Born in Lies: Bonus Collection

Darian POV

Nineteen Years Earlier - House of Eldernoor

“Lock down the pack house. Seal every exit. No one leaves. Search everything.” The order leaves my mouth before my mind has the chance to catch up with it.

The command tears through the hall, passed from one warrior to the next until the entire pack house erupts into motion. Boots thunder across the wooden floors. Doors fly open. Wolves shift before they even reach the courtyard, their instincts driving them into the surrounding forest.

I don’t follow them. I can’t.

Only minutes ago, this hall echoed with laughter. Benji’s laughter. Pack members congratulated us while trying to catch a glimpse of the daughter Aveline had carried into this world only hours earlier. The scent of fresh flowers, warm food, and cedarwood still lingers in the air, clinging stubbornly to a celebration that no longer exists.

Because somewhere between one heartbeat and the next, my pups disappeared.

Every instinct within me demands action. One drives me into the forest to search for my children, while another refuses to leave the woman who has just brought them into this world.

Aveline.

I turn just as she pushes herself up from the floor, her movements frantic, her eyes darting across the hall as though refusing to accept what everyone else already has.

“No...” she whispers, shaking her head. “No... they’re here.” Her gaze searches every corner of the room.

The chairs.

The tables.

The open doorway.

Anywhere but the truth.

“They can’t just...” Her voice catches. “Darian... where are they?”

I cross the distance between us in seconds, catching her just as her knees threaten to give way. She grabs the front of my shirt with trembling hands.

“Find them.” The plea is barely louder than a breath. “Please...”

I wrap my arms around her, holding her against me as her body begins to shake. Every desperate breath she takes tears straight through my chest.

“How does this happen?” she cries. “How can someone take them? We were right here...”

I have no answer. Because I ask myself the same question.

I am Alpha. This pack is my responsibility.

Every warrior under this roof trusts me to keep them safe. Tonight, I fail the only two souls that matter more than my own. My son and daughter.

Aveline buries her face against my chest, her fingers clutching at me as though letting go will make this nightmare real.

“They’re scared,” she whispers between broken breaths. “Benji is going to be looking for us... and Viënna...” Her voice breaks completely. “She’s only hours old.”

The words hollow something inside me. Hours. My daughter has existed in this world for only a handful of hours, and already I cannot protect her.

Aveline’s fingers slowly lose their grip on my shirt. The sobs that moments ago shook her entire body fade into shallow, uneven breaths. Her knees buckle again, not because she is still fighting against the truth, but because there is nothing left to fight with.

She gives everything she has today, first to bring our daughter into this world, and then to keep our family together. Now grief claims what little remains.

I tighten my hold around her before she slips from my arms completely. “Aveline.”

Her eyes find mine for only a heartbeat. They are unfocused, heavy with exhaustion. “I’m so tired,” she whispers.

Her voice is barely more than a whisper, worn thin by hours of labour, panic, and heartbreak. They carry the weight of a mother who has had her children torn from her arms before she has even had the chance to hold them both together.

Her body goes limp against mine. For one terrifying second, I think I’ve lost her too.

“Aveline.” She doesn’t answer. I scoop her into my arms without another thought.

Around us, the search has already begun. Warriors move with purpose, voices overlapping as reports are shouted from one end of the hall to the other. Trackers are already disappearing into the forest, while others secure every entrance to our territory. Every order I gave is being carried out exactly as it should be.

I barely register any of it.

I hold her closer as we leave the hall behind. Her body is trembling, exhausted beyond what it should ever have to endure. I carry her upstairs, each step heavier than the last. For the first time in my life, I wish I could tear myself in two.

One half of me belongs in the forest, following every trail and searching every inch of our territory until I bring my children home.

The other refuses to leave the woman in my arms, whose body has only just endured the impossible before being forced to survive something no mother ever should.

I cannot be in both places. And for the first time since becoming Alpha, being one man doesn’t feel like enough.

I lay Aveline down as carefully as though she might break beneath my touch. Her breathing is shallow, her face drained of all colour. Strands of dark hair cling to her damp forehead, remnants of the hours she spent bringing our daughter into the world.

Only hours ago, this room was filled with quiet laughter as we talked about our future. Benji had insisted he would sleep beside his little sister every night. Aveline laughed and told him he’d change his mind within a week.

Now the silence is unbearable. I close my eyes for the briefest moment. Just one breath. One heartbeat.

When I open them again, I force my grief back behind walls that will have to hold a little longer. My mate needs her Alpha. My pack needs its leader. And somewhere beyond these walls, my children are waiting for their father.

I pull the blankets over her trembling body before brushing my thumb across her cheek. Her skin is still warm, yet she feels impossibly fragile.

