“He’s ours,” Eric said.

Ian’s claws came out.

“You have three seconds to explain why I have a son I’ve never seen.”

Leo remained in Ian’s arms, apparently unconcerned by the possibility of murder. He offered Ian his bottle.

“Milk helps when Dad makes people mad.”

Ian did not take it.

“One,” he said.

Eric dismissed the guards with a look. Silas tried to stay. Eric’s red eyes found him.

“Leave before I remove you.”

Silas looked at Leo, not Eric. “The council will hear of this.”

“The council staged this.”

“Careful, nephew.”

“You kept Ian in a lockstone cell using a forged seal. Careful is over.”

Silas left with controlled steps. The moment the door shut, Eric locked every entrance.

“Two,” Ian said.

“Four years ago, at the Moonwell, our blood entered the First Mark together.”

Ian remembered shattered pillars, snow turning red, and Eric’s hand catching his wrist above a bottomless crack.

“We fought.”

“The Moonwell interpreted it as a blood vow.”

“That is the stupidest sentence I have ever heard.”

“The shrine created a life core from both bloodlines. Nine months later, Leo was born.”

Ian stared at him.

“No pregnancy,” Eric added. “No surrogate. The shrine formed and protected him.”

“And you expect me to accept that?”

Leo raised one hand. Tiny claws appeared, shaped exactly like Ian’s.

Then his eyes flashed red in the same pattern as Eric’s.

“I can also break spoons,” he said.

“Not now,” Eric replied.

Ian’s arms tightened around the boy. “You knew for three years.”

“Yes.”

“You knew while I was imprisoned under this roof.”

“Yes.”

Ian handed Leo his bottle, set him gently on the rug, and punched Eric.

The blow sent the king into the wall.

The collar transferred the impact. Pain flashed through Ian’s own jaw, but he welcomed it.

He hit Eric again.

Eric did not defend himself.

“Fight back,” Ian snarled.

“No.”

“You stole three years.”

“I know.”

“You let him grow up inside a wall.”

“I moved him there six months ago after someone entered his nursery.”

“You let me think Ironfang had forgotten me.”

“Your letters never reached them. Neither did mine.”

Ian stopped.

“What letters?”

Eric wiped blood from his mouth. “I offered Ironfang your release twice. Both replies demanded your execution.”

“My sister commands Ironfang. She would burn this mountain before writing that.”

“I know that now.”

Ian looked toward the door through which Silas had left.

The shape of the prison changed around him.

Leo tugged his torn shirt. “Daddy?”

Ian crouched.

The child touched the scar near his eyebrow with one careful finger. “Does it hurt?”

“Not anymore.”

“Dad said you got it fighting him.”

“Your dad talks too much.”

Leo looked at Eric. “That’s not true.”

Despite everything, a laugh escaped Ian. It was small and rough from disuse.

Eric stared at him as if he had heard a lost language.

Ian noticed and immediately stopped.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

Eric’s control returned in layers. “Silas claimed Ironfang would use Leo to challenge Nightfall. He showed me intercepted orders carrying your sister’s seal. Then you were captured, and every attempt to move you ended in an attack.”

“So you hid him from me.”

“I hid him from everyone.”

“You visited.”

“Every night.”

Leo nodded. “Sometimes Dad sleeps on the floor when I have bad dreams. He snores.”

“I do not.”

“Like an old bear.”

Ian looked from the terrifying king to the milk-drinking child exposing his secrets.

“Did Eric tell you who I was?”

“He said you were the bravest wolf he ever met.”

Eric’s gaze shifted away.

“He said you hated cages,” Leo continued, “so when you came home, I should open the door.”

Ian’s anger did not disappear. It became more complicated, which was worse.

He touched Leo’s soft ear. The child leaned into his palm with instant trust.

Something inside Ian broke open.

He had commanded armies without fear. Holding a child who carried his eyes made his hands shake.

Leo noticed. He took Ian’s hand and placed it flat against his chest.

His heart beat fast and strong.

“See?” Leo said. “Real.”

Ian closed his eyes.

The collar sent a wave of emotion from Eric: longing, guilt, and love so fierce it felt like injury.

Ian looked at him.

“Get this collar off me.”

“I’m trying.”

“Try faster.”

“The original forge is beneath the Moon Shrine. Silas controls access.”

Leo’s ears lowered at the name.

Ian saw it. “What did he do?”

“Nothing,” Eric said too quickly.

Leo climbed into Ian’s lap and lowered his voice.

“Uncle Silas says I have to practice being king.”

“You are three.”

“Three and a half.”

“My mistake.”

“He says Dad is too weak because he wants you.”

Eric went still.

Leo twisted the cap on his bottle. “He says when you’re dead, the collar will give me both wolves.”

The fire behind the glass extinguished beneath a wave of Eric’s power.

Ian held the child closer.

“What exactly did Silas tell you?”

Leo looked between his fathers.

“He said you had to die before I could be king.”

Eric questioned Leo gently, but the child knew only fragments. Silas took him beneath the shrine twice each month. He made Leo place his hands on a cold stone and repeat the names of dead kings. When Leo cried, Silas called fear a defect inherited from Ironfang.

Ian’s claws cut through the rug.

Eric knelt in front of Leo. “He will never take you there again.”

“Promise?”

“On my crown.”

Leo considered that. “You don’t wear it.”

“On everything the crown represents.”

“Still sounds cheap.”

Ian covered a smile with his hand.

Eric removed the signet ring from his finger and gave it to Leo. “Keep this until the promise is fulfilled.”

The ring swallowed two of Leo’s fingers. He tucked it into the pocket of his hoodie.

Ian watched the ritual and understood why Eric had hidden tenderness beneath cruelty. In Nightfall, every visible attachment became a target.

“The shrine records,” Ian said. “We retrieve them before Silas destroys them.”

Eric rose. “You are not going.”

“Our son was taken there.”

The word our changed the air.

Eric’s eyes softened before his control returned. “You are injured.”

“And you are outnumbered by your own council.”

Leo raised his bottle. “I vote for Daddy.”

“You do not have a vote,” Eric said.

“Then why am I the heir?”

Neither Alpha had an answer.

The warning lights came on before dawn.

Eric moved Leo into the center of the room and began teaching Ian the child’s emergency signals. Three knocks meant hide. Two meant run to Maya. One long alarm meant the keep itself had been breached.

“You trained a toddler for a siege,” Ian said.

“I trained him to survive my family.”

Leo climbed onto the desk and fitted Eric’s oversized signet ring over his thumb. “Dad also taught me not to eat strangers.”

“That was one incident,” Eric said.

Ian stared at the child.

Leo shrugged. “He was rude.”

The brief humor vanished when Maya’s secure line failed. Eric opened a hidden weapons cabinet and gave Ian a knife without hesitation.

It was the first weapon anyone in Nightfall had willingly placed in his hand.

Ian tested its balance. “You trust me near your throat?”

Eric met his gaze. “I trust you near our son.”

That answer settled deeper than Ian wanted.