Chapter 6

Freya 

I lay there long after the healer left, staring at the white ceiling as if it might split open and offer me an answer.

It didn’t.

The room smelled of antiseptic and crushed herbs. It was too clean, too quiet, like nothing terrible had happened here and the contrast of it all made me sick. 

I hated that it filled me with hope and a faux sense of happiness, like I had not been rejected in front of an entire court, like I was not four, maybe five, weeks pregnant.

My hand drifted to my stomach again, and I almost couldn't believe it. It was flat, and still unchanged, like a body that looked exactly the same as it had yesterday.

Except it wasn’t.

I turned my head slightly. Sera sat in the chair beside the bed, elbows on her knees, eyes swollen and rimmed red. She looked like she had not blinked in hours.

“Don’t,” she said softly, before I had even moved. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.”

I didn’t answer. I just pushed myself upright.

The room tilted immediately, black creeping into the edges of my vision, but I forced it back. My fingers wrapped around the IV line taped to my arm. I stared at it for a moment, then I pulled it out.

“Freya!” Sera shot to her feet. “What are you doing?”

“What I should have done earlier.” I swung my legs over the side of the bed. My feet touched the cold floor. “I’m leaving.”

“You just went through a bond rejection,” she snapped, stepping toward me. “Your body is in shock. You need rest. You need…..”

“I am resting,” I said quietly, bending to look for my shoes beneath the bed. “I’ve been resting my whole life.”

She stared at me like she didn’t recognize the sound of my voice.

After what seemed like forever, I found one shoe, then the other. My hands trembled as I pulled them on, but I did not stop.

“Freya,” she said again, softer now. “Please.”

I stood slowly. My knees felt like they might give out from under me, but I locked them in place. I reached for my coat draped over the chair and slid it on, ignoring how heavy it felt on my shoulders.

“No, Freya.” Sera moved in front of the door. “I’m not letting you walk out of here like this.”

I looked at her, really looked at her and saw that she loved her brother. I could see it in every line of her face, but she was also watching me like someone watching a building collapse in slow motion, unable to stop it.

“I cannot stay,” I said, and my voice came out steady. Almost gentle. “I cannot stay in a building that belongs to the man who just rejected me in front of everyone I was supposed to call my pack.”

Her mouth opened then closed again. I waited for a response, eb excuse for Ragnar. Instead, her throat worked like she wanted to argue, to defend him maybe, to defend the pack. Heck, she probably just wanted to defend something but there was nothing she could say that would make that sentence untrue.

After a long second, she stepped aside. I did not thank her. I only walked past her without looking back.

The capital was already awake by the time I made it out of the infirmary. 

The streets were loud, cluttered with cars and early traders shouting prices, smoke curling from food stalls. The world moved the same as it always had. No one turned to stare at me, no one whispered. No one did anything because they didn't know me. 

It was almost a relief, because in this part of the city, I was no one. I was not a rejected Luna, nor a discarded mate and not even a scandal.

Just a woman in a coat walking too quickly before dawn.

I kept walking until the buildings thinned and the southern gate came into view. Beyond it, wagons were being loaded under torchlight. Traders moved with the practiced rhythm of people who had been doing this their whole lives.

I slowed.

There was a caravan of covered wagons lined up near the edge of the road. At the front stood an older man with a thick grey beard, sleeves rolled to his elbows, barking short instructions at a younger driver.

He looked like a man who had seen storms and survived them. So I walked up to him.

He glanced at me once, brief and assessing, and I could already tell he had a million thoughts running through his mind. 

“Yes?” he asked slowly. “Can I help you?” 

I didn’t speak. Instead, I reached up and removed the small gold earrings from my ears. My fingers lingered on them for half a second.

Thorne had given them to me in the first year of our marriage, back when he still believed gestures could substitute for affection, back when I believed them too.

Without a word, I placed them in the man’s palm. He looked down at the earrings, then at my face.

His eyes flicked over my coat, my posture, the way I held myself too straight, but he didn’t ask where I was going. He didn’t ask why.

After some minutes of silence, he jerked his head toward the last wagon in the line.

“Keep quiet,” he said gruffly. “We don’t turn back for stragglers.”

“I won’t,” I replied.

My voice didn’t shake.

I climbed into the back of the wagon and settled between two crates of dried goods. The wood was rough beneath my fingers, but I told myself I could manage. It smelled like grain and earth and dust.

Normal things and maybe that was all I needed. 

Once they were done loading up, the wagon lurched forward and the city began to move.

Or maybe it was me.

Through the small gap in the canvas, I watched the capital shrink behind us. The towers blurred into silhouettes, the lights faded one by one until there was nothing left but darkness and the sound of wheels grinding over the road.

I pulled my knees to my chest, then my hand slid down to my stomach again, nothing had changed on the outside.

Four or five weeks. That was all, a secret small enough to hide beneath a coat.

I pressed my palm flat against my belly as I asked the question I'd been scared to ask all along. 

Whose are you? Thorne's or Ragnars? 

The question rose like bile, but I forced it down.

Not tonight. Tonight was not for fathers, tonight was for promises and new beginnings. 

“You will not be traded,” I whispered into the dim space of the wagon. My voice was barely louder than the creak of wood. “You will not be used as leverage or proof or punishment. You will not be a bargaining chip for a council or a king or an Alpha who sees a child as a way to win.”

“You will be wanted.” My throat tightened, but I kept going. “Even if I am the only one who wants you.”

The wagon rolled on and the road grew darker.

I closed my eyes and let the motion carry me forward, away from the ceremony hall, away from the white ceilings, away from a name that had been taken from me twice.

I did not know where I was going, but I knew what I was leaving behind,and for the first time since the words were spoken in that hall, I felt something that was not grief.

Hope.