Chapter 30
Nate’s POV
Axel stopped at the porch steps and looked back at us. The playful light in his eyes dimmed, replaced by that ancient, heavy stare he’d had since he was a toddler.
I was surprised that he laughed so heartily seconds ago. He didn’t do that so often, he wasn’t quite like his siblings.
“Since that night,” he said quietly. “Since the night the mountain tried to take me. It didn’t just leave scars, Mom. It left a map. I’ve been harnessing the frequencies ever since. It’s easier when the world is quiet, like it is here p>
I stepped forward, with my hands shaking. I looked at the way the shadows seemed to curl around Axel’s feet, almost affectionately. The “Keeper” wasn’t just a title. It was something deeper.
“He’s a wizard,” I breathed, the word feeling clumsy on my tongue. “Dahlia, look at him. He’s more than a wolf, he’s definitely not a human… he’s a wizard. Like the ones from the old Pack legends. The ones who could weave the world out of nothing p>
Dahlia’s head snapped toward me, her eyes flashed with a sudden, sharp anger.
“A wizard?” she snapped, stepping toward me. “Nathaniel, shut up. Just… shut your mouth p>
“Dahlia, he just made a car disappear into a different dimension p>
“He didn’t make it disappear, he said he made it! And don’t you dare start labeling him with your pack nonsense!” She was pacing now, her hands fluttering in the air.
“He is thirteen years old! He is a student at Oakhaven Middle School! He is not a ’wizard’ or a ’Keeper’ or a ’warrior’ or any other title you want to pin on him so you can feel better about the chaos you brought into our lives p>
“I’m just saying the power p>
“I don’t care about the power!” she yelled, and for a second, the old Dahlia, the one who could stare down a forest of wolves was back.
“I care about the fact that my son has been sitting in his bedroom ’harnessing frequencies’ while I thought he was playing Minecraft! I care that he felt he had to hide this because he was afraid of being some… some omen p>
“I wasn’t afraid,” Axel said softly. “I just didn’t want to break the peace. You worked so hard for it p>
Dahlia stopped pacing and looked at Axel. Her anger softened into a heartbreaking kind of grief. She went to him, taking his face in her hands.
“Oh, Axel,” she whispered. “You don’t have to carry the mountain. We left it behind for a reason p>
“The mountain is everywhere, Mom,” Axel replied, leaning into her touch. “It’s just different shapes now p>
Ariana, who had been silent the entire time, finally spoke up. She was still holding her book, but her knuckles were white. “If you can do that, Axel… if you can make people see things that aren’t there… what else have you made us see p>
Axel looked at his sister, a small, sad smile on his lips. “Nothing that wasn’t true, Ari. I promise p>
I stood on the outskirts of their circle, once again the outsider. I looked at my hands, the hands of a man who only knew how to destroy things to protect them. My son was playing a game I didn’t understand, with rules I hadn’t helped write.
“So,” Aidan said, trying to break the tension. “Does this mean we’re still having spaghetti? Or is the kitchen an illusion too p>
Axel grinned. “The spaghetti is real. But I might have conjured some extra meatballs while Mom wasn’t looking p>
Dahlia let out a shaky laugh, wiping her eyes. She turned to me, her expression guarded but no longer hostile. “You can stay for dinner, Nathaniel. But no wizard or Alpha talk. If you want to be in this house, you’re just a guest who’s very late for a meal p>
“I can do that,” I said, a lump forming in my throat.
As we walked toward the door, Axel lingered for a second. He looked back at the empty street. I followed his gaze.
“They weren’t all fake, were they?” I asked him quietly, so Dahlia wouldn’t hear.
Axel’s smile didn’t reach his eyes this time. “The car was an illusion, Dad. The man in the suit was a memory. But the storm?” He looked at the horizon, where the first stars were beginning to peek through the dusk. “The storm is definitely real. And it’s not coming from a car. It’s coming from the ground up p>
Dahlia’s POV
The steam from the spaghetti pot fogged up my kitchen windows, momentarily blurring out the world outside. I liked it that way.
