Disguise 70_The Matchmaker

CHAPTER 70 

 Saphira stood just inside the doorway, her arms crossed tightly over her chest like they might hold her upright. The sterile hospital light was too bright–h made everything feel sharper, harder to hold onto. Asher lingered beside her but didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. The weight of the question was hers to

 carry. 

 She stepped forward slowly, each movement measured and met Anastasia’s gaze.

 “Is it true?” Her voice was thin, splintered at the edges. “Are you… my mother?”

 Anastasia’s face didn’t register shock.

 Not even a flicker.

 Anastasia’s eyes didn’t leave Saphira’s face. Her breath trembled for a heartbeat before she nodded–slowly, heavily. “Yes,” she said. “I’m your mother.”

 The words should’vee like thunder, but instead theynded quiet–too quiet. Saphira stared, frozen, her stomach twisting around itself. Her arms hung stiff at her sides, fingers curled tightly into fists she hadn’t meant to make. She didn’t understand how the world could feel so steady and yet everything inside her was spinning.

 “You don’t look surprised,” she managed, voice tight. “Did you already know?”

 Anastasia’s expression didn’t shift, but there was something wounded now behind her eyes. “Not exactly,” she said carefully. “But I… I began to suspect.”

 Saphira blinked, breath hitching. “When?”

 “My dragon,” Anastasia exined, “she tried to reach me after I first heard your name–after I sensed your aura. She felt something familiar. Something… wrong and right at the same time.” She rubbed her fingers together absently, as if trying to recall the sensation.

 “But she’s been weak. Clouded. I couldn’t be sure.”

 Saphira stared at the woman–her mother–as her heartbeat pounded louder in her ears.

 Anastasia met her gaze again. “When I learned your name, then your age… the timing added up. And when they said you were a dragon, not a wolf-” her voice thinned, “-it stopped feeling like coincidence.”

 Saphira’s fingers clenched at her sides. Her mouth opened, but Asher’s voice cut in, low and uncharacteristically tight.

 “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked. “Why not tell me I had a sister out there?”

 Anastasia turned to him, and for the first time herposure faltered, just a crack through the surface..

 “Because I didn’t know she was alive,” she said quietly. “After I gave birth, they told me she didn’t survive. The Elders were the ones who confirmed it. I believed what I was told–because I was grieving. Because I was too weak to challenge it, even though it didn’t feel right.”

 Saphira couldn’t move. Her heart twisted, a sharp ache in her chest. She was trying to hold it all–truth, grief, belonging, betrayal–and it was too much.

 She didn’t know whether to cry, scream, or fallpletely silent.

 Anastasia sat a little straighter in the hospital bed now, her hands folded neatly in herp, but her eyes betrayed the storm behind them. Saphira hadn’t moved from her spot, rooted just beyond the foot of the bed, arms still crossed tightly like they were holding her together.

 She swallowed the knot rising in her throat, then finally asked the question twisting low in her gut. “How did it even happen?” Her voice was thin, uncertain. “You and my father… Lupus. How did you meet? And why did you just disappear? Even if you thought I was dead–why note back?” 

 Anastasia inhaled slowly, then released the breath through her nose. “Lupus was travelling,” she began softly. “Something to do with inter–pack negotiations. I was in the north territories at the time, helping Niks‘ father settle a border dispute actually.”

 She paused, a distant look flickering in her gaze. “We met by ident–literally. He walked into the wrong tent.” Her lips twitched at the memory, and Saphira caught a glimpse–brief, fleeting–of the woman Anastasia might’ve been before all of this.

 CHAPTER 70 

 “We hit it off straight away,” she continued. “He was kind. Strong. Unafraid to challenge me but gentle in ways I didn’t expect. 1 thought… She swallowed “I thought I’d found my chosen mate.” 

 Saphira’s chest tightened. That word–chosen. It held weight here.

 “We both knew it would be frowned upon,” Anastasia admitted. “Dragon and wolf bloodlines don’t mix easily. The Elders had rules, expectations. But we didn’t care. Not then.” 

 Saphira didn’t speak. She couldn’t. She could only listen.

 “I got pregnant quickly,” Anastasia said. Her voice trembled slightly now. “And Lupus told me he would leave the pack for me. That we’d go somewhere new -just us, Asher, and the baby. You.”

 She looked away briefly, fingers knotting in the fabric of the nket. “It was the only time in my life I thought I’d have everything.”

 Anastasia’s gaze drifted toward the window, the pale light casting shadows across the bed linens. Her hands were still, folded neatly, but Saphira could see the tension trembling just beneath the surface–like her mother had been waiting years to speak, yet dreading the moment she finally did.

 “It wasn’t supposed to end like that,” Anastasia said quietly. “None of it.”

 Saphira stood by the wall, arms folded tightly, pulse thudding in her ears. She said nothing, just watched and waited.

 “I overheard him,” Anastasia continued, voice cracking near the edge. “Lupus. A few nights before I was due. I couldn’t sleep and I went to get water… and I heard him speaking with someone. Another she–wolf.”

 She drew a shaking breath, eyes hardening just enough to show the pain hadn’t dulled with time. “He was promising her everything. A future. A bond. A mate. A child to strengthen their status. For power–not love.”

 Saphira’s chest tightened. Of course it was power. It always is. 

 “I went cold,” Anastasia murmured. “I didn’t even wait to hear the rest. I just… left. I knew then that whatever we’d built wasn’t real. Not to him.” 

 Silence stretched between them like string pulled taut.

 “I was scared,” she went on. “Not just for myself, but for you. I didn’t know what he’d do if you were born a dragon.“,

 “That’s why I went to Niks‘ mother,” Anastasia said. “I begged her to cast a spell–to mask your dragon nature if it was there. To keep you hidden from detection until your true mate brought it forward.”

 “So that’s why I didn’t shift,” Saphira whispered. “Why I never felt it.”

 Anastasia nodded solemnly. “It was the only way to protect you.”

 Saphira’s voice wavered. “What happened then?”

 went back to him,” Anastasia said, her tone hollow now. “I acted like I didn’t know. Told myself maybe I was wrong. Maybe I heard it wrong.”

 Her hands curled into the nkets.

 “That same night… I went intobour. And it wasn’t easy. There were </bplications. Pain like I’ve never felt. And then–nothing.”

 “You cked out,” Saphira said, the pieces clicking together.

 “I was unconscious for hours. Days, maybe. And when I woke up… they told me the baby hadn’t made it. No body. Nost moment. Just words.”

 She looked at Saphira fully then. “Lupus was beside me. Grieving. He yed the perfect mate. Held my hand. Fed me lies.”

 Saphira could barely keep her bnce. Her knees felt weak. “So you didn’t walk away.”

 “No.” Anastasia’s voice trembled. “I didn’t leave you, Saphira.”

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Disguise 70