<h4>Chapter 344: 10th of July</h4>


    <strong>Evaline:</strong>


    "Professor Kieran?"


    His name slipped through my lips before I could stop it, trembling with confusion and fear. I repeated it again, softer this time, like maybe saying it twice would make the weight of River’s words settle differently.


    And as if the sound of his name was an invocation, he appeared.


    The door opened with the faintest creak, and there he was.


    Kieran.


    He didn’t stride in or rush forward - no, he lingered just inside the threshold, his tall frame half-shadowed by the doorway. His eyes, that same impossible shade of green with golden flickers I had just seen in my son’s, were locked on me with such intensity that my lungs forgot how to work.


    He had been there, right outside the door. Listening. Waiting.


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    A shiver raced through me as I realized he must have heard every word between River and me. And now... now he was here to im what he hadn’t yet spoken aloud.


    I had seen him briefly earlier when I gave birth. His face had blurred in my pain-ridden haze, his voice had been softer than I remembered when he asked if he could hold the baby first. At the time, I hadn’t had the strength to feel his presence, to truly see him.


    But now, with nothing between us except truth pressing heavily in the air, I felt him more than I ever had before.


    I had missed him.


    Missed him with a desperate ache since the day he left for the Midnight Wolf Academy without a single word of goodbye. His absence had haunted me. I had thought of him, worried for him, grieved for him, even hated myself for reasons tied to him. And now...after all that silence, after all those nights reying his pain in my mind... he had returned not with exnations, but with the possibility that he was the father of my child.


    The world was cruel. Or maybe fate had been crueler to us both.


    He stopped a few steps away from my hospital bed, his boots halting against the sterile floor. He looked like a man fighting a war within himself, torn between crossing the remaining distance or anchoring himself where he stood. His hands were clenched at his sides, his shoulders stiff.


    I drank him in with my starving eyes.


    Where my other mates carried exhaustion in their faces, Kieran carried devastation. His usually calm, tender gaze was shadowed by sleepless nights, his sharp jaw lined with tension. He looked like he had been carrying a weight too heavy for any man to bear... and had been carrying it alone.


    My throat tightened, because I wanted to ease it. Wanted to reach for him. But I couldn’t move, not under the hurricane of everything that was unraveling.


    Our eyes met, and it was like something infinite opened up between us. Emotions flooded there - confusion, longing, guilt, fear, something more fragile than hope but stronger than despair.


    I wanted to speak, but before my lips could shape a word, River’s voice cut through the thick silence.


    "Evaline." His tone was gentle but sharp, slicing into my paralysis. Both Kieran and I turned to him. His deep green gaze burned into me withpassion and gravity. "Why did you believe your child was Ethan’s?"


    The questionnded like a de straight to my chest.


    And I froze all over again.


    My mouth opened, then closed. My gaze darted helplessly between the two brothers - River was steady as ever, while Kieran was unreadable but visibly waiting, desperately needing to hear my answer.


    My pulse thundered as I forced air into my lungs, searching for words that could exin me. "Because..." My voice cracked, and I swallowed hard. "Because on my eighteenth birthday, I spent the night with Ethan. It was the first and only time I was ever with someone... before I found out I was pregnant. I had no reason to doubt it. No reason to think it wasn’t his."


    The words tumbled out, each one heavier with the memory of shame and guilt.


    My gaze dropped to my hands, to the sheets crumpled in my fists. "And as for why Ki... why Professor Kieran felt a bond..." I trailed off. My chest heaved, but no exnation came. Because there wasn’t one. Nothing logical that my mind could cling to.


    Silence settled over the room. Thick and oppressive.


    Then River and Kieran shared a look - a look that made me feel like there was something they both understood that I didn’t.


    River’s hand squeezed mine gently, dragging my eyes back to him. "Little Star," he said softly, "will you answer some questions about that night? Your birthday." His tone was cautious, as if testing fragile ground. "It might help us figure out what’s going on."


    My breath caught. Talking about that night - about Ethan, about the single mistake that had chained me to a lifetime of regret - was thest thing I wanted to do.


    As if sensing it, he quickly added, "Only if you arefortable. We can wait. We can talkter."


    The understanding in his voice almost broke me.


    I looked at Kieran then, and the way his eyes darkened with restrained desperation made something twist painfully in me. He was dying for answers. And so was I.


    Even if it meant walking through fire, I couldn’t turn away from this truth anymore.


    "Ask," I whispered, my voice barely holding. "Ask whatever you need."


    A flicker of gratitude shed in River’s eyes. He opened his mouth, and I braced myself for questions. But what came out wasn’t a question at all.


    "Your birthday," River said, his voice low and certain, "was the tenth of July."


    My heart stopped as I waited for what he’s about to throw at me.


    He leaned forward, holding my gaze with unflinching intensity. "That’s the exact date Kieran met his mate for the first timest summer."


    The air in the room shifted, and it became heavy, electric, suffocating.


    I blinked at him, stunned, my lips parting without sound. My chest rose and fell too quickly, panic mixing with something far more dangerous... realization.


    His words echoed inside me, ovepping with everything I had buried.


    Tenth of July.


    My birthday.


    The night I thought belonged to Ethan.


    The same night Kieran found his mate.


    Nine months ago.


    I stared at Kieran then, my voice breaking on his name. "Kieran..."


    His eyes softened with something raw, something that burned and bled all at once.


    And in that moment, the ground beneath everything I thought I knew gave way, leaving me suspended between horror and hope.


    Could it be true?


    Had fate twisted our paths together that night in ways I couldn’t evenprehend?


    And if it had... then where did things went wrong? And how?


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