Zac never hated Sunday night more than he did now. He didn’t want the weekend to end and have to face reality on Monday morning. He tried to convince Astrid to stay one more night, but she wouldn’t relent.

“I can’t show up in the morning fresh from a weekend getaway,” she had said. Besides, although she was free to come and go as she pleased in her own time, the trainees did have a curfew on Sunday nights.

And so, he relented, packing up the car on Sunday afternoon so they could be back in New York by evening. He was, at least, able to coax her to come up to his room for dinner. And by dinner, he meant more sex and an enormous room service order that took two bellmen to deliver.

She had to be back in her room by midnight, so at around eleven o’clock, they said their goodbyes. While she declined his offer of a ride, she did let him call her an Uber. They also made plans to meet at the ramen restaurant on Fortieth and Lexington for dinner the following night.

On Monday morning, he went back to work and it took all his willpower not to stop by the sixteenth floor just to see Astrid. As he tried to concentrate on his emails, his thoughts kept going back to the glorious weekend they had.

The whole week he was away from her had been torture, not to mention the fact that he still didn’t know what the hell was going on. What were they to each other? He’d made up conversations in his mind, trying to bring up the subject, but when he finally was in front of her, he never even brought it up. It was like he couldn’t think of anything, and everything else seemed trivial. His inner wolf seemed to know something, but what, he couldn’t tell. All he knew was that the animal was happier and content around her.

Besides, he wanted to keep Astrid to himself for a while longer. Having to come out and give themselves a label seemed to cheapen what they had. Whatever it was, he didn’t have a name for it.

Then, there was the subject of his father. There was that niggling feeling in his brain that something wasn’t quite right. He racked his brain, trying to figure out a way to talk to Nick and tell him about Astrid. What should he say? Or expect his father’s reaction to be?

Of course, he didn’t expect the man himself to show up at his office at that moment.

“Dad?” He looked up from his computer as Nick strode into the room, an inscrutable look on his face. He closed the door behind him and locked it.

“No need to stand up,” Nick said. “I’ll be quick.”

He frowned, but sat back down. “What can I do for you, Dad?”

Nick marched to the front of his desk and crossed his arms over his desk, his gaze looking straight down at him. “Explain to me what you’ve been doing with that girl.”

“What girl?”

“You know who I mean.” Nick’s jaw tensed as he took something out of his pocket. He touched the screen and then pointed the screen at him. It was video surveillance footage from the elevator lobby on the sixteenth floor. It showed him the night after Vail, when he dragged Astrid back to her room. The video switched to the morning after, when he was leaving.

Zac tamped down the anger threatening to explode from him. “I don’t have to explain myself to you. Besides, are you spying on me?”

“Spying? I’m doing my job, as the head of the security team, as Beta, and as your father.” His face was completely red now. “Are you sleeping with her?”

He shot to his feet. “That’s none of your damn business!”

“Goddammit, Zac!” He raked his fingers through his hair. “Why her? Out of all the people you’d choose to fuck, why her? Is it just the sex?”

“I would choose your next words carefully,” Zac warned in a soft, but deadly voice.

Nick’s expression faltered. “So, it’s not just sex.” He rubbed a hand down his face. “I would almost prefer if it was.”

“Dad,” he said through gritted teeth. “Why do you hate her so much? So what if she’s not one of the ruling families or she’s not well-connected? Is it because Meredith works for you and used to be one of the Lone Wolves?”

“Christ!” Nick slammed his hands down on the desk. “It’s not Meredith that I have a problem with. It’s that Goddamn warlock! I wish to God he’d never …”

“Daric? Dad, that’s preposterous. The war between the magical beings and Lycans is over. And Daric is one of the most trusted members of the clan.”

“Yes, but you don’t know the truth.” Nick sighed. “Sit down.”

“I will not—”

“Sit down, Zachary.”

The graveness in his father’s voice made him sit. “Explain.”

Nick took a long, deep breath. “A long time ago, we—meaning Grant, Frankie, Daric, Meredith, your mother and I—made a decision to keep certain details regarding our war with the mages out of the official records of our history. One of those details involved Daric.”

“What is it?”

“Daric wasn’t just some warlock who came out of nowhere to help the Lycans. He was one of them.”

“Them?”

“He worked for the mages.”

“What?” Coldness froze the blood in his veins and his head felt light. “I don’t understand.”

“We had captured him in one of the earlier battles and turned him to our side. But before that, he was the master mage Stefan’s right-hand man. At one point, he kidnapped your mother.”

“He what?” Oh no.

“They made it seem like Cady betrayed us and then kidnapped her. They wanted your mother because of her powerful witch heritage. Stefan had a plan. Daric and she would start breeding a new generation of witches.”

“Breeding—” The bile rising in his throat made him stop. “Did they …”

“No, thank God. We stopped them in time.”

Zac gripped the edge of the table. His mind was reeling, and all he could think about was his poor mother. Being kidnapped and having her kidnapper—“Why did you keep this from me?”

“Because at that time, we all thought it was best,” Nick said. “That we just forget about the past and move forward. Daric had pledged to us. It turns out he was being coerced into serving Stefan because the master mage had kidnapped his mother.”

“So, he didn’t want to help Stefan?”

“No,” Nick conceded. “But I know if my own mother had been held prisoner, I would have done everything I could to keep her safe.”

Zac felt all the blood from his face drain. He couldn’t believe it. Did Astrid know?

“So, you see why you can’t see her anymore,” Nick said. He stood up and buttoned up his suit. “I’m going to your mother’s office. See you later, Son.”

The sound of the door slamming shut felt ominous and final. Processing this whole thing seemed impossible. His emotions were churning and he didn’t know what to do.

Astrid. His mother. Daric. If this was all true—and why would his father lie?—then this was all going to be a big mess. He was loyal to his family of course, but Astrid … he just couldn’t imagine not being with her. But then again, his poor mother. What would she think? How would she feel? He couldn’t break her heart like that. Family. Blood. Loyalty. Vasili Vrost and Nick had taught him that nothing else mattered.

He stood up and closed his computer, then walked out the door, stopping by the desk of the Lycan assistant assigned to him. “Jane,” he said to the young woman. “Cancel all my meetings for today. I won’t be coming back.” He didn’t bother for her reply as he headed straight for the elevators.