Chapter 318 Aria was Vincent Smith’s daughter

Chapter 318: Chapter 318 Aria was Vincent Smith’s daughter

Ethan’s POV

The call came just past midnight, and by the time I reached the hospital the whole world had gone thin and grey at the edges.

Sophie and her mate were standing outside the room. My sister’s eyes were red and swollen, the rims raw. She’d clearly been crying for hours. Her mate stood off to one side, shifting his weight like he didn’t know what to do with his hands, and when he saw me he came forward and clapped me once on the shoulder.

"Go on in," he said quietly. "Go sit with her."

Sophie broke the second she looked at me. "Ethan—Grandmother, she—"

I didn’t let her finish. I shoved the door open.

The old woman was lying there in the bed, half-swallowed by tubes and machines, monitors blinking their slow, indifferent light. A guard stood by the door. My mother sat beside the bed, still as stone. A nurse was wiping down the old woman’s arm, and a doctor was saying something low that cut off the moment I came through the door.

My mother looked up. She met my eyes, then gave the doctor a small nod.

The man turned to go. I caught his sleeve before he could pass me. "Doctor. My grandmother—she’s going to be all right. Tell me she’s going to be all right."

"I’m sorry." He let out a breath, didn’t say anything else, and walked out.

My wolf went silent inside me. I gripped the wall to keep myself upright, and I felt the blood drain out of my face.

When Sophie had called, they’d already read out the notice. Terminal. Hours, not days.

I hadn’t believed it. Yesterday the old woman had been standing in front of me, spitting fire, more alive than half the pack. How could that be true. How could one day take her.

My mother lifted a hand and cleared the room—the nurse, the guard, all of them. Only when the door clicked shut did she speak.

"Ethan. Come. Talk to your grandmother while you still can."

Her voice was calm. Too calm. Colder than I’d ever heard it, and it went through me like ice water down my spine.

It took me a long time to move. When I finally crossed to the bed my legs buckled and I went down on my knees at her side.

"Grandmother."

My throat closed. My eyes burned like someone had pressed coals to them, but nothing came. No tears. Just that terrible dry ache.

She was unconscious. Her breathing filled the room, heavy and wet, and she looked so old, so small, so unlike the woman who had raised me. I leaned closer.

And I don’t know if it was real or if my mind was breaking, but my wolf stirred just enough to catch it—that faint, unmistakable scent underneath the antiseptic. The smell death leaves before it’s finished its work.

My wolf whined and shrank back from it. *She’s already going,* he said, and his voice was small and broken in a way I’d never heard. *Ethan. She’s already going.*

"She doesn’t have much time," my mother said. "I’ve had them start the arrangements. You’ll stay. You’ll keep vigil from here on."

Her head was bowed. She touched the corner of her eye once, quickly. She and the old woman had never been close—two she-wolves under one roof, always circling—but forty years is forty years, and I could hear the grief buried under all that ice.

"Why," I said.

My mother went still.

"She was fine. Yesterday she was fine."

I remembered it. Grandmother had come to my room last night. She’d stood over me and torn into me—no son of an Alpha, letting two women lead him around by the throat like a whelp.

So the pack had fallen. So what. Was I going to lean on the old blood to hold me up for the rest of my life?

I’d lain there and pretended to be asleep.

But her voice had been loud, strong, full of that old bite. She’d been so furious, and it hadn’t touched her. Not a stumble. Not a falter.

"It was Aria," my mother said, and the name came out flat and hard. "She went to see Aria today."

They’d rushed the old woman to the nearest hospital to where it happened. My mother only learned the rest afterward, from the people who’d been with her.

"Your grandmother went for you. She couldn’t stomach watching that woman make a fool of you any longer. She wanted to settle the score." My mother’s jaw tightened. "She didn’t expect—"

"I’ll go to her."

My wolf surged up all at once, hackles rising, a snarl building in my chest before I could stop it.*Aria,* he growled. *Find her. Make her—*

I was already forcing myself to my feet. But I hadn’t eaten in days, and my legs shook so badly I could barely stand, let alone go tearing off to make anyone pay for anything.

"And do what, exactly?" My mother’s voice cracked like a whip. "Do you have the faintest idea who Aria is now? Aria is Vincent Smith’s daughter."