Happy birthday to the dear Guest who left me that review! You said you loved the Wolflet and this chapter has some.

I'm enjoying writing this arc. I hope you're liking it as much.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf: Part Four

Without the sound of an alarm or screams, Wolf wakes up. He takes a second before slowly opening his eyes and sitting up. He's mid-stretch when he sees Scarlet sitting crossed-legged at the corner of his bed. Wolf pauses and she smiles goofily when she looks up from her phone and puts it down on his bed. He blinks a few times, wondering if he's dreaming. Likely, he's still asleep.

"I've been here for hours," Scarlet says. "I thought you would've woken up earlier but you're a sound sleeper."

That's confirmation enough that she's here. Wolf sits up and Scarlet eyes him while biting on her lips since he sleeps shirtless. He can't let himself get distracted by that tempting look on her face.

"How did you get here?" Wolf asks.

"Your mom let me in when she was leaving for work," Scarlet responds.

Wolf nods. "So, what's up?"

"Wolf, I am genuinely sorry for what I said to you."

Wolf pauses. He may be too tired for this but he has to think back. He takes way too long to realize what she meant. It had to be their interaction at school before he made out with her in front of some lockers.

"I forgot that happened," Wolf says.

Scarlet blinks as if she's about to explode. But she takes a breath that looks and sounds irritated. "I couldn't stop thinking about it."

"Babe, don't worry about it."

"Just say you forgive me...possibly again."

"Scarlet."

"Wolf."

He laughs a little. "Fine. Scarlet Benoit, I forgive you...possibly again."

Scarlet straightens, smiling proudly. "Thank you." She pauses. "So, how's your identity crisis going?"

Wolf shrugs. "I haven't thought about it."

"Yes, you have."

Scarlet crawls across his bed to sit beside him. She leans against his bed frame and rests her head on his shoulder. His body is still warm from sleeping under the covers. She links her arm with his and he holds her hand tightly.

"Hear me out," Wolf says. "If we're going by birth, I'm a Lunar. But at the same time, I'm not since I immigrated here and have no memory of Luna. If my mom never told me about Luna, I'd assume I was Earthen. So I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be. Identities and labels are confusing. Why do we even have them?"

Scarlet shrugs. "I guess it's to give a premise on who we are and where we belong. Kind of like names. Like, why do we have first, middle, and last names?"

"Your name is a colour."

Scarlet looks up at him with furrowed brows. "Yours is an animal."

Wolf laughs a little, kissing her hand. "We all have weird names."

Scarlet nods because none of their friends are safe from that statement. "Hey, why don't you go back to Luna for a bit?"

Wolf immediately shakes his head. "I'll have nothing to go off of regarding whatever my issues are. And it's expensive."

"You have good points but mine are better."

He sighs. "Can we talk about this another time?"

"Sure." She's about to excuse herself from his room but stops herself. "Are you going to get dressed or -?"

"Actually, I was going to go back to sleep."

Wolf laughs, holding up his arms as Scarlet whacks him with his pillow.

-o-

Cinder and Kai didn't do anything past making out. They were on his bed in their pajamas after a night of eating pizza and watching old television shows. They never tracked the time and became delirious in fatigue and tomato sauce. Once they lost track of who was who and what was happening in the show, they started kissing until they fell asleep.

And now she's coming back home the next morning with a bright smile.

She took care of herself over there. When she woke up, Kai's arm was hugging her and his head was nestled into her. After she decided to get out of bed because it was almost noon, she brushed her teeth and hair, got dressed, and woke up Kai before she left. He was half-asleep and smiling in his dreams but Cinder couldn't and wouldn't get that image out of her mind. If she could frame it, she would. She should've taken a photo but it wouldn't do it justice compared to seeing it with her own eyes.

When Cinder walks upstairs, she heads over to her room but as she passes Levana's office, she stops. Cinder peeks her head through the open door and sees her aunt sitting at her desk. Levana looks at her with a straight face. What weirds Cinder out is that it seems like Levana was expecting her. Well, she was since Cinder wasn't home last night but, after Levana's strange behaviour, Cinder's stomach drops. This moment may be the time she learns why Levana was examining her face like a specimen in a research study.

"Ah, you're here," Levana says, gesturing to the chair across from her desk. "Take a seat. We have to talk."

