His Baby Daddy [ Taekook ]

Chapter 29

☆*🥀*☆

☆*🥀*☆

...

The air in the Alpha’s private sanctum didn’t just feel cold; it felt heavy, as if the oxygen itself had been replaced by the weight of twenty years of silence. The Alpha spoke first, his voice low and careful, as though he feared the words themselves.

“Did Jungkook tell you what happened to my mate?”

Taehyung frowned slightly, puzzled, yet he answered nonetheless. “Yes. He told me she betrayed you and married someone else—and that her husband waged war against your pack, a war in which Jungkook lost his parents.”

The Alpha closed his eyes for a brief moment, then nodded. “Yes… that part is true.” When he looked at Taehyung again, his gaze was gentle, almost apologetic. “But there is something he did not know. Something I never had the courage to speak aloud.” He drew in a slow breath. “My vampire mate… was your mother. Queen Mishil.”

The world seemed to tilt.

Taehyung stared at him, disbelief flooding his expression. “What?”

The orange glow of the embers danced over the silver embroidery of his midnight-blue tunic. He looked every bit the Prince of the Crystal Citadel—refined, untouchable, and hollow. Across from him, Ruhan sat in a chair of rough-hewn oak and iron, his large, scarred hands trembling as they gripped the armrests. Ruhan wasn’t looking at Taehyung as a prince; he was looking at him like a truth he had waited decades to face.

“I cannot stop smelling it,” Ruhan whispered, his voice cracking. “Every time the wind shifts in this room, I am back in the Neutral Glade. Jasmine and moon-lilies. It is the scent of the only woman I ever loved, and it is coming from you.”

Taehyung’s jaw tightened, his fingers twitching near the hilt of his blade. “Queen Mishil is my mother. It is natural that I carry her scent, Alpha. Your recognition is nothing more than the lingering ghost of a dead affair. Do not project your regrets onto me.”

Ruhan surged to his feet, his massive frame casting a long, jagged shadow. “A dead affair? We were mates, Taehyung. True mates. The kind the prophecies speak of. We met in secret for months while our fathers tried to slaughter each other. I loved her more than I loved my own life.”

He stepped closer, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled deeply, his expression twisting into pure, agonized confusion. “But she left. When the truce failed, she went back to the Citadel. She married Hansol. She never sent word. She never told me…” His voice broke. “She never told me there was a child.”

A cold tremor ran down Taehyung’s spine. “Because there wasn’t one. I was born a year into their marriage. I am a Prince of House Crystal.”

“A year?” Ruhan let out a harsh laugh that sounded more like a sob. “Vampire gestation is deceptive, and wolf blood—wolf blood accelerates. If she was pregnant when she left the glade, the timing would be exactly right. But why? Why would she stay silent? Why would she let me believe she had simply chosen a crown over me?”