boy had turned himself around and was toddling back toward Rhydor, his face set with concentration, his legs moving as fast as they could manage.

He reached him and grabbed a fistful of his sleeve and tugged. Looked up at him. His lower lip began its preparations.

"Whydow." The name came out soft, the r sliding between letters it could not quite decide between. "Pway wif me. Pwease."

He said please like it cost him something and he was paying for it anyway.

Rhydor looked down at him. He stood there for a moment with his amber eyes and his crossed arms, and something moved through his face that he did not appear to have planned.

The resistance drained out of it slowly. He sighed, the sigh of an older brother accepting a destiny he had not chosen.

"Fine," he said. "But only because you asked nicely."

The smallest boy’s whole face changed at once. He clapped both hands together and pointed at the door.

"Gwandma! Let’s go see Gwandma!" He pointed harder. "Now! Let’s go!"

All three boys turned on the door together. Small fists against the wood, loud and overlapping and completely unbothered by the noise they were creating.

"Gwandma! Gwandma! We awe here! Open it! Gwandma!"

The door opened.

Sonita’s mother stood in the frame. Helen watched her face change from across the garden.

The years fell off it, the hardness that had been sitting there all afternoon simply gone, replaced by something open and unguarded that had nothing careful about it.

She crouched down and spread her arms and all three boys piled into them at once, all talking, none of them listening to each other, a continuous overlapping wall of sound she seemed to understand without effort.

"I made cookies," she said, over all of it. "It’s on the kitchen table. Go."

The smallest boy detached himself from her arms and stood up so fast he nearly fell backward.

He turned and ran inside with a speed that had not been present at any other point in the evening. The other two thundered after him.

Their voices faded into the house.

Genevieve walked to the door. Her mother came out to meet her and they spoke in low voices, close together, the easy shorthand of two people who did not need to choose their words carefully with each other.

Helen stood under the oak tree and watched. She saw Sonita’s mother glance in her direction, brief and deliberate. She saw that whatever she said made Genevieve’s head come up.

Genevieve turned.

Her eyes moved across the garden and found Helen.

They went wide. Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

"Helen?" Barely any sound in it.

Helen stepped out from under the tree.

She walked toward the house. Her legs were stiff from the hours on the bench but she kept going.

She was five steps from Genevieve when Genevieve stopped waiting and crossed the remaining space herself, her arms already open.

They hugged and held on.

Helen pressed her face into Genevieve’s shoulder and felt the arms come around her back and she breathed in and stayed there for a moment without saying anything. Just there.

"Helen." Genevieve’s voice was unsteady. Right at the edge of something. "I kept thinking I imagined you."

Helen pulled back. She looked at Genevieve’s face. At the woman looking back at her from behind the girl she remembered.

"Look at you," she said softly. "You are all grown up."

Genevieve laughed, a little embarrassed and mostly pleased. "It has been six years. I had to eventually."

Helen shook her head. "You look so beautiful."

Genevieve grinned. "I do, don’t I?"

Helen looked toward the house. "Are those your sons? The three who just ran inside?"

"Rhydor is mine," Genevieve said. She tilted her head toward where the amber-eyed boy had disappeared. "My firstborn. Silas is his best friend. He goes everywhere with us, practically lives in our house. I count him as mine at this point." She looked back at Helen. "And the little one is mine too. My second."

Helen’s eyes widened. "You are a mother. Of two."

"Two and a half if you count Silas, which I do." Genevieve tilted her head. "I found my mate two years after we met. It has been a while now."

Helen was doing the calculation before she had decided to. "Six years ago you were sixteen. So you found him at eighteen?"

"Yeah... he’s an Alpha." Genevieve shrugged, but the shrug was carrying something fond underneath it. "He did not take no for an answer. And honestly, I did not want to stay away either. The bond was too strong from the beginning."

Helen smiled. "I am so happy for you."

Genevieve’s smile softened. "Where have you been, Helen? I have not seen you in forever."

Something in Helen’s face shifted. The smile did not disappear but something behind it changed, something old and familiar pressing against the edges.

"It is a long story," she said.

She paused.

"Genevieve. I need to ask you something."

Genevieve’s eyes had already gone careful, reading whatever was sitting behind Helen’s expression.

Genevieve cut her off before she could say anything else. "You are looking for Sonita."

Helen blinked.

"I figured," Genevieve said. "Have you not seen her all this time?"

Helen shook her head. "If Sonita does not want to be found, she will not be found. You know her."

Genevieve exhaled. "That is true."

"But she came to you," Helen said. "You are her younger sister. She does not have any grudge against you. She would have come to explain herself at some point."

Genevieve looked away. At the garden, at the gate, at something past both of them. "You know my sister that well. Hmm." She let out a slow breath. "Yes. She came. But it did not end well. I was still angry about how she left without a word to me. I did not let her explain herself."

