the test-c

It came out flat. Not cruel. That was what made it so much worse. It was the plain honest voice of a man who truly did not have the words, and she felt it go through her like cold water.

"Okay," she said.

"Lyra—"

"No. It's okay." She was nodding. She couldn't seem to stop nodding. "That's fair. That's actually fair."

He turned around. His face was open in a way she'd never seen it, all the walls down, and what was underneath was not anger and not joy. It was fear. Pure, naked, bone-deep fear.

"Do you understand what this is?" he said quietly. "Do you actually understand what it means?"

"It means we're mates."

"It means more than that."

"Then *tell* me." Her voice rose. She couldn't help it. "Tell me, because I've been walking around with a secret for six weeks and I don't know a single thing. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel. I don't know if I'm supposed to be happy. I don't know if I'm supposed to run. Everyone in this pack knows more about my body than I do right now, and I'm *tired*, Dante, I'm so tired of being the last person who gets told anything."

"Don't." He crossed the floor in two strides and stopped in front of her. "Don't say that. Don't say you're the last person. You were never—"

"Then what was I?"

The question hung between them.

He opened his mouth. Closed it. His jaw worked. And Lyra, who could see what was in front of her, who had always been a good healer and a poor liar, saw the exact moment he decided not to tell her something.

She saw it. She saw it like a door swinging shut behind his eyes.

"What aren't you saying?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"That's a lie."

"Lyra, I need you to listen to me." He took her by the shoulders. His hands were warm and careful, as if she might shatter. "I need you to not talk to anyone about this. Not Orla. Not the other healers. Not a single person, do you understand? Until I've figured out how to—until I've had time to think."

"Think about what?"

"About how to keep you safe."

She stared at him. "Safe from what?"

He said nothing.

"Dante. *Safe from what?*"

"I can't explain right now."

"That is not an answer."

"It's the only one I have."

She pulled out of his grip. It was the bravest thing she'd done all day. "Six weeks," she said. "Six weeks, you come to my door at midnight, you stay until the sun is almost up, you tell me I'm the only quiet thing in your life. And now I'm carrying your child, and you're standing here telling me I'm in *danger,* and you won't tell me from whom?"

"I'm trying to protect you."

"From a secret I'm not allowed to know?"

"Yes."

"That isn't protection. That's a cage with better manners."

His face flinched. Just slightly. But she saw it, and she was cruel enough, in that moment, to be glad.

"You think I want this?" he said, and his voice dropped, low and raw. "You think I want to be standing in a supply closet, lying to the one person I—" He cut himself off. He pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, and when he took it away, his eyes were wet. "I never meant for any of this. Not you. Not the baby. Not the seal. I never meant to put you in front of the thing that's going to come."

"What thing?"

"I can't."

"What thing, Dante?"

"The council." The word broke out of him. "The council, and the engagement, and the—"

He stopped. Dead. His eyes went wide, and she knew he'd said a word he'd never meant to say out loud.

"The engagement," Lyra repeated.

Silence.

The bulb buzzed. The shelves hummed. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, a double thunder now, one drum and a smaller drum, and neither of them would be quiet.

"What engagement?" she said.

"Lyra, let me—"

"What  engagement ?"

"It isn't what you think."

"I don't know what I think. I'm asking what it is".

He reached for her. She stepped back. Her shoulder hit the shelf, and a bottle of saline tumbled off the edge and burst across the floor, and neither of them moved.

"I was going to tell you," he said. "I was going to tell you tonight."

"When?"

"After. When I'd found a way to..." He shook his head. "Please. Just let me explain it properly. Not like this. Not in a closet with your neck lit up like a lantern. Give me tonight. Come to the cabin. I'll tell you everything."

"You said that once before."

"I know."

"You said  later,  and you said  soon, and you said when it's time.  You've said everything except the truth."

"I know." His voice was ragged. "I know I have. God, Lyra, I  know. "

She looked at him. This man who had held her through three separate midnights, who had learned how she took her tea, who had once fallen asleep with his forehead against her collarbone and said her name into her skin like a prayer. She had built a whole fragile house out of those hours. She had moved into it. She had put up curtains.

And he had let her.

"Is it true?" she asked. Her voice was barely there. "Are you engaged to someone?"

His eyes closed.

That was the answer. She didn't need him to say it.

The air left her chest in one long, broken breath. She pressed her palm flat against her stomach, where the small flicker of life she'd only just met was still tucked away, warm and ignorant. She felt something inside her go very quiet and very cold.

"Okay," she said again.

"Lyra, please—"

"I want you to go."

"I can't leave you like this."