Chapter 9

Willow’s POV

The next day, I decided to go about my day as normally as possible.

It was the only sensible thing to do. If I disappeared too suddenly, if I stopped showing up for my duties or locked myself in my room, Alpha Kelvin might suspect something was up. I was even surprised he hadn’t even placed a guard to watch me.

So I got up before dawn like always. I washed my face, put on my grey clothes, and went to work.

I was carrying a basket of laundry up the staircase when Stacey found me.

“Oh, there you are!”

Her voice rang out from somewhere below me. It sounded falsely sweet, like she was greeting a friend she had been looking for all morning.

I did not stop walking.

The pain from yesterday was still there — the cracked music box on my dresser, her fake act and Noah’s voice calling it old and useless.

However, I was leaving today so there was no point.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” Stacey called again, her footsteps coming up the stairs behind me. “We didn’t really get to finish talking yesterday.”

I kept walking with my eyes ahead.

“Ignoring me?” She was closer now, almost level with me. “How rude. And after I came all the way to check on you too.”

I said nothing.

She tried a few more things. She said my name. She made a comment about my clothes. She said something about Noah that I didn’t pay attention to. I kept my face neutral and my eyes on the top of the staircase, which was already close.

After a moment, she went quiet when she realized that none of it was working. I wouldn’t react to her taunts.

I was nearly at the top.

Suddenly, a loud, sharp and piercing scream came from behind me, followed by the sound of something tumbling.

I spun around.

Stacey was on the floor two steps below me with one hand wrapped around her ankle and her face twisted up dramatically like she was in a lot of pain. She had fallen from two steps. Just two steps. She was making it sound like she had gone down the entire staircase, and she was a werewolf for goodness sake!

“What the hell just happened?”

A deep voice came from below.

Noah.

The sound of him used to do something to me, now it was just a reminder of betrayal.

I stood at the top of the stairs with the laundry basket still in my arms and said nothing. Whatever had happened between Stacey and the stairs had nothing to do with me. I had been ahead of her. I had not touched her. I was not going to get pulled into this.

I started to turn away.

“She pushed me.”

I froze.

I turned back slowly, not sure I had heard correctly.

Stacey was looking up at Noah with wide, watering eyes.

One of her hands was still on her ankle, while the other hand was pressed against her stomach protectively.

“She pushed me down the stairs. I was just trying to talk to her and she turned and shoved me and I — I think I hit my ankle badly. And my stomach, Noah, I think I hit my stomach when I landed —”

I stared at her.

“That is a lie.” I stated coldly, furrowing my eyebrows in disbelief.

“She’s been angry at me since yesterday —”

“I did not touch you.” My voice was shaking slightly with anger. “I was ahead of you the entire time. You fell on your own. I don’t know if you tripped or you did it on purpose, but I was not near you when you went down.”

“She’s been looking for a reason since the music box —”

“I did not touch you, Stacey.”

“My ankle really hurts —”

“Then you should see the healer,” I retorted. “I had nothing to do with it.”

Noah had been coming up the stairs while we spoke. He stopped where Stacey was sitting. His eyes were blazing with rage, and his jaw was tight.

“Willow.” His voice came out like a growl. “What did you do?”

Something cold moved through me.

“I just told you what happened,” I replied. “I didn’t do anything. I was at the top of the stairs. She was behind me. I didn’t go near her.”

“She’s pregnant —”

“I know she’s pregnant,” I said. “But I also did not push her, and you would know that too if you would just stop being so dense and—”

The slap came without warning.

My head snapped sideways—and the world tilted.

The force of it threw me back from the top of the stairs, my feet went out from under me and I fell backward, and down the stairs.

I rolled down the stairs till I hit the floor at the bottom.

For a moment I just lay there.

Everything was ringing. My face throbbed.

My back burned and my shoulder felt wrong. All I could do was lie there and wait for the world to stop spinning.

Then I felt a warmth running down the inside of my legs.

I looked down.

My vision was blurring and my ears were still ringing from the fall, but I could see something spreading through my cloth.

Blood.

I pressed both hands against my stomach.

“No,” I croaked, my voice shaking in horror. “No, no, no —”

Noah was crouching in front of me, his eyes wide in shock.

“Willow—” he breathed, staring at the blood. “I’m sor —”

“Noah!” Stacey’s voice rang out sharply. “Noah, I need you. My stomach — I think something is wrong, it hurts, I think something is really wrong —”

He looked back at her.

I saw the conflict in his expression. I was laying on the floor with blood on my hands and my vision going dark, and I watched Noah make his choice.

“I’ll send help for you,” he mumbled to me.

Then he stood up and went back up the stairs.

The last thing I saw before the darkness came was Noah carrying Stacey gently.