"So, over the years... while we were searching for you and mother, my brothers and I didn’t just hide." Apollo’s voice steadied as seriousness spread into his voice. "We fought back. One by one, we dismantled the smaller families involved, those who were easiest to reach, the ones who thought they could disappear after what they did." His gaze darkened slightly.

"What remains now are the ones who learned to stay hidden." He paused there, the next words slower to come.

"As for our family’s wealth... our power... our authority..." His voice trailed off, and for the first time, something close to quiet sorrow surfaced.

It had taken them years, more than a decade, to grow strong enough to stand on their own, years spent surviving, rebuilding, sharpening themselves into something capable of retaliation. But time had not waited for them. Their family influence had faded. Their name no longer carried the same weight it once did.

"We still have our resources," he continued after a moment, more quietly. "But we’re not what we used to be." A faint, almost self-aware exhale followed. "To others... we’re nothing more than a declining aristocratic family now."

The admission hung in the air, stripped of pride, but not of resolve.

Then, as if sensing the weight of everything he had just placed on her, Apollo’s expression softened slightly.

"Well... that’s enough for now," he said, his tone easing. "It’s a lot to take in. We don’t have to go through everything at once." He glanced at her briefly. "Whenever you have questions about us or about our past, you can ask."

Almost unconsciously, he reached out, his hand settling gently on her head in a brief, careful pat, an unfamiliar gesture, but one that carried a quiet, tentative warmth.

After everything Apollo revealed, the pieces in Ashley’s mind began to shift, slowly at first, then all at once, falling into a pattern she hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t just shock anymore. It was understanding... or at least, the beginning of it.

If what he said was true, then her mother hadn’t chosen to hide in werewolf territory out of recklessness. She had been driven there. Cornered. With enemies closing in from all sides and nowhere left to run, the only option had been the most dangerous one, and that was to disappear into a world no one would expect her to survive in.

But that realization only led to more questions.

Because somewhere along the way... something had gone wrong.

Ashley’s thoughts turned sharper, more precise, retracing fragments of memory and assumption. What if, during that chaos, she had been switched with Maddison?

Not in a controlled setting like a hospital, but in the confusion while her mother was escaping, on the road, in the middle of panic and pursuit. If that was the case, then Luna Cynthia, the woman she had believed to be her mother, might not have been the one carrying Maddison at that time, but an Omega serving as a nanny.

And it wasn’t far-fetched to think that the nanny had a momentarily lapse in judgment that time.

A moment of disorder, a split-second mistake... her mother and the nanny could have taken the wrong child without even realizing it.

And after that?

Her mind pushed further.

What if her mother, desperate and alone, had latched onto the nearest source of protection she could find, someone powerful enough to deter her pursuers? Someone like Alpha Derek and his convoy.

It would make sense. Strength attracted safety. But if she had followed them... only to discover they weren’t human...

Ashley’s breath caught faintly.

Then everything that came after might have been a shocker to her mother, but she wouldn’t have a choice.

Had her mother truly been an Omega?

Or had that been a lie?

A role she created to survive?

If she had stumbled into the werewolves’ world by accident, blending in would have been the only way to stay hidden. Claiming to be an Omega, a low-ranking, often overlooked existence, would have been the safest disguise. No one would question weakness. No one would look too closely or investigate her claims, as no one would bother to look at her a second time.

And the fact that no one had ever seen her shift...

Ashley’s chest tightened.

There had always been whispers that her mother had a weak wolf. That she simply couldn’t transform properly. But what if those rumors hadn’t come from observation?

What if her mother had planted them and spread those rumors herself?

A carefully crafted excuse.

A cover story strong enough to keep anyone from asking the wrong questions.

The thought settled heavily in Ashley’s mind, threading everything together in a way that felt disturbingly plausible.

And what if the rumors that once spread through the pack, the ones that painted her mother in such a filthy light, had never been born from truth at all? What if they had been planted deliberately?

A calculated choice meant to draw attention away from the one thing that couldn’t be explained, her inability to shift. It would make sense. Better to be branded with disgrace than to invite suspicion that could expose something that would put them in danger.

Better to endure whispers of being a whore than risk being discovered as something that didn’t belong to their kind. Because if the truth came out... she might not have been the only one silenced. Her child would have been dragged into it, too.

For the first time, she felt a deeper kind of sympathy for the woman she had briefly known as her mother, not just as someone who had suffered, but as someone who had endured humiliation by choice, all to survive... all to protect her.

That alone showed how much her mother must have loved her, and how far she was willing to go just to make sure her child survived.

But there was still one thing she couldn’t understand...

Ashley couldn’t tell whether her mother had deliberately exchanged her with Maddison in that moment of chaos, choosing to give her a safer life, even if it meant letting her go, or if it had truly been nothing more than a tragic mistake, just as her mother had once claimed.

And the more this deduction made sense, the clearer another truth became.

Maybe it hadn’t just been her father.

Maybe her mother had been human too.

And so was she.

It would explain everything why she can’t shift during her coming of age ceremony, and the years of believing she was one of the werewolves, only to find out that she had simply never been what she thought she was.

But instead, she was a human, born into a collapsing noble family, forced into hiding among creatures that would never truly accept her if they knew the truth.

The realization came with relief... but also with weight.

Because along with it came guilt.

Ashley’s gaze lowered slightly, her thoughts turning back to the man she had never known, called father. Just moments ago, she had allowed herself to suspect him, to imagine him doing something as lowly as infidelity.

And yet the truth was the opposite. He had stood his ground, faced overwhelming odds, and sacrificed himself to protect his family.

A man like that... deserved respect.