But neither of them moved immediately. Because now this was no longer just about an intruder or a breach or even the safety of the estate. It had become something far more personal, far more unsettling, a fracture in the foundation of who Kade was and what his blood could be used for.
The corridor had not yet released its tension when the conversation turned, shifting quietly but decisively into deeper waters. Kade's gaze remained distant, turned inward, tracing every possibility and finding each one lacking. This was not how bloodlines worked. Not his. Not theirs. He had never allowed it. There had never been a moment of carelessness, never a lapse where something could have been extracted.
"But it could be my father's," he said at last, the thought emerging not from belief but from the need to break the impossibility into something that could be understood.
Marcus stilled. That was not a direction he had expected.
