They carried themselves with effortless authority, dressed in wealth, surrounded by an air of power that made them feel untouchable. And now they were claiming she belonged to them, that she was their missing sister. The idea felt absurd, almost laughable, yet no one in the room looked like they were joking.

Then a colder thought slipped in, cutting through her confusion. If what they were saying was true... then the mother she had briefly known, the one Maddison had killed, was she their mother too?

Her chest tightened.

And she couldn’t even ask. Not when she was pretending to have amnesia. Not when a single wrong word could unravel everything.

Her mind raced, grasping for logic, for anything that could make sense of this. If they were truly her biological brothers, then why couldn’t she smell anything from them, none of the distinct scent that marked werewolves?

Was it because their mother had been an Omega, so their scent was very faint... or did it mean their father was human? Someone powerful, someone of status, an aristocrat, perhaps?

The questions piled up relentlessly, each one heavier than the last, until it felt like her skull might crack under the pressure. By the time Ace finished speaking, Ashley remained frozen in place, her expression blank, her thoughts in turmoil, too overwhelmed to react, too shaken to even begin to understand.

The conflict in Ashley’s eyes didn’t go unnoticed. Every flicker of hesitation, every tightening of her gaze, they caught it all. But to them, it was easy to misunderstand. They assumed it was the amnesia, that she was struggling to grasp something she simply couldn’t remember. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

They didn’t realize the truth was far more complicated, that nothing about this made sense to her at all.

If she had grown up human, perhaps this would have been easier to accept. Humans didn’t understand werewolves; to them, it was all just stories, something distant and unreal. But Ashley was the opposite.

She had been raised within a werewolf pack, shaped by that world, bound by its rules. And now, hearing this... it felt just as absurd to her as werewolves would to a human. Because how could a werewolf have human brothers?

Unless... she wasn’t one.

The thought came quietly at first, then struck deeper with every passing second. If their father had been human, and her mother an Omega — already the lowest, weakest among werewolves — then what did that make her? Something diluted? Something incomplete?

Her breath caught.

A sharp, almost physical pain pierced through her chest as another realization surfaced, one she had buried for weeks. She had never shifted. Not once. Even after reaching adulthood, even after waiting and hoping and forcing herself through every trial expected of her, nothing had ever happened.

She had always believed it was because she was a failure... a defective werewolf.

But now... What if that was never the truth?

What if she couldn’t shift because she had never been a werewolf to begin with?

The possibility hollowed her out. And with it came another, darker thought, that maybe her mother hadn’t belonged to the werewolf pack either. That she had only been there out of necessity, hiding in plain sight, clinging to the most dangerous place as the safest refuge.

Ashley’s fingers tightened unconsciously, her body going still as the weight of it all pressed down on her, heavier than anything she had ever known.

Ashley’s mind spiraled, one deduction crashing into the next until she could barely keep up with her own thoughts. Instinctively, her gaze shifted toward the men, her so-called brothers, searching their faces as if the truth might be written there.

They were all strikingly handsome, their features refined, almost unreal in their symmetry. And yet, the more she looked, the more something began to click.

Ace, who seemed to be the youngest, had eyes that mirrored hers in a way she couldn’t ignore. It was the first thing that she had noticed about when she woke up, that faint, uncanny familiarity.

Now, looking closer, she couldn’t deny it. There was something shared between them, something subtle but undeniable, even if the rest of their features diverged, differences that might have come from their father, if what he said was true.

And that thought made her pause.

If they were truly her brothers... then where was this so-called father?

"Then... where is your father?" Ashley asked, the question slipping out before she could stop herself.

"Our father," Ace corrected almost immediately.

The slight emphasis didn’t go unnoticed. There was something in the way he said it, subtle, but firm, that made it clear he had caught the distance in her words, the quiet line she had drawn between herself and them.

Ashley cleared her throat, a flicker of awkwardness crossing her face. Adjusting her mindset wasn’t something she could do in an instant; the mistake had come naturally, unfiltered. She forced herself to correct it, even as doubt still lingered inside her.

"Y-yes... our father," she amended, her voice softer this time. "Where is he?"

The question hung there, carrying more than simple curiosity. Beneath it was hesitation, skepticism she hadn’t quite managed to hide, no matter how carefully she chose her words.

"He..." Ace started, the word stuck on his lips as the answer refused to come easily.

He wanted to explain. More than anything, he wanted her to understand, to accept them, to see them as family. But their history wasn’t something simple he could lay out in a few sentences.

It was tangled, complicated, filled with gaps and possibilities he wasn’t ready to confront out loud. The absence of their mother alone raised too many questions. If Ashley had been kidnapped and later found, then what had happened to their mother?

Had she been left somewhere in the country, still searching, still waiting, worrying herself sick over a daughter who never returned?

Or...

The thought pressed harder than he could bear.

What if she was already gone?

Ace’s throat tightened, the uncertainty weighing heavily on him. He couldn’t bring himself to ask, not when the answer might shatter whatever fragile hope they still had. His voice trailed off completely, and instead, he glanced toward his brothers, silently asking for help, for someone else to pick up what he couldn’t finish.

The oldest among them cleared his throat, a deliberate sound meant to draw Ashley’s attention away from Ace. Until now, all her focus had been fixed on Ace, because he was the one who had first reached her, the one she seemed to trust, however slightly.

They had all recognized that and, without discussion, left the role of speaking to Ace, allowing him to help her get used to their presence one step at a time. But now... this was different. The moment their father was brought into the conversation, it was no longer something Ace could carry alone.

So he stepped forward.

"Before we get into the more... intricate topics," he began, his voice steady despite the tension beneath it, "let me introduce myself and my brothers."

He adjusted his glasses briefly, a habitual motion, before continuing. "I’m the eldest. I run a small company. My name is Apollo." He gestured slightly to the man beside him. "Your second brother, Daemon. He’s a lawyer, handles most of the legal matters for my company."