The door opens quietly behind me. I don’t turn. I know who it is before she says a word.

Serenya crosses the room without hesitation, her healer’s instincts taking over, doing what I no longer can. She kneels beside the bed, her fingers finding Aveline’s wrist before gently placing a hand against her forehead.

“Her body has reached its limit,” she says softly. “She needs rest.”

Rest. The word feels cruel. How is a mother supposed to rest when she doesn’t know where her children are?

Serenya’s eyes lift to meet mine. For a moment, she isn’t the pack’s healer. She’s simply a woman looking at two parents whose world has just been torn apart. “I’ll stay with her,” she says. “You don’t have to worry about her.”

I almost laugh. Worrying about Aveline is as natural as breathing. I reach for Aveline’s hand one last time, carefully weaving my fingers through hers.

I press my lips against the back of Aveline’s hand. I’ll bring them home. Whether I’m speaking to her, to myself, or to the Moon Goddess. I no longer know.

Serenya says nothing. She doesn’t offer reassurance or promise me everything will be alright. Instead, she gives me the only thing I need. A single nod. Permission to leave my mate in hands I trust, and become the Alpha my pack is waiting for.

I give Aveline’s hand one last squeeze. For a moment, I simply stand there. Committing the rise and fall of her breathing to memory. Taking in the way Serenya quietly adjusts the blankets around her. The silence that has settled over the room where laughter lived only hours ago. Then I turn. The door clicks softly behind me. By the time I reach the bottom of the staircase, grief has no place left on my face.

Warriors stop what they’re doing as I step into the entrance hall. Conversations die the moment they see me. Every pair of eyes searches mine for answers I don’t yet have. I give them none.

“Report to my office as soon as your teams return,” I order, my voice steady despite the chaos threatening to consume the pack house. “No detail is too small. Every scent, every footprint, every witness. I want everything.”

Heads bow in understanding before they scatter once more. No one questions the command. No one hesitates.

I don’t walk towards the forest. As much as every part of me longs to join the search myself, an Alpha’s place isn’t at the front of the hunt. It’s where every trail, every report, and every decision comes together. If one team misses something, another may find it. If one tracker loses the scent, another may pick it up. Someone has to see the entire picture.

Today, that someone has to be me. I push open the door to my office and close it behind me. The first report arrives less than ten minutes later.

Day five

By the fifth sunrise, the reports have long since begun to blur together. Search grids cover every inch of my desk. Maps overlap one another. Witness statements pile up beside scent reports, each one ending exactly the same way. Nothing.

The trackers recover dozens of footprints throughout the forest, but every trail eventually disappears beneath the same stretch of riverbank. Whatever happened that night wasn’t an act of opportunity. It was planned.

Viënna’s blanket was found inside Joseph’s home. The discovery sends another team tearing through the house, turning over furniture, searching every room, every drawer, every loose floorboard. They find nothing else, only more questions.

Joseph is gone. Unlike Benji and Viënna, he chose to leave.

That truth doesn’t reach me through a search report. It walks into my office on two small legs just before midnight. A quiet knock sounds against the open door. I barely look up from the map spread across my desk. “Come in.”

Small footsteps cross the room. They stop only when they reach the edge of my desk. I lift my eyes. Cole Ashford, Joseph’s eldest son.

His brown hair is uncombed, his clothes wrinkled as though he slept in them. He stands quietly in front of my desk, his small hands clasped together so tightly that his knuckles have turned white.

For a long moment, neither of us speaks.

“Cole,” I say gently. “What are you doing here?”

He lowers his head, staring at the floor between us. “I... I can’t find my dad.”

The words settle heavily in the silence. I push my chair back and walk around the desk until I’m standing in front of him. “When did you last see him?”

Cole shrugs. “I don’t know.” His voice is small. “He was helping look for Benji and Vivina.”

My heart pounds, and my chest feels compressed.

“So, I thought...” He swallows hard. “I thought maybe he was here.”

I kneel until we’re almost at eye level. “He isn’t here.”

Cole nods without looking at me. “Mom says he never came home.” He pauses, rubbing his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. “She cried.”

Another silence settles between us.

“She won’t stop crying.”

My chest tightens as my thoughts drift upstairs to Aveline, lying exhausted in our bed, grieving the children she cannot hold. Then they wander beyond these walls to Grace, carrying Joseph’s child while facing that same unbearable uncertainty alone.

Different homes. Different losses. Yet the same endless waiting.

“Mom’s having a baby,” he continues quietly. “She says Dad should be home.” His words aren’t filled with accusations. Only confusion.

A six-year-old trying to make sense of something no child should ever have to understand. “Can you help me find him?”