"But did she tell you where she was?"

"She told me exactly where she was staying," Genevieve said. "I just refused to go."

Helen’s breath left her in a rush. "Oh, thank goodness. Genevieve, please. Please tell me where she is."

Genevieve frowned. "What is it? Is something wrong?"

"Yes," Helen said. "But I will explain everything next time. Right now I just need to know where she is."

Genevieve looked at her for a long moment. Then she nodded. "I will tell you."

The front door flew open.

The smallest boy appeared in the frame.

His face was a complete disaster. Crumbs across both cheeks, something dark smeared along his jaw, and an expression of pure outrage that his small face was barely big enough to contain.

He looked at his mother. He raised one finger and pointed back into the house.

"Mother." His voice was very serious. "Whydow ate my cookies."

He said it the way someone reports a catastrophe. Low and certain and expecting immediate action.

Genevieve turned her head. "Rhydor."

Rhydor appeared in the doorway behind his little brother. His mouth was full. Crumbs were dropping from his chin onto the front of his shirt in a slow, steady process he appeared entirely unaware of.

His amber eyes met his mother’s with the complete, unhurried confidence of someone who had made a decision and found it correct.

"He was eating too slowly," Rhydor said, muffled by what was still in his mouth. "It was taking forever. Somebody had to do something."

The smallest boy turned back to his mother, pointed at Rhydor one more time for absolute clarity, then raised both arms. Done explaining. Requiring his mother immediately.

Genevieve crossed to him and picked him up in one practiced movement, settling him against her hip.

He tucked himself in at once, one small hand finding the fabric of her dress near her collarbone, his other thumb going straight to his mouth. He looked at Rhydor over her shoulder with very wet, very serious eyes.

Rhydor looked back at him. He put the last piece of cookie into his mouth very deliberately.

Silas appeared in the doorway behind Rhydor, looked at Helen, waved the friendly wave of someone who was not sure what was happening but was happy to acknowledge everyone involved, and disappeared back inside.

Rhydor wrinkled his nose. He looked at his little brother on his mother’s hip, thumb in, face tucked against her shoulder.

"Mom," he said. "He is doing it again. Acting like a girl."

Genevieve looked at him. "Rhydor. He has no other brothers. Only you. Learn to love him properly."

"I do love him," Rhydor said, without hesitation. "But he is always acting like a girl about everything."

He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked back inside without ceremony.

Genevieve bounced the small one on her hip. He had stopped watching the door and turned his attention to Helen. His thumb was still in his mouth. He looked at her hair. His eyebrows went up.

He pulled his thumb out.

"You hab white hay," he said with wide eyes.

"I do," Helen said.

He thought about her reply and said. "Wike snow?"

"A little bit like snow, yes."

He considered that information with the full seriousness it deserved.

His thumb went back in. He appeared to reach a conclusion he was satisfied with and rested his head on his mother’s shoulder, watching Helen with the calm, unhurried attention of someone with nowhere else to be.

Helen reached out and touched his small foot where it dangled off Genevieve’s hip.

He looked down at his foot. Then at her. Then turned his whole face into his mother’s neck.

Genevieve patted his back. "He is shy with people he does not know."

Helen smiled. "Aww, he’s cute."

"Yes he’s the cutest," Genevieve said.

Helen looked at Genevieve standing there in the last of the evening light with her second son on her hip and the warm glow of the house behind her.

"You have a lovely family," she said.

Genevieve smiled. The proud kind. The smile of someone who had built something good and knew it. "If you ever need me, you can find me in the Crescent Moon Pack."

She lifted her chin slightly.

"I am the Luna now."

Helen’s smile widened. She reached out and tapped Genevieve’s nose. Small and quick.

Genevieve’s eyes went wide. "Did you just boop me?"

"I could not help it," Helen said.

"Helen." Genevieve pointed at herself with her free hand. "I am a Luna. I have two children. I am a respected person. You cannot boop me."

"You made the same face as when you were sixteen," Helen said. "I saw it and I could not stop myself."

Genevieve stared at her. Then she laughed. The full, real one, the one with no dignity in it, the same laugh as the sixteen-year-old with the wooden doll who had looked at white hair and seen something beautiful before the world had taught her to be careful about that.

The small boy lifted his head off her shoulder to see what was funny. He looked at his mother’s face. He did not understand the reason, but laughed anyway, his whole small body shaking with it, his thumb falling out of his mouth, his eyes going completely bright.

Helen laughed too.

All three of them, standing in the garden with the evening gone dark around them, laughing for different reasons and somehow the same one.

Genevieve wiped her eye with the back of her wrist. The small boy had already stopped, satisfied, and was watching Helen again with his calm curious stare. Genevieve looked at Helen over his head.

"Come inside," she said. Quieter. "I will tell you where Sonita is. And then I want to hear the whole long story."