3 - MOVING OUT

The air in the room was suffocating. I stood perfectly still, waiting for Tobias to correct the elder. I waited for him to demand respect for his Luna, or at least ask Eloise to step outside while the healers worked.

Tobias swallowed hard. He looked away from me.

"Eloise, stay with her for a minute," Tobias said quietly.

He stood up from the bed. Lily whined and tried to grab his hand again, but he gently pulled away. He walked toward me, his shoulders slumped.

"Zinnia," he muttered. "Come with me for a second."

He didn't wait for my answer. He walked out of the clinic.

I followed him into the dim, quiet hallway. The moment the door clicked shut behind us, the silence felt heavy. Tobias leaned his back against the stone wall. He scrubbed his hands over his face, leaving streaks of Lily’s blood on his own skin.

I crossed my arms over my chest to stop my hands from shaking.

"Are you going to tell me what she meant?" I asked. My voice was low. "About the baby, Tobias."

He squeezed his eyes shut. "Zinnia, please. Not right now."

"When, then?" I asked.

"I didn't know," he said, his voice breaking. He dropped his hands and finally looked at me. His eyes were red-rimmed and filled with a desperate, crushing guilt. "I swear to you, I didn't know she was pregnant when she disappeared. I thought she just left me. If I had known..."

He stopped.

"If you had known, what?" I asked, keeping my tone perfectly flat. "You would have gone after her? You wouldn't have married me?"

Tobias flinched like I had struck him. "I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to."

He stepped toward me, reaching out to touch my arm. I took a step back. His hand fell to his side.

"She went through hell," Tobias whispered, looking back toward the clinic door. "She was out there alone, and she lost..." He swallowed the rest of the sentence. "She is terrified, Zinnia. She is having panic attacks every time someone else walks into the room."

"I can see that," I said. "What do you want me to do about it?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. He looked at the floor, then at the wall, then everywhere except my face.

"She needs to feel safe tonight," Tobias said quietly. "The clinic doesn't have heavy locks on the doors. She needs somewhere secure to sleep."

I stared at him. The numbness in my chest started to turn into a cold, sharp ache.

"The Alpha suite has the reinforced deadbolts," Tobias said. He finally met my eyes, and he looked pathetic. "I need to put her in there. Just so she can rest."

"You want to put her in our bed."

"Zinnia, please," he pleaded. His voice was thick with exhaustion. "It's just for a few nights. Until she calms down and we figure out what happened to her. The guest room at the end of the hall is made up. There are fresh sheets in there."

He was asking me to leave my own room. He was asking me to pack up my things and move down the hall so his ex-fiancée could sleep in my bed.

I waited for the anger to hit me. I waited to scream at him, to tell him he was out of his mind, to demand he put her in a guest room instead. But looking at the weak, guilty man standing in front of me, I didn't feel angry. I just felt tired.

"The guest room," I repeated softly.

"It's just temporary," Tobias said quickly, hearing the shift in my tone. He took a step closer. "I just need to keep the peace right now. The elders are already watching. I can't throw a traumatized woman into a drafty room. You know I love you, Zinnia. You know you are my Luna. I just need you to be understanding right now."

I just need you to be understanding.

It was the same thing he said every time the elders insulted me. The same thing he said when the pack finances were falling apart and I had to fix them. I always had to be the understanding one.

"I'll pack my things," I said.

Tobias let out a long sigh of relief. The tension melted out of his shoulders. "Thank you. Thank you, Zin. I promise we will talk about everything tomorrow. I just need to get her settled."

He didn't pull me into a hug. He didn't kiss my forehead. He just turned around, opened the clinic door, and walked back inside to Lily.

The door shut with a quiet click.

I stood alone in the hallway for a long time.

An hour later, I was standing outside the heavy wooden door of the guest room at the far end of the corridor. The air down here was cold. The fire in the hearth hadn't been lit in weeks.

I held a stack of my folded clothes against my chest. My toothbrush and a few books were balanced on top. It wasn't much. I hadn't brought much with me when I arrived in Grimclaw three years ago, and I hadn't accumulated much since.

I looked down the long, empty hallway toward the Alpha suite. The door was firmly shut.

The heavy wood of the guest room door felt rough against my knuckles as I pushed it open. I stepped into the dark, cold room and placed my clothes on the edge of the mattress.

I sat down next to them. The silence of the room pressed in on me, heavy and suffocating.

I looked at the small pile of my belongings. My throat tightened. The numbness was finally starting to fade, leaving behind a sharp, terrifying clarity.

Tobias said it was temporary. He said it was just to keep the peace.

But as I sat alone in the freezing dark, listening to the rain beat against the window, the truth settled deep into my bones.

I wasn't just being moved to another room. My marriage was dissolving right in front of me, and my husband was the one holding the door open for me to leave.