ONE

AVERY

The pack clinic smelled like antiseptic and dried herbs, a sharp, familiar scent that usually meant safety. Today it only made my wolf restless beneath my skin. I sat on the edge of the exam table with my hands folded tightly in my lap, listening to the muffled sounds of the pack outside. Training drills echoed faintly through the walls, followed by laughter. Life moving forward without me, as if nothing had fractured.

I hadn’t felt like part of it for weeks.

My wolf was tired in a way that sleep didn’t fix. Slow to rise. Slow to respond. She no longer surged forward when I needed her, no longer offered comfort or strength. It felt as though my body was conserving energy for something it hadn’t explained to me yet. Every morning I woke heavy and fogged, as if the world required more from me than I had to give. I told myself it was stress. Rejection did that to a wolf.

He wasn’t an alpha. He had never held rank or authority over me. But when he stood in front of the pack and rejected the bond, no one stopped him. No one corrected him. The Alpha had watched in silence, and that silence had been louder than any declaration. After that, my world shrank. I moved back into my mother’s home. Lost my standing. Lost the certainty that had once come with belonging. A rejected mate was expected to endure quietly, to heal privately, to accept what had been taken and move on. I had tried. Gods knew I had tried.

The healer, Mara, entered the room without ceremony, a tablet tucked beneath her arm. She had delivered most of the pack and stitched the rest back together. If anyone could tell me what was wrong, it was her. She studied me for a moment longer than usual before speaking.

“You’ve lost weight.”

“I don’t have much of an appetite,” I admitted.

“And the nausea?”

“In the mornings. Sometimes at night.”

Her gaze sharpened, just briefly. “Any dizziness?”

“Yes.”

She nodded, tapping a few notes into her tablet. “We’ll run some tests.” Then she hesitated and looked at me again. “Any chance you could be pregnant?”

The laugh escaped me before I could stop it. Short. Bitter. Automatic. “No.”

She didn’t argue. She simply reached for a small vial and set it on the counter. “We’ll check anyway. Just to rule it out.”

My wolf went completely still.

A rejected mate did not carry pups. That was what the pack believed. What I believed. The bond had been denied. Severed. Left bleeding and unfinished. Pregnancy wasn’t part of that story. Still, my hands trembled as I took the vial.

The bathroom was small and sterile, the mirror unforgiving. I barely recognized the wolf staring back at me. Pale. Hollowed. Older than she should have been. I finished quickly and left the sample where instructed, washing my hands longer than necessary before returning to the exam table.

Waiting stretched time into something heavy and suffocating. I focused on the sounds outside, on the rhythm of the pack, on anything but the strange tension building in my chest.

When Mara returned, she closed the door behind her.

That was my first warning.

“Avery,” she said quietly.

The word felt like an ending.

She crossed the room, set her tablet down, and met my eyes. “You’re pregnant.”

The world tilted.

“That’s not possible,” I said, even as my wolf stirred, confused and afraid. “He rejected me.”

Mara nodded slowly. “Rejection severs the bond going forward. It doesn’t undo what was already completed.”

Four to five weeks, she told me. Early. Certain. There was no question whose pup it was.

I pressed a hand to my stomach, breath shallow. He had denied me. Cast me aside. And still, something of him remained inside me, growing quietly where no one could see.

“If I stay,” I said slowly, “the pack will let him decide what happens.”

Mara didn’t deny it. “Without rank or protection, you have no leverage here.”

I looked down at myself, at the life I hadn’t known I was carrying. Then I looked back up.

“Then I won’t stay.