Chapter 3; Two Lines

Wren's POV

"You're pregnant, Wren."

The nurse said it plainly, like it was just another line on a chart, and the whole room tilted sideways as if the floor had decided to stop holding me up.

"Are you sure?" My voice came out smaller than I meant it to.

"The test confirms it. About five weeks along, based on your last cycle." She kept talking after that, something about appointments and vitamins and next steps, but none of it stayed with me.

I sat on the edge of the exam table with my hands pressed flat against the paper covering, staring at a spot on the wall, unable to hold onto a single word.

Five weeks. It had been five weeks since Dante walked out of my room without looking back, five weeks of silence so heavy between us that we had started timing our meals around each other's schedules just to avoid sitting at the same table.

I could still see the exact look on his face when he'd found the blood on my sheets, the way his guilt had swallowed him whole in seconds. I had told myself that look meant he regretted touching me.

Now I understood it might have meant something closer to fear, like some part of him already sensed what his body had done to mine.

My legs were shaking by the time I made it out to the parking lot, and I had to stop twice just to keep from sinking to the pavement. A baby. Dante's baby.

My stepbrother's child, growing inside me while he slept two doors down from my bedroom every single night, both of us pretending the space between us wasn't full of everything we refused to say out loud.

I could not go home. Not yet. I found a bench outside a coffee shop a few blocks from the hospital and sat there for almost an hour, running through every version of this conversation in my head and finding a disaster at the end of every single one.

My stepfather Alistair was a good man, but he was also an Alpha who cared fiercely about the pack's reputation, and I could not imagine a version of this news that wouldn't shatter something in him.

My mother would be worse in a different way. She would not rage. She would look at me with that quiet, broken disappointment that was somehow harder to survive than any shouting could ever be.

I never found an answer sitting on that bench. Eventually the sun started dropping and I had nowhere left to go but home, so I made myself stand up and walk the four blocks back, rehearsing nothing, ready for nothing.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I found in that living room.

"Wren, perfect timing." Alistair rose the moment I stepped through the door, his face lit up with a kind of pride I hadn't seen from him in years. "We have wonderful news. Dante has found his mate."

The words landed like a physical blow, and I had to lock my knees to keep from stumbling. Dante was sitting on the couch, and beside him sat a woman I had never seen before, beautiful in the effortless way that made you feel instantly smaller just standing near her.

My mother was beaming, her hand pressed to her chest the way she did whenever she was too happy to speak.

I made myself look at Dante, searching his face for some sign that this was a mistake, some flicker of the man who had begged me five weeks ago to tell him to stop.

"Wren, this is Seraphina." His voice was steady in a way that felt like its own kind of cruelty. "She's my fated mate." A short pause followed, deliberate enough that I felt it in my chest. "Seraphina, this is my stepsister."

He said the word stepsister with a weight I doubted anyone else in the room could hear, but I heard it, loud and clear, like he was reminding both of us exactly what I was allowed to be to him.

Seraphina rose gracefully and crossed the room toward me, her smile warm and practiced. "It's so lovely to finally meet you," she said, taking my hand in both of hers. "Dante's told me a little about his family. I do hope we can be close, like sisters."

"That would be nice," I managed, my voice steadier than I had any right to expect.

"We met at the mate ceremony last month," she went on, still smiling. "Honestly, the moment our eyes met, I just knew. Do you believe in that, Wren? Fate choosing for you before you even get a say?"

"I don't know," I said. "I suppose it depends on what fate decides to take from you in exchange."

If she caught the edge under my words, she didn't show it. She only laughed lightly and turned back toward Dante, looping her arm through his like she already owned the space beside him.

I could not remember later what else I said to her. I only knew that the whole time she spoke, I felt Dante's eyes on me, watching for a crack he clearly expected to see.

He did not have to watch long. My throat had gone tight, and my eyes were burning in a way I could not blink away fast enough, and when I glanced at him one last time before I could stop myself, something in my face must have given me away completely, because his expression shifted in an instant.

"Excuse us a moment," Dante said abruptly, already moving toward me. "I need to speak with Wren alone."

"Is everything all right?" my mother asked, her smile faltering slightly, confusion flickering across her face.

"Everything's fine," Dante said smoothly. "Just a family matter. Won't take long."

Alistair simply nodded and gestured Seraphina back toward the couch, already telling her about the pack's upcoming gathering as if nothing strange had happened at all.

Dante's hand closed around my wrist, firm and certain, and he pulled me down the hallway toward my room without another word, his grip tight enough that I knew whatever he was about to say, neither of us was walking away from it easily.