Cross My Tigress Face the Wrath (Stella) novel Chapter 963

Derek had no idea how he made it back to Blacktower. It was nearly five in the morning by the time he arrived—after battling those twisting, treacherous mountain roads, he was utterly spent. Weariness was etched across his face and hung heavy in his posture.

When Adelle saw him return alone, her brows knit together. “Where’s Susanna? Why isn’t she with you? I already had her room prepared,” she said, striving for a tone of gracious understanding—the picture of the forgiving stepmother. Normally, that performance would have only made Derek feel guiltier.

But Susanna’s words—“Maybe you’re infertile!”—still echoed sharply in his mind. When he glanced at Adelle, a chill crept into his gaze, one he couldn’t hide.

Leanne and Ivanna didn’t look the least bit like him. Not even close.

The tiniest seed of doubt, once planted, can take root and grow into a sprawling thicket of suspicion overnight. Derek could feel those suspicions tangling inside him, growing and spreading. He even started to wonder if Finch Murray had ever really resembled him.

Catching the strange look on his face, Adelle frowned harder. “Why are you staring at me like that? Where is Susanna? Didn’t you say you'd bring her back?”

“She’s not coming,” Derek answered, his voice flat with exhaustion.

“What? She’s not coming back? Why on earth not?” Annoyance flared in Adelle’s tone. That foolish girl—after everything Adelle had done, after stepping aside and letting her return home, what more did Susanna want? If she refused to return, how were they supposed to deal with all the mess Black Gate was in?

Adelle’s face clouded. She moved to sit beside Derek. “You’re her father—you went out there yourself to fetch her, and she still won’t come home?”

Derek rubbed his aching forehead, fingers digging into his brow. Susanna’s accusations ricocheted through his skull, relentless: Adelle’s infidelity, the twins not being his. The pounding in his head grew louder and louder, as if his thoughts might blow apart.

“She refuses?” Adelle let out a brittle little laugh, all trace of gentleness gone from her voice and features. “This is her home! She’s really choosing that man over her own family?” Her eyes, icy and dangerous, flashed with a coldness Derek had never seen in her before.

Derek’s face darkened further. “Home? Besides you and your children, who else even sees this place as home?”

In that moment, a truth hit Derek like a blow: he had fathered many children, but only Adelle and the ones she’d borne him treated Blacktower as a home. And even among those... some of them might never have been his in the first place.

Susanna’s accusations spun around Derek’s mind, a poison he couldn’t shake no matter how hard he tried. His expression grew colder, more distant.

Adelle heard the icy sarcasm in his words and went rigid. “What... what are you trying to say?”