Blood Recognizes Blood – 1
Thea’s POV
They stood there, right outside my door, and I was frozen in place, like someone had cast a spell on me. “Thea, they’re not going to disappear,” Iris whispered behind me, bringing me back to reality.
I finally came to my senses and stepped aside to let the three visitors into my temporary home. My brain was still struggling to process this ridiculous fact—the top Alpha family of the Northwestern region, the Kincaids, were standing in my living room, and I might be their long-lost daughter. This feeling was even more shocking than when I discovered I was wolfless years ago.
Once we were all seated, I looked directly into Kane’s eyes. “Hawthorne let you out?” My voice was cold.
“Bail,” he answered briefly, his gaze wandering, avoiding eye contact with me.
I bit my lip. Yesterday, Sheriff Hawthorne had asked if I wanted to press formal charges against Kane—attempted murder, impersonating a police officer, fraud, and more. I couldn’t give him an answer. Yes, what he did to me was terrible, and I didn’t know if I could forgive or forget any of it. Despite everything, during our time together, he had helped me regain my confidence and taught me many things about myself and life. I just didn’t know if I had the courage to press charges. Roman was pressing charges as the Alpha of the Sterling Pack, and so were the police.
“I am deeply sorry for my son’s actions, Thea,” Seraphina spoke, her voice breaking the tense and awkward atmosphere.
I stared at her, seeing shadows of my own eyes in hers. Yet she still called Kane her “son,” and the love in her voice when she mentioned “son” was unmistakable, sending a sharp pain through my chest. Was she really accepting everything he’d done to me? If she could accept that, I wasn’t sure I wanted her in my life, even if she was my mother.
“You apologize for his actions, yet you paid an astronomical bail to get him out,” I pointed out sharply. “If what he says is true, how can you accept that your adopted son tried to murder your biological daughter that you’ve been looking for all these years? It doesn’t make sense.”
“There’s no justification for what he’s done,” Maximus glared at Kane, his voice deep, obviously controlling his emotions. But I could still see that he loved Kane too. It was written all over both his and Seraphina’s faces.
“Then why bail him out?” Iris suddenly spoke up, saying what I hadn’t. “If Thea really is your daughter, Kane should pay for what he’s done. He betrayed her trust, played with her feelings, and planned to kill her!”
Each word felt like salt in my wounds. A familiar pain spread from my heart—that empty feeling of not belonging. I thought Kane had filled that hole, but the reality was he’d made it deeper.
“We’re not avoiding accountability,” Seraphina said softly, tears glistening in her eyes. “But he’s our child whom we’ve raised for fifteen years. Even if he’s made unforgivable mistakes, we can’t completely push him away. That’s what Pack means—no matter how painful, family is always family.”
Family is always family. Those words hit me like a slap in the face. The Sterlings never treated me like family, even when I thought we were connected by blood. Yet the Kincaid family was willing to do everything for someone who wasn’t even their blood.
Maximus looked at Kane with obvious disappointment. “Being able to love a child while condemning their actions is the hardest test for us as parents.” I felt confused. Somehow, I suddenly understood the Kincaid couple’s position better. I thought of my Leo—if Leo had done something wrong, I would support him while still holding him accountable.
I turned to Kane, whose face remained as cold as stone, just like yesterday when he faced me. I moved my gaze from him to Seraphina and Maximus, avoiding any further influence from him.
“What makes you so sure I’m your daughter?” I asked, using coldness to mask my inner turmoil. “Kane might be wrong. I don’t look anything like either of you.”
They were inhumanly beautiful, while I was just ordinary. Kane moved, taking a thick envelope from his pocket and holding it out to me. I hesitantly took it and saw it contained a DNA test report.
Blood Recognizes Blood – 2
“I took some of your hair for testing,” he explained, his voice still distant. “Your DNA is a perfect match with theirs.”
“You have my honey-brown hair and your mother’s beautiful amber eyes,” Maximus added, his gaze softening as he looked at me. “Even without these physical traits, from the moment we saw you, both my wolf and I knew deep down that you were the pup taken from us over twenty years ago. The blood connection feeling can’t be wrong.”
“Then you must also know I’m wolfless,” I laughed bitterly, remembering how low my status was in the Sterling family. “How could an offspring without a wolf possibly be allowed in the Kincaid family?”
Seraphina sighed, “I conceived you before I got my wolf at fourteen. Doctors believed that in such cases, the child would be more vulnerable than normal werewolf pups, but not completely without a wolf… We didn’t anticipate this situation…”
I didn’t wait for them to finish. Tears were already streaming down my face as I turned away from them. Twenty years of grievances and pain rushed to the surface. I had tried so hard to gain the Sterling family’s approval, to prove that I had value even without a wolf. And now I learned that all those efforts were in vain because I never belonged there. And now, my biological parents also…
“We’re not here to avoid responsibility,” Maximus interrupted my wild thoughts, walking toward me but maintaining a respectful distance. “We want a chance to get to know our daughter. We lost over twenty years with you, and if you’re willing, we want to make up for that.”
Seraphina added, “We want you to know that we actually don’t care whether you have a wolf or not, and no matter what choices you make, you’ll always be our daughter. We’re overjoyed to have found you, and ashamed and heartbroken about what Kane did.”
My heart was touched by these words. In that moment, I felt a sense of belonging I’d never experienced before, as if something inside me had finally found its source.
“It’s okay, my love,” Seraphina used the endearment I used for Leo, which made me cry harder. “Let it all out,” she said, holding me.
I hadn’t even noticed her standing up or moving to my side. In her embrace, I felt right. I felt home–exactly what I’d always wanted from the two people who raised me.
Even when I soaked her outfit with tears, she didn’t let go. Soon, I felt another pair of arms around us. Maximus had joined in. I continued crying until it felt like I had no tears left, and then I stopped.
“Better?” she asked.
I gave her a smile as we slowly separated. “Yes.”
Maximus raised his hand to stroke my hair, about to speak when he was interrupted by growling and arguing at the door. The scent of sandalwood after rain drifted in. My heart tightened.
“I’ll handle it,” Iris said, standing up, but I already knew who had arrived.
A moment later, Roman strode into the living room, with Sebastian and Aurora right behind him. Sebastian’s eyes immediately locked onto me, then turned to the Kincaid couple. I could feel the air suddenly charged with tension, and felt exhausted, never imagining that one day my room would be filled with the presence of four powerful Alphas… wait, four? I looked toward the door, but no one else came in. Weren’t they always inseparable? Why wasn’t Damien here?
“I’m sorry, Thea… I tried to stop them, but he forced his way in,” Iris apologized, glaring at Roman.
“What are you all doing here? What’s going on?” Honestly, I didn’t think I could handle them right now.
“Mother wants to talk to you, to all of us. She says she wants to tell you everything, but you weren’t answering her calls,” Aurora spoke up.
I sighed in resignation. The last thing I wanted was to hear what she had to say, but I also knew I had to face it all.