A cold shiver runs down my spine, freezing time in place. I forget how to breathe. Because all I hear is my own son asking me the very same question. Can you find us, Dad?

I rest a hand on Cole’s shoulder. “We’ll find out what happened,” I tell him. It’s the only promise I can make. And for the first time since this nightmare began, I realise Benji and Viënna aren’t the only children who have lost a parent.

I rest my hand on Cole’s shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “How about we go find your mom?”

His head lifts a little, the first flicker of hope crossing his face. “Really?”

I nod. “I think she could use someone to look after her.”

Cole nods quickly before reaching for my hand without a second thought. His small fingers wrap around mine as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. Together, we leave my office.

The corridors are quieter than they were only hours ago, but the pack house never truly sleeps anymore. Warriors come and go, carrying reports that never seem to bring us any closer to the answers we need.

Cole walks beside me in silence for a while, his short legs forcing him to take two steps for every one of mine. Then he looks up at me. “Do you think...” His voice is hesitant. “...do you think my dad found Benji and Vivina?”

The question catches me completely off guard. For a heartbeat, I can’t answer. To Cole, the explanation is simple. His father left to help search. Benji and Viënna disappeared. If his dad hasn’t come home, then maybe he found them.

I tighten my hand around his just a little. “I don’t know, buddy,” I answer honestly. “I wish I did.”

Cole nods as though that answer makes perfect sense. “I hope they’re not scared anymore.”

Neither do I.

Grace opens the door before I have the chance to knock. She simply stares at me. Dark circles shadow her eyes, her hair hastily pulled back, the colour drained from her face. She looks as though she hasn’t slept since the night Joseph disappeared.

Then her eyes fall to Cole. “There you are,” she whispers, immediately pulling him into her arms.

“I was looking for Dad,” Cole mumbles against her shoulder.

Grace closes her eyes for a brief moment before kissing the top of his head. “I know, sweetheart.”

Only then does she look back at me. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “He shouldn’t have bothered you, Alpha.”

“He didn’t.” The words leave my mouth before she has the chance to apologise again. “He came because he didn’t know where else to go.”

From somewhere deeper inside the house comes the sound of small footsteps. Luca appears around the corner, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He freezes the moment he sees me. “Is Dad home?”

The question hangs in the air like a blade. Grace lowers her head.

I answer for her. “No.”

Luca nods once. Not because he understands. Because children have an extraordinary way of accepting answers they cannot change.

I look between the three of them.

Grace.

Cole.

Luca.

This house has become just as empty as my own.

“You shouldn’t be here alone,” I say.

Grace straightens immediately. “We’ll manage.”

“I know you will.” She blinks, surprised by my answer. “But you shouldn’t have to.”

Her gaze meets mine.

“For as long as this investigation continues, you and the boys will stay at the pack house.”

She opens her mouth to protest. “I couldn’t—”

“You can.” My voice remains calm. “This isn’t charity.” I take a slow breath. “It’s my responsibility.”

Grace’s shoulders sag. Not in defeat. In relief. The kind of relief someone feels after carrying a burden alone for far too long. Without another word, she nods.

Six Months Later

Six months have passed. The search never ends. It simply changes.

The frantic desperation of those first days gives way to discipline. Search parties leave our territory every morning and return long after sunset. Every rumour is investigated. Every unfamiliar scent is followed until there is nothing left to chase.

We know more than we did that first night.

Joseph didn’t act alone. At least two other individuals entered our territory with him. Experienced. Organised. Careful enough to leave almost nothing behind.

Almost.

A single piece of torn fabric.

Dark.

Rough beneath the fingertips.

Unlike anything woven within our own territory.

Every tracker carries its scent. Every neighbouring Alpha is shown the fragment. No one recognises either. The reward grows. The search expands. The answers never come.

Life inside the pack house continues because it has to. Grace gives birth to a little girl.

Aria. A solo melody.

As I watch Joseph’s daughter sleeping peacefully in her mother’s arms, I cannot ignore the cruel irony. She begins her life with only half a song.

Cole and Luca slowly begin laughing again, though never quite as freely as they once did.

Aveline smiles for them whenever she can. But I know her well enough to recognise the emptiness that lingers behind her eyes. I see the same reflection in the mirror every morning.

I used to believe time healed all wounds. I don’t anymore. Time doesn’t heal. It teaches you how to carry wounds that never close.

Every night, before I leave my office, I unfold the map one last time. I trace the river where every trail disappeared. The clearing where the last footprints were found. The places where hope slipped through our fingers. Then I fold it closed again. Not because I’ve given up. Tomorrow, we’ll search again.