Chapter 127: THE PRICE OF TRUTH
KEISHA’S POV
The steady scrape of my knife against the apple was the only sound filling the annex.
A small basket was between Lyra and me, already half full of peeled apples. She had insisted that I shouldn’t be doing any work because of the pregnancy, yet she’d somehow managed to convince herself that peeling fruit together counted as resting.
The afternoon sun shone through the windows, warming the floor beneath us and we just sat there in silence.
Lyra reached into the basket, turning one of the apples over in her hand before smiling to herself. "I’ve decided something."
I glanced up. "Hm?"
"I’ve decided I’m done being upset over Dane."
That made my hand pause and she laughed softly when she noticed my expression. "Don’t look at me like that. I still think he’s a complicated man, but I’ve realized something over the past few days." She leaned back against the sofa behind her, speaking more to herself than to me. "Whether I like him or not doesn’t change the fact that those babies are coming."
Her eyes drifted to my stomach, and her smile softened into something so gentle that it made my chest tighten "They’re my family too."
I didn’t say anything and judging by how she was casual about it, she didn’t seem to expect me to.
"I’ve already started making plans," she continued with an amused shake of her head. "I’m buying them clothes before they’re even born. Tiny shoes, blankets, toys... everything. They’ll have their own little corner here whenever they visit me, and when they’re old enough to walk, I’ll take them to the lake, the market during festivals, and every beautiful place around Ashveil. They’ll grow up knowing they have an aunt who’ll spoil them completely."
The apple slipped from my fingers and rolled across the floor and neither of us moved to pick it up.
She hadn’t even noticed it yet. Lyra was still talking about the babies, smiling to herself as she listed all the ridiculous things she wanted to buy for them.
I couldn’t hear half of it anymore.
All I could see was the woman sitting across from me— the sister who had crossed packs for me without hesitation, who had stood in front of elders for me, who had nearly gotten herself arrested because someone had thrown me into a dungeon.
She deserved the truth. Maybe she deserved it long before now. I was being too selfish.
"I’ve been lying to you." The words came out so quietly that I almost thought she hadn’t heard them.
Lyra’s smile slowly faded and she raised a brow. "What?"
"I haven’t been honest with you. Not about any of this."
She frowned, setting the apple she had been peeling aside. "Keisha... what are you talking about?"
I lowered my eyes to my hands, and they wouldn’t stop shaking. "I think I’m losing my mind." The confession slipped out before I could stop it.
Without waiting for her response, I continued. "I wake up every morning wondering how much longer I can pretend everything is normal. Every time I look at you, I want to tell you everything, but then I imagine the way you’ll look at me afterward, and I lose my courage all over again." My throat tightened until every word hurt. "I don’t want to carry this by myself anymore."
The room became painfully quiet but Lyra didn’t interrupt. She simply watched me, waiting.
I took a slow breath that did nothing to steady me. "The babies..." My hand drifted instinctively to my stomach. "They don’t only belong to Dane."
For a moment, Lyra only blinked. It was as if her mind had heard the sentence but refused to understand it. "...What do you mean?"
"I mean exactly what I said."
"No." She gave a small shake of her head before I had even finished speaking. "No, you don’t. Dane is your mate."
"He is."
"Then what are you saying? Who else could they even belong to?"
I forced myself to meet her eyes. "They could also belong to Alpha Callum."
As soon as those words left my lips, the world seemed to freeze as Lyra simply stared at me. I could almost see her waiting for me to laugh and admit I’d made a horrible joke.
Instead, I kept speaking. "The night everything happened... I slept with both of them."
Her face emptied and in place of anger was complete, stunned disbelief.
I rushed on before fear could make me stop. "I know how that sounds. I know what you’re thinking, but please... please let me explain everything before you decide what kind of person I’ve become."
She was still staring.
"I never wanted any of this. I never planned it. So many things happened that night, and afterward everything just kept getting worse. I tried convincing myself I could fix it on my own, but every lie only created another one. Then I found out I was pregnant, and Doctor Fenn confirmed the babies were conceived through a dual bond. That’s why nobody knows who their father is."
Lyra finally found her voice. "You... slept with Alpha Callum?"
I nodded.
"And Dane knows?"
"Yes."
"And... Alpha Callum knows?"
Stiffly, I gave another nod.
She took one slow step backward, then another, dragging a hand over her face as if trying to wake herself from a dream.
"No..." She laughed once, but it wasn’t amusement. It was disbelief. "My little sister..."
She looked at me again, and her voice broke. "What happened to you?"
I felt tears sting my eyes. "So much." I swallowed hard. "So much happened, Lyra... and I don’t know how to fix any of it anymore."
"That night changed everything," I said, forcing the words past the knot in my throat. "Dane and Alpha Callum both came to my room. None of us were thinking clearly, and by morning, nothing could ever go back to the way it was."
