Page 46 of Ruined Wolf

I shook my head.

“Why... Why would Ethan do that? Why would he hide it from us?” Asher asked.

I opened my mouth to reply, but Lucas got there first.

“We’re deducing a lot from a couple of emails we’ve never actually seen, especially the dates. Who’s to say Ethan didn’t just find out and wanted to pick a good time to deliver the news?”

Maverick looked at him. “Nova saw the emails.”

Lucas shrugged. “So she says. She also lied about who she was for weeks. Maybe she’s lying about this. Maybe Jaxon is fine and out there in the world somewhere.”

Maverick opened his mouth, then closed it again. My heart sank. Lucas was right. I had lied, and I was still keeping things from them. He was right not to trust me, and even though he was slowly turning on me, I could tell that he was desperately grasping at straws so the truth of his brother’s death wouldn’t be real. I’d felt that desperation enough times myself during Jaxon’s illness.

“Don’t be stupid, Luc,” Asher cut in. “Nova wouldn’t lie about something like this. She might have kept her past a secret, but she wouldn’t lie about something she knows means so much to us all.”

I couldn’t stop the tears from falling at this simple declaration of faith from the man I’d rejected over and over. I was about to break his heart all over again and tell him I’d already chosen his other brother too, and I knew how that was going to make him feel. I felt like I was in a landslide, the steady ground slipping away under my feet, carrying me to the inevitable outcome.

“Nova?” Maverick’s voice was gentle when he saw the tears streaming down my face. “Nova, what is it?”

I shook my head, trying to curb the tears. Although I hadn’t caused the situation, I had made it so much worse by lying to them. Hell, I’d made it worse by falling for them.

“Nova, when did you find out about Jaxon being sick?” Lucas pressed, his tone flat.

“She already told you, she found the emails the day of the accident,” Asher said, getting up and coming to sit next to me. He slipped his arm around me and pulled me in close to comfort me, but I couldn’t let him do it. I pulled away, trying not to see the look on his face as I rejected him once again.

I took a deep breath, brushing the tears away from my face and trying to steady my voice. “I’ve known for... a few months.”

“Before you found the emails?” Lucas queried. “How?”

“Because she was there.”

The three of them jerked around, but I could already see who was standing in the doorway to the sitting room.

“Ethan,” Maverick growled. “I think you have some explaining to do.”

Ethan nodded and walked into the room. He spotted a free armchair and headed for it, casually sinking into it. I watched him carefully. For someone who’d just been outed, he seemed way too calm.

He smiled at me. “Good to see you’re feeling better, Nova, but then again, even a car accident can’t keep you down. You just keep popping back up, don’t you?”

I bit my lip, fighting not to respond. He was trying to bait me, and I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“Nova has been giving us some... shocking information about your recent dealings, Ethan,” Maverick began.

“Why did you say she was there?” Asher asked, staring at Ethan. I winced. He’d caught that one statement and fixated on it, and now Ethan was going to bring everything crashing to the ground before I could come clean myself.

Ethan looked at me. “Exactly what I said. She was there. I’m sorry I hadn’t managed to break the news to you before. I found out only a few days ago myself, when the doctor emailed me, filling me in on what happened. Jaxon was using an assumed name in the city, so it took a while for them to track down his next of kin after he passed.”

“Did the doctor only email you a few days ago?” Maverick asked, glancing at me.

I shook my head. “That’s a lie,” I said, glaring at Ethan. “Those emails I found were dated months ago, from when Jaxon was ill. They were filling you in on his current state and predicting how long he had left.”

Ethan shook his head, a gentle expression crossing his face. “I’m sorry, Nova. I think it’s time you come clean.” He looked at Maverick. “Alpha Caleb has been plotting to overthrow the Sea Wolf Pack. He meant to infiltrate it by arranging matches with first Jaxon and then yourself. At first, he’d meant to mate Nova to Jaxon and allow her to undermine the pack from the inside, but then he realised she was defective and wouldn’t make an appropriate mate for an alpha. Instead, he trained her, set her sister up as the match, and sent Nova to the city to seduce Jaxon when he got there.”

“What?” All eyes fell on me, but I just gaped in shock as Ethan began to twist the last two years of my life into a nightmare.

“Caleb already had someone working for him inside the pack, planting certain information for Jaxon to find, framing me for all sorts of wrongdoings. He laid a trap, luring Jaxon away from the island and placing Nova in his path. She seduced him and became his mate. Then Jaxon fell ill, and when it became clear he wouldn’t survive, she realised the only way in she had now was a family link, so she got pregnant with his child.”

“Nova...”