Cinder hesitates before walking in. She isn't sure if she should close the door. Nobody else was home but this seems like a conversation that should happen behind closed doors. So she closes it before dropping her bag by the door and taking a seat. Her body goes stiff. At first, she thinks that she has to share details about her night with Kai. Although they didn't do anything Levana thought, Cinder still feels nauseous about this conversation.

Levana exhales, folding her perfectly manicured hands on the desk. "I'm finally ready to tell you everything."

"Great!" Cinder exclaims, seeing a possible escape route. "I'll go make some popcorn."

"Cinder."

She didn't get a moment to stand up but doesn't regret it. The sombre tone in Levana's voice made Cinder's legs go wobbly. If she got up, she would fall back into the chair. There's no escaping this conversation.

Levana takes a breath. "I found your father."

It feels like Levana dropped a bomb on Cinder, but that doesn't mean it was a bad place to start. It was good to have this explode in her face because Cinder's body went so numb from those four words that she didn't feel them. Never in her life did she think she would hear their words strung together. Never in her life was she curious about those words. She didn't care enough to need answers but now it looks like she has them.

"Ever since Channary died, I hired a private investigator to look into a paternity test," Levana explains. "I was your legal guardian but I feared that a man would come claiming you and Channary's money. And I was curious about whose sperm won the race since you looked like no potential suitor. So the private investigator did the work. They took so long because they had to lay low after the chaos Luna was in after Channary died. A lot of Cabinet members fled. Some left the country and went into hiding, or simply hid within Luna's borders. Then there was the possibility we wouldn't find the man due to not knowing who she slept with or maybe he died. And there was actually the obtaining of a DNA sample and its processing. At one point, I gave up. Some days, I forgot. Time passed and I stopped caring."

"...until now," Cinder says with a dry mouth.

Levana nods. "Do you want to know who it is?"

Cinder's body freezes. She isn't sure whether to shake her head, nod, run out of the room, scream or shrug. If possible, all of the above. She never prepared for this day and, even if she knew it was coming, she would be unfit.

As Cinder thinks, Levana reaches into her desk and pulls out a folder full of papers. The whole action consisted of eye contact that lasted until the folder appeared. Cinder can't stop staring at it. The other half of a mystery she didn't think she cared about is in there. She wants to grab it and chuck it into a fire. But she's scared of what she'll read. She's scared it will drop out of her sweating palms.

Cinder isn't sure if she's reacting correctly.

But, spades, she goes for it. Cinder drags the folder over to her. Keeping it on the table, she opens it and there he is. A photo beside a confirmed match DNA test. Her father. The man who was never around because he didn't know he had to be. The man who was never alluded because she looked nothing like him.

Like Winter, Cinder was raised unaware that they were ethnically ambiguous. Being mixed, their ethnicity was never just black or white - literally - it's a grey area. They never wondered what it was liked to be raised by mixed parents despite Levana and Evret were from two different races. Stars, Cinder only knew she was mixed because no men in her mother's Cabinet were the same race as her, given that her father is someone from the Cabinet.

People always asked what race Cinder and Winter were but why did they need to know? Like Wolf's crisis, they just say Lunar because that's how they see themselves. And with that identification, Winter and Cinder acknowledge their biracial heritage, refusing to deny what they inherited from one parent despite not knowing them. It's their physical genetics. But coming from a place of diversity like Luna, they never had to worry about having to navigate the sometimes confusing, insulting, and humiliating terrain. Cinder had enough of that just by hearing the horrors of the Blackburn regime.

And it's like her nightmares were starting over again.

"Aside from being a total horror, Channary is your mother," Levana continues despite Cinder never having an issue with that. "She prioritized you over her own life. She made sure you would have the best wealth, husband, looks, and aunt."

Cinder scoffs. She closes the folder, unaware that she needed Levana's sass. "Are you seriously going to compliment yourself right now?"

"If it wasn't for me, you would never have Winter or this life in Commonwealth."

"You have a point."

Levana nods. "So there's your father. What are you going to do about it?"

I know that Cinder's father was never revealed in the books. Don't worry, I know what I'm doing with this plot. (In other news, there's a headcanon that Cinder's father is Jacin's father since Channary controlled her guards to sleep with her. And Cinder and Jacin have that sibling-like relationship. It makes sense and I believe it. But it won't be true in this story).