3

I had practised my face in the taxi. Calm, polite, nothing a jealous woman could use against me.

I didn't need it. Celeste came down the front steps of the Blackthorne estate in her socks and took my suitcase out of my hand before I could argue.

"You must be tired. Come in. Marta made lemon cake, and I told her you'd want two slices, so please don't make me a liar."

I followed her through a hall as wide as Mama's whole street. She introduced me to everyone we passed, the cook, two maids, a gardener who took off his cap. "This is Nora. She's staying with us. Be kind to her.” I said thank you to everybody, twice.

At the end of the east corridor she stopped with her hand on a door and looked at me like a child holding a secret.

"I wasn't going to show you yet. I can't wait."

The nursery was yellow, the warm kind, like butter. It had been painted by hand. I could see brush marks near the window. A white cot stood in the corner, and a row of tiny cardigans hung beside it, some blue, some pink, tags still on. Above the cot, in soft grey letters, somebody had painted two names.

"Elias if it's a boy. Elara if it's a girl." Celeste laughed. "I've had them picked since I was twenty-six. I kept changing them every year, and then one year I stopped."

I looked at the tags. The ink on one had faded to brown, and a price sticker on a pair of socks had curled at the corner like old paper.

She hadn't made this room for my baby. She had made it for hers, years ago, and I had walked into the middle of it.

"It's beautiful," I said.

* * *

Dinner was at a table that sat twenty. Three of us used one end.

Adrian pulled Celeste's chair out before she reached for it. He poured her wine without asking, half a glass, the dry red, and set the bottle down on his left so she couldn't get to it. Then he looked at her plate.

"You haven't eaten."

"I had cake."

"Cake isn't dinner." He moved a piece of fish onto her plate and waited. She rolled her eyes and picked up her fork.

Halfway through the main course, she pressed two fingers to her temple. She hadn't said a word. Adrian already had his phone at his ear. "Dr. Lowe, it's Blackthorne. She has the headache again."

"It's nothing," Celeste said.

"Then he'll tell me it's nothing."

I looked at my soup. None of this was my business. I was a room they were renting for nine months. Adrian hadn't looked at me once since we sat down, and I told myself that was a relief.

Celeste put down her fork when the plates were cleared. She reached across the table and touched the back of my hand, lightly, the way you touch someone on a bus.

"Nora, can I ask you for one thing? Just one."

"Of course."

"Promise me you won't get attached to the baby."

She said it kindly, like asking me to pass the salt. The room went quiet. A maid with dessert stopped in the doorway and stepped back out. I could have said yes. I was good at easy answers. I had given Derek five years of them.

"I can promise to respect the contract," I said. "I can't promise not to love a child I'm carrying for nine months."

Her smile didn't fade. It went, all at once, as if somebody had turned off a lamp. She took her hand back.

"Celeste," Adrian said.

"I only asked."

"She's entitled to what she feels." He said it to Celeste, not to me, and his voice was level. "We can't ask her to feel nothing."

"That isn't what the contract says."

"It's still hers."

Nobody spoke. Celeste turned the stem of her glass one full circle, and then another. When she looked up, the smile was back, but it sat on her face carefully. "Of course. I'm sorry, Nora. That wasn't fair of me."

"It's all right."

It wasn't. It was the first time I had seen the two of them disagree, and I was the reason. I went to bed that night with the taste of lemon cake still in my mouth.

* * *

The first scan was six weeks later, in a clinic in the lower part of the house. It smelled of mint and floor cleaner. Celeste had a bad migraine, so Adrian came instead. He stood by the door with his arms folded like a man guarding it.

Dr. Hallam squeezed cold gel across my stomach. "You may feel a little pressure."

The screen showed a grey storm, and in the middle of it, a small flicker. The sound came on. It was fast and light, like a bird knocking on glass.

I laughed. I didn't mean to. My eyes were wet, and I turned my face to the wall.

That was when my wolf woke up.

She had been quiet since the transfer. Now she stretched, and warmth ran right through my middle.

The heartbeat changed.

It slowed, got louder, steadier, and it didn't sound like a bird anymore. It sounded like something answering.

Dr. Hallam's hand stopped moving. He looked at the screen, then at me, then at the screen. "Miss Vance, take a breath for me. Try to relax."

I did. My wolf rolled over and settled.

He pressed the wand to the same place. The sound came back.

"Has anyone in your family," he said carefully, "ever talked about a bond with an unborn pup? A mother, a grandmother? Anything like it?"

"A what?" I wiped my face. "My mother's in a hospital bed with a bad heart. That's all my family has ever had."

Adrian's phone rang before he could say more.

He looked at the screen and stepped into the corridor. I couldn't see him, but I'm a wolf, and I heard every word. "Who told them? ... When? ... No. I'll come myself." He came back in and shut the door.

"The council knows," he said to the room.

"Knows what?" I asked.

"That my heir is coming from a surrogate."

"Is that bad?"

He didn't answer, so I knew.

Dr. Hallam wiped the gel off me and went to wash his hands. Through the gap in the curtain, I saw him catch Adrian by the sleeve and pull him into the corner. He kept his voice low. It didn't matter.

"Alpha, there's something wrong. The pup isn't just responding to her heartbeat. It's responding to her wolf.”