Chapter 949

[ 661 words ]

Derek had no idea how he made it back to Blacktower. It was nearly five in the morning by the time he arrived after battling those twisting, treacherous mountain roads, he was utterly spent. Weariness was etched across his face and hung heavy in his posture.

When Adelle saw him return alone, her brows knit together. “Where’s Susanna? Why isn’t she with you? I already had her room prepared,” she said, striving for a tone of gracious understanding—the picture of the forgiving stepmother. Normally, that performance would have only made Derek feel guiltier.

But Susanna’s words “Maybe you’re infertile!”-still echoed sharply in his mind. When he glanced at Adelle, a chill crept into his gaze, one he couldn’t hide.

Leanne and Ivanna didn’t look the least bit like him. Not even close.

The tiniest seed of doubt, once planted, can take root and grow into a sprawling thicket of suspicion overnight. Derek could feel those suspicions tangling inside him, growing and spreading. He even started to wonder if Finch Murray had ever really resembled him.

Catching the strange look on his face, Adelle frowned harder. “Why are you staring at me like that? Where is Susanna? Didn’t you say you’d bring her back?”

“She’s not coming,” Derek answered, his voice flat with exhaustion.

“What? She’s not coming back? Why on earth not?” Annoyance flared in Adelle’s tone. That foolish girl-after everything Adelle had done, after stepping aside and letting her return home, what more did Susanna want? If she refused to return, how were they supposed to deal with all the mess Black Gate was in?

Adelle’s face clouded. She moved to sit beside Derek. “You’re her father-you went out there yourself to fetch her, and she still won’t come home?”

Derek rubbed his aching forehead, fingers digging into his brow. Susanna’s accusations ricocheted through his skull, relentless: Adelle’s infidelity, the twins not being his. The pounding in his head grew louder and louder, as if his thoughts might blow apart.

“So what is it

it she wants, then?”

Adelle shot back, her patience ringing thin. Only ten minutes before Derek’s return, she’d taken another call-another one of her holdings had been seized. And this time it wasn’t Yvonne or Xander behind it was Hull-the very man Susanna was with.

So much for her plan. She had thought: once Derek brought Susanna back, she’d have a

thousand ways to keep the girlimet

line. If Susanna wouldn’t make

peace with Hull and the rest, Adelle would simply lock her up hide her away Surely Hull had any designs on her, hed be forced to back off Black Gate. After all, there were too many powers vying for blood these days, but Hull’s group-with Xander and the others—was the deadliest.

Push Hull away, and he’d have no choice but to deal with Yvonne and Xander himself, for Susanna’s sake if nothing else.

But now Derek had come home alone.

With Derek still staring at her in that silent, unsettling way, Adelle’s patience snapped. “Why are you looking at me like that? I asked you a question!”

“She didn’t ask for anything,” Derek said at last, hollow and cold. “She just refuses to come back.”

“She refuses? Adelle let out a brittle little laugh, all trace of gentleness gone from her voice and features. “This is her home! She’s really choosing that man over her own family?” Her eyes joy and

dangerous, flashed with a coldness Dérek had never seen in her before.

Derek’s face darkened further. “Home? Besides you and your children, who else even sees this place as home?”

In that moment, a truth hit Derek like a blow: he had fathered many children, but only Adelle and the ones she’d borne him treated Blacktower as a home. And even among those… some of them might never have been his in the first place.

Susanna’s accusations spun around Derek’s mind, a poison he couldn’t shake no matter how hard he tried. His expression grew colder, more distant.

Adelle heard the icy sarcasm in his words and went rigid. “What… what are you trying to say?”

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