Chapter eight

CHAPTER EIGHT

HAZEL'S POV

The pressure in the room vanished all at once, as if someone had opened a door in a gale. Then it came back ten times heavier.

Two of the younger wolves dropped to one knee without meaning to. Caleb grabbed the back of a chair.

Sienna's face went white. "Julian, wait, I can explain..."

He shook her hand off his arm without looking at her.

He crossed the room in two strides and took my wrist, the bandaged one. I felt the gauze give under his fingers.

"What did she say?"

His eyes weren't gold anymore. They'd gone black all the way across, the way an Alpha's eyes only go when his wolf is very close to the surface.

Jenna stared at him. "You didn't know?"

His lip pulled back from his teeth.

Jenna laughed, and it was a horrible, broken sound. "Moon above. You can smell a lie at fifty yards, and you didn't know your own Luna was carrying your pup. Your own blood died on Price land three days ago because of her, and you didn't even notice."

He wasn't looking at Jenna. He was looking at me.

"Answer me!"

The word came out half a roar. I flinched so hard my whole body shook.

I lifted my free hand. "You heard her."

"I'd have smelled it." His voice was rough. "How could you be pregnant? I'd have smelled it on you."

He didn't ask who had pushed me. He didn't ask whether I was all right, or whether it had hurt. The first thing he wanted to know was how I'd hidden it from his nose.

It felt as if a fist had closed around my heart.

"Your mother's birthday," I signed with one hand, slowly. "We stayed at her house, and you'd been drinking. Afterward she kept me there three days with her moonseed. I didn't get to a pharmacy, and I didn't know. Nobody could smell it on me. Not you, and not even me. I'm wolfless, remember?"

The silence coming off him was so cold that nobody in the room breathed.

"Julian," Sienna whispered.

He turned his head and looked at her with those black eyes.

She jerked back and put her weight on the broken ankle without thinking. It folded under her, and she pitched toward the sharp corner of the table.

Julian's arm shot out and caught her around the waist.

He'd forgotten he was still holding my wrist.

When he lunged for her, he dragged me with him. My knee slammed into the edge of the glass table, and the pain went all the way into my teeth.

"Hazel!" Jenna caught me under the arms.

The whole room had seen it. With one hand, the Alpha had caught the she-wolf who'd killed his pup. With the other, he'd let his Luna fall.

A tear dropped off my chin. I didn't know whether my knee or my heart hurt worse.

Jenna's claws slid out against my ribs. I felt her whole body go rigid, and a growl started deep in her chest. Then it stopped. She was holding it back for me.

"Julian," Sienna said in a tiny voice. "My ankle."

He looked down at her. Something moved across his face, and I couldn't read it. Then he said, flat and quiet, "I'll take you back to the infirmary."

Relief flooded her face. She thought it meant he wasn't angry.

She looped both arms around his neck. "It hurts. Carry me?"

He lifted her.

He walked straight past me. Her cast swung out as they passed and caught my shoulder, and I stumbled sideways into Jenna.

Julian looked down at her.

"Oops," Sienna said softly.

He kept walking. The door swung shut behind them.

Cole Garrett came over and squeezed Jenna's shoulder. "Don't do that again. Please. Jonah's at the infirmary with your grandfather. He's been trying to reach Julian all night."

Jenna wouldn't look at him. "Hazel. I'm driving you home."

"Go to your grandfather," I signed. "Tell him I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for."

Cole touched my elbow. "I'll take her. Go, Jenna."

Behind us, the music came back on. Somebody laughed at something I couldn't hear, and three others laughed with him in silence. It was as if nothing had happened at all. To most of that room, nothing had. A stray had lost a pup she shouldn't have had, and the Alpha had carried his favorite home.

On the stairs, Cole told me the rest. After the Price party, everyone thought it was over. Then, two days ago, for no reason anyone could see, Julian had used his seat against the Hales. He'd closed their trade routes and seized the hunting grounds east of the river. Old Hale had found out why and collapsed in his study. So Jenna had gone to the infirmary, dragged Sienna out of bed in front of Julian, and clawed her face.

"The Hales are Accord," Cole said quietly. "Three of the eastern Alphas have already called the Council asking what the hell he's doing. If he keeps this up, they'll walk." He shook his head. "Sienna's the one thing he's never been able to see straight about."

I looked down at his hand on my elbow, and I went cold.

Julian had never let another male touch me. Nobody puts their scent on what's mine, he'd said once. It was the only time he'd ever sounded like he wanted me.

I eased my arm free, as gently as I could, so he wouldn't think I was afraid of him.

Cole gave me a puzzled look, but he didn't say anything. He just nodded and kept walking down the stairs ahead of me.

He was a full head taller than me. When he stopped dead at the bottom of the front steps, his shoulders blocked out the whole street.

I heard him breathe in sharply through his nose. Every hair on his arms stood up.

I peeked around him to see what he'd scented.

And then I froze too.