The Human Among Wolves Chapter 178

Aurora

I didn’t say anything for a long time after she stopped talking. I just sat there, listening to the quiet that had settled around us, letting her words hang in the air.

Honestly… I didn’t even know where to start. What do you say when someone tells you a story like that? When it’s about a past that shaped your whole life before you even existed?

Zayn’s father. The man who ruined everything long before I was born. And somehow… my own father didn’t even know. Didn’t know I existed. That’s a weird feeling to hold in your chest. The kind of weird that makes you stop breathing for a second, even though you know it’s pointless to fight it.

I can’t tell him. I can’t. Even if I wanted to, even if I could track him down somehow… he has a life. A wife. A family. I can’t just show up and drop a bomb like, “Hey, you have a daughter you didn’t know about.” It’s not fair. It would shatter everything, and that’s not my choice to make.

So I stayed quiet. I just sat there, letting it all sink in. Trying to process what that even meant for me. Trying to make sense of a life that existed in pieces I had never touched before.

I thought about him a lot—the man I would never know as a father, the man who, in some ways, shaped the world I was born into. And yet… I was invisible to him. Not a hint of me in his life. No memory, no recognition, nothing. Just empty space where I should have been.

It makes your chest feel heavy. Hollow, almost. Like a part of you is missing, and there’s no way to get it back. You want to scream, or cry, or throw something across the room, but there’s nothing to throw, nothing to yell at. The anger has no target, just this… lingering ache.

I wanted to ask questions. I wanted to demand answers. I wanted to know why. But I can’t. I just can’t. Not really. There’s a line you can’t cross, and I’ve learned it the hard way. This isn’t my story to force into his life. I can’t ruin a world that has nothing to do with my pain.

And maybe… maybe that’s okay. Maybe it’s enough to just know. To exist. To live with the knowledge, quietly, without letting it destroy you.

I let out a long breath and ran my fingers over the table in front of me, letting the motion ground me. It’s the little things you cling to when the world feels like it’s been ripped apart by people who don’t even know you exist. The quiet, the mundane, the normal—it becomes everything.

I imagined how things could have been if he had known me from the start. If I’d been part of his life all along. Would he have loved me? Would he have hesitated? Or would I have been just another complication in a life he didn’t ask for? I’ll never know. And in a way… that’s both comforting and painful.

I looked at her. She was quiet too, lost in her own thoughts. Her face held a kind of sadness I’ve only seen a few times before—heavy, lived-in, the kind of grief that doesn’t go away. I wanted to tell her I understood. I wanted her to know that even if I couldn’t fix it, I got it. I could feel it.

And that’s the strange thing—you carry the past, you carry the pain, you carry the memories of what came before you, but you also carry a choice. You can let it define you… or you can let it shape you. Make you stronger, smarter, slower to trust, faster to notice. Make you… you.

I swallowed and let the silence sit a little longer. Not awkward silence, not the kind that makes you squirm—it was the kind that makes you think. That makes you feel the weight of things without having to act on them. For once, I didn’t have to do anything. I didn’t have to make a plan, a spell, a move. I just had to exist. And for the first time in a long time, that felt… enough.

“Rory?” Zayn broke the silence first, his voice gentle but pulling, like he was tugging me back to the room, back to now. I blinked, realizing I had been staring at nothing, lost somewhere far from the cabin.

I looked at him. He was already watching me, his silver eyes patient and careful, like he was letting me decide how much to come back.

“Are you okay?” he asked softly, placing his hand on top of mine again.

I nodded, though everything inside me felt tangled and raw.

“I’m… I’m fine,” I murmured, quiet and tentative. “Just… processing everything.”

I turned my gaze slowly toward her. Across from us, she sat straight-backed on the arm chair, calm but not distant. The sunlight caught in her hair, soft and warm, but all I could do was stare. My chest felt tight. My throat, full. Words seemed small, useless.

“Cecilia,” I said finally, almost without thinking. My voice sounded strange, like it belonged to someone else.

Her eyes lifted to mine, steady, and she gave a slow, small nod.

“Yes, Aurenya?” she asked gently, her tone careful, curious, soft.

I swallowed. Aurenya. I hesitated, feeling the old weight of identity and absence press down. Then I corrected her quietly, almost shyly.

“Aurora,” I said. “I go by Aurora now.”

Her eyebrows lifted slightly in surprise, just a fraction, but she didn’t say anything. She simply nodded, letting the new name settle into the space between us. I could almost feel the silence acknowledging it, giving it room, as if it, too, were learning.

I sank a little into the couch cushions, letting my hands rest on my lap. Zayn didn’t speak—he didn’t need to. His hand stayed over mine, grounding me, keeping me tethered in the here and now, where I could finally meet her eyes without running.

Cecilia watched me, her gaze calm and open. Not questioning. Not prying. Just present. That made it… easier and harder at the same time. Easier because I felt safe, harder because the questions—so many, too many to ask—were still pressing like invisible fingers against my ribs.

I couldn’t yet put words to what I felt. Shock, awe, confusion, longing—all of it mashed into something raw and unshaped. I wanted to say so much, but nothing came out right. So I stayed quiet, letting her presence fill the cabin while my mind struggled to catch up.

The three of us sat there, in that soft, uneven quiet. The sun continued its slow drift across the cabin floor, dust motes floating lazily in the light, carrying the faint scent of cedar and fire. It was calm, normal almost, but everything had changed.

Before I could say anything else, Zayn spoke.

“Can I ask you something?”

His voice was careful, like he already knew the answer might hurt. Cecilia looked at him, and nodded once—slowly—giving him the space to continue without rushing him.

“Did you ever…” He hesitated, jaw tightening. “Did you ever meet my mother? I mean—” He exhaled through his nose. “I was told she died giving birth to me. That’s all I’ve ever been told. But…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.

Cecilia’s expression shifted, subtle but unmistakable. Not shock. Not confusion. Recognition.

“You don’t think that’s true,” she said quietly.

Zayn froze. “How did you—” He cut himself off, staring at her like she’d reached into his head and pulled the thought out whole.

She gave a small, sad smile. Not triumphant. Not knowing. Just… heavy.

“Because doubt like that doesn’t come from nowhere,” she said. “And because after everything you’ve told me about your father…” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “If he was capable of taking me, erasing ten years of my life like they were nothing, then it wouldn’t be strange if he did something terrible to your mother as well.”

The room felt smaller after that. The air thicker.

Zayn looked down at his hands for a moment, then back up at her. His voice was quieter now, stripped of its usual confidence.

“I’ve felt it for years,” he admitted. “That something didn’t add up. No grave I was allowed to visit. No stories. Just… silence. And orders not to ask.”

Cecilia nodded, as if that confirmed something for her rather than surprised her.

“Silence is often louder than truth,” she said.

He swallowed, and for the first time since I’d known him, he looked almost unsure of himself. “I know this is a lot to ask. But… can you help me?”