Adrian POV
It was already midnight when we decided to sleep. I felt both relieved and burdened at the same time.
I was relieved that against all odds, I had been able to come clean with the one secret a few people know about me.
And now, I am more burdened, burdened because Stella wasn't ready to accept this truth.
She probably thought it was a prank.
Or worse, some elaborate fantasy I had spun. Throughout the night, she tossed and turned beside me, restlessness clinging to her like a shadow.
I suspected it was her subconscious surfacing memories that didn't belong to her—fragments of a past she had never lived, or perhaps had lived and forgotten.
And the truth of her identity and origin were still shrouded in mystery.
Being adopted—picked up by James Norton when she was nothing more than a baby—made everything infinitely more complicated.
I had tried to sense a pack scent on her, even the faintest trace at least to be my clue, but there was nothing.