If I couldn’t see the street, I could pretend the last twenty minutes hadn’t happened. I could pretend that my ex wasn’t sitting in my dining room and that my youngest triplet hadn’t just bent the fabric of reality for a laugh.
“Aidan, get the parmesan. Ariana, napkins,” I said.
The triplets moved with a practiced, silent coordination. They had always been a unit, a three-headed force that moved through life in a blur of shared glances and finished sentences. But tonight, the air between them was tense.
Aidan slammed the fridge door a little too hard. Ariana’s eyes stayed glued to her plate, and Axel… Axel just sat there, humming that low, rhythmic tune under his breath, looking like a boy who had just told a particularly clever joke that no one else understood.
Nate sat at the head of the table. It was the guest spot, but he filled it with a presence that made the room feel smaller. He looked at the mismatched chairs and the chipped ceramic bowl of pasta as if they were holy relics.
“It smells incredible, Dahlia,” he said. His voice was soft, and devoid of the Alpha’s rumble, but the intensity in his eyes was still there. He was looking at the kids; our kids with a hunger that made my heart ache.
“It’s just dinner, Nate,” I said, dropping a heavy scoop of pasta onto his plate. “Don’t make it a ceremony p>
We sat. The only sound was the scrape of forks against the ceramic plate and the ticking of the clock
“So,” Aidan said, breaking the silence with a voice that was pure, unfiltered teenage resentment. He looked directly at Axel. “How long were you planning on telling us? Or were you just going to wait until you accidentally turned the school bus into a giant toad p>
Axel didn’t look up from his spaghetti. “I wouldn’t turn it into a toad, Aidan. That’s cliché. Maybe a cloud of dragonflies p>
“This isn’t funny!” Ariana snapped, her fork clattering onto the table. “We’ve spent nine years trying to be normal. I’ve spent nine years making sure no one at school saw me run too fast or jump too high. I’ve lived in fear that someone would find out what we are, and all this time, you’ve been playing god in the backyard p>
“I wasn’t playing,” Axel said, his voice losing its playfulness. “I was learning. There’s a difference p>
“A difference for you,” Ariana countered, her eyes shimmering with a mix of anger and hurt. “We’re triplets, Axel. We’re supposed to be equal. We were the Heirs. But now… now you’re a ’wizard,’ and we’re just… what? The supporting cast p>
“You’re his siblings,” Nate interrupted, his voice firm. “And you aren’t ’just’ anything. Your blood is p>
“Don’t,” I warned, pointing a serving spoon at him. “Don’t you dare start a speech about bloodlines, Nathaniel. Not at this table p>
Nate closed his mouth, a flash of frustration crossed his face before he forced it down. He looked at Aidan and Ariana, then back to Axel.
“Your mother is right. I shouldn’t label it. But Ariana, Aidan… What Axel has is a responsibility. It doesn’t make him better than you. It just makes his path more dangerous p>
“Oh, great,” Aidan muttered, shoveling a massive bite of bread into his mouth. “So he gets the magic and the dangerous path, and we get to be the collateral damage when his sensory projections start drawing real monsters to our house p>
“I protected you tonight,” Axel said, his silver eyes flashing briefly in the dim light. “That car… if I hadn’t made you think it was there, you wouldn’t have been ready for when the real shadow starts to move p>
“What shadow, Axel?” I asked, sitting down and finally meeting his gaze. “You keep talking about a storm. If there’s something coming to this town, something that isn’t a ’projection,’ you need to tell us p>
Axel looked at Nate, then at me. “The mountain didn’t close its doors because it was finished with us, Mom. It closed them because it was changing its locks. The power dad used to have; the Alpha’s fire, it didn’t just vanish. It’s being pulled toward a new center. Something is waking up in the deep earth, and it’s looking for its Heart p>
“The Elders are dead,” Nate said. “I saw to that myself p>
“The Elders were just men in masks,” Axel replied.