Page 82 of Red River

"Does he have burgundy hair and almost glowing neon turquoise eyes?" I whispered.

Day’s eyes widened. "Yeah… Do you know him? Have you met before?"

I clenched my jaw. "He’s my brother. Full-blood. My family name is Nolan."

A thick, uncomfortable silence fell over us. Day cleared his throat and darted a glance at Jan, who immediately noticed something was off and paused his conversation with Archer.

"I’m sorry," Day stammered. "I didn’t mean to bring it up. I—I know that—"

He knew. Jan must have told him that I wasn’t in contact with my family. He had just stumbled onto a landmine.

I pressed my lips together. "It’s fine. It’s not exactly a secret that I don’t talk to them. Nothing to discuss…" I managed to say, though every nerve in my body was wound tight. I couldn’t take it anymore.

"Excuse me for a moment."

Plastering on an apologetic smile, I got up and walked off the patio, heading back inside. My heart was pounding so hard, it felt like I had just run miles.

I meant to go straight to my room, but halfway up the stairs, Archer caught up with me.

"River, are you okay?"

That’s when I lost it.

"This is so damn weird, you know?" I burst out. "First, you tell me about Skye, and now Day tells me about Storm? What the hell is going on?! It’s like my brothers are everywhere, popping up out of nowhere every five minutes!" I turned away, choking on emotions I couldn’t quite name, and ran up the stairs.

Archer followed.

I practically collapsed onto my bed, messing up the nest.

"It’s like the universe is rubbing it in my face," I mumbled, my voice filled with something dangerously close to tears. "Like it’s telling me, Look! Remember? You had a family once. The one you left behind. The one you shut out completely."

Archer sat down beside me and gently took my hand. He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me.

And again—somehow, just that quiet presence, that steadiness, that patience, made me feel like I could breathe again. How could his mere existence affect me so much? It worked like magic—whenever I touched him, my anxiety faded away.

After a moment, I let out a shaky sigh and reached for my phone to open a folder of photos—ones I never let myself look at.

I hesitated, then turned the screen toward Archer.

"This is my dad," I whispered.

For the first time in years, I allowed myself to really see him again. That face—beautiful, almost angelic, framed by long, platinum blond hair.

Archer exhaled softly. "He looked almost exactly the same when I saw him last June."

I snapped my head up. "You saw him too?"

"Yeah," Archer nodded. "I told you, I was at Skye’s graduation ceremony. The whole family was there—Storm too. I didn’t approach them, but I stared for a while, curious to see how a True Mate couple aged."

"And? What did he look like exactly?"

"Long blond braid, slim and fit. Not a day over thirty-five, even though he’s probably around sixty, right? That True Mate magic is something else. I was impressed."

I bit my lip and scrolled through more photos. They showed my brothers—laughing, playing, sitting around a table together.

Archer leaned in. "I recognize Skye," he murmured, pointing him out in one of the pictures. Then his eyes landed on another. "Oh, and that’s Storm. He always had the same, defiant look on his face."

"I cut them off completely," I admitted, my eyes drifting back to the picture of my dad. "Every year, my dad tried to reach me through Uncle Van. He was the only one from my family I still exchanged emails with sometimes. For years—seven, maybe ten—my dad kept asking to see me. But then… the messages stopped coming. Or Van stopped mentioning it. Eventually, he just talked about his own sons—he got remarried and had kids later in life, my cousins. No updates about my family."

---