My eyes dropped to my hands because I couldn’t bear to look at Lyra yet. "I kept telling myself it would never happen again. We all did. We agreed to pretend it had been one terrible mistake and move on with our lives." A hollow laugh escaped me. "It sounded so easy when we said it out loud."
But it hadn’t been.
"Every time I thought we’d finally put it behind us, something happened that pulled us back together. We’d avoid each other for days, convince ourselves we were done, and then find ourselves making the same promises all over again. Every promise lasted until the next time we were alone."
My voice shook "Before I realized it, I wasn’t just hiding one mistake anymore. I was hiding an entire life. Every day I woke up wondering whether this would be the day someone found out, whether the lies would finally catch up with me. Then I found out I was pregnant, and suddenly every secret became something way worse."
I finally looked up at Lyra. "I’m exhausted, Lyra. I’m so tired of pretending I’m okay. I don’t even know who I am anymore."
Lyra still hadn’t said a word.
She stood frozen in the middle of the room, staring at me as though the sister she’d known all her life had vanished and someone else was sitting in my place. I could almost see the thoughts racing behind her eyes, each one crashing into the next before she had the chance to make sense of any of them.
I couldn’t blame her. If our places had been reversed, I didn’t know if I would’ve believed it either.
"I know how this sounds," I whispered, wiping at my face with the back of my hand. "Believe me, I’ve replayed it in my head a thousand times, wishing I could change it. Every morning I wake up hoping I’ll discover it was all some terrible dream, but then I remember..." My hand drifted to my stomach. "...and I can’t pretend anymore."
Lyra finally found her voice. "So... Dane knows."
I nodded.
"And Alpha Callum?"
"He knows too."
Her lips parted, but no words came out. She slowly lowered herself back onto the chair opposite me, her eyes never leaving my face.
"So all this time..." she murmured. "Every time I saw him looking at you... every time he found an excuse to come to the annex... every time you went quiet whenever his name came up..." She swallowed hard. "It wasn’t my imagination."
"No."
"And the pregnancy..."
"It’s for both of them. I’ve been living with that every single day," I admitted. "Every kick they’ll someday make, every doctor visit, every congratulations from people who think they know my story... I’ve been smiling through all of it while wondering what to do when they’re born."
A tear slid down my cheek. "I feel guilty whenever Dane is kind to me because I know there’s another truth he has to carry. Then Alpha Callum looks at me like he wants to fix everything, and I hate that too because there isn’t anything any of us can fix anymore."
Lyra leaned forward slowly, her elbows resting on her knees as she covered her mouth with one hand. "My God..." The words were barely audible. "My God, Keisha..."
For the first time since I’d started talking, I saw something replace the disbelief in her eyes.
Heartbreak.
She looked at me the way she’d looked at me when we were children and I’d scraped my knees badly enough to bleed.
Only this time, there wasn’t a bandage in the world big enough to cover what I’d done to myself. And oh goddess, I ached for that.
"Why didn’t you tell me?" she asked, her voice breaking. "I crossed half the territory. I got here and stayed because I thought you were carrying this pregnancy with only Dane beside you. I didn’t want to leave you alone. Even after every shocking news I kept hearing. I kept thinking you were lonely because your mate wasn’t doing enough." She laughed bitterly through the tears gathering in her eyes. "Meanwhile you’ve been carrying something this huge by yourself."
"I was scared."
"Of me?" She sounded more hurt.
"Of everyone." I looked away. "I kept telling myself I’d tell you tomorrow. Then tomorrow became next week, and next week became never."
Lyra rubbed both hands over her face before looking at me again. "What about Alpha Callum?" she asked quietly. "Is he taking responsibility? Does he intend to leave you carrying all of this alone just because he’s the Alpha?"
I opened my mouth, ready to explain why we’d kept everything hidden from the elders, why exposing the truth could tear the pack apart before we ever found the person responsible for what had happened—
A loud crash exploded from the doorway as the sound of metal striking stone rang through the room.
Both of us whipped around to see that a clay pot had shattered across the floor, hot soup spreading over the entrance in steaming puddles.
Nadia stood rooted to the spot and the tray had slipped from her hands. One splash of soup had stained the hem of her dress, but she didn’t seem to notice.
She wasn’t looking at the mess, she was looking at me.
No...
She was looking through me.
I lurched to my feet instinctively. "Nadia—"
"Don’t." Her voice came out as little more than a whisper as she took one slow step backward, her eyes glassy with disbelief. "What... were you talking about?"
No one answered her.
Her gaze shifted from me to Lyra, then back again.
"What you said..." she whispered. "About my dad..."
My heart dropped. "Nadia..."
She shook her head before I could continue, her lips trembling harder with every passing second. "No." She forced out a shaky laugh that sounded painfully wrong. "It’s... it’s a joke, right?"
Nobody answered and she looked at me desperately.
"Keisha..." Another tear slipped down her face. "Please..."
Her voice cracked completely and so did my heart. "Please tell me this is a prank."