4

"It's routine," Adrian said. "Dr. Hallam wants to run a few more tests. That's all."

He said "fine" three times in the next minute. He told me to eat more protein, to sleep with the window shut, and to stop carrying my own bags. He didn't ask me one question about the scan. A man who wasn't worried would have asked something.

"Is the baby okay?"

"The baby is fine." He was already walking away.

Two days later, a card arrived on my breakfast tray, heavy and cream-coloured, with the council seal pressed into the corner. Formal gathering. Tonight. My presence is required.

* * *

The council hall smelled of beeswax and old wine. Twelve long tables, twelve families, and every head turned when I walked in. Celeste was already seated near the front. She gave me a small nod and nothing else.

I found my chair. Nobody sat next to me.

"So this is her," an old man said from the top table. Elder Haldane had white hair combed flat and a voice that carried without trying. "The surrogate."

"Nora Vance," I said.

"We know the name. We've read the file." Papers shifted. "An unsuitable woman, in my view, to carry a future Alpha. No pack standing. No family of note. A divorce a week old."

"Two weeks," I said.

Somebody laughed. It wasn't kind.

"And she lives under Alpha Blackthorne's roof," a woman called from the left. "Eats at his table. Walks his halls. Is that proper? Should a hired woman be permitted inside the estate at all?"

I kept my hands in my lap. They talked about me the way people at a market talk about a goat, how healthy, how cheap, whether it would last. A man said my hips were narrow. A woman wondered aloud if I'd even keep the child past the third month.

The back of my neck went hot. I did not look at Celeste.

When the meeting broke for wine, an older woman I didn't know came and sat in the empty chair beside mine. She was tall and thin, with silver hair pinned up and a ring on every finger.

"I'm Odile," she said. "Adrian's aunt."

"Nora."

"I know." She studied me. "Child, do you understand what you've walked into?"

"I signed a contract."

"That isn't what I asked." She lowered her voice. "Did he tell you about the first one?"

"The first what?"

"The first heir." She watched my face and saw what she needed to see. "No. Of course he didn't. Four years ago, he tried this before. It ended badly. I'll leave the rest for him to tell, if he ever has the nerve."

My mouth had gone dry. "What happened?"

"The Blackthornes lose their heirs, Nora. We always have. And there are people in this room who would sooner see my nephew die childless than see the line go on through you." She stood and smoothed her skirt. "Eat nothing you haven't watched being poured."

She walked away. I stared at the glass in front of me.

"Watch it," a voice said at my shoulder, and a whole glass of red wine landed on my dress.

It was cold. It soaked through to my skin, down my front, over my stomach. The young man holding the empty glass looked about twenty-five, with a good haircut and a grandfather's chin. Haldane's grandson. I had seen him at the top table, laughing.

"Oops," he said. "Didn't realise the rented womb was so close to the edge."

The room went quiet in pieces, one table at a time.

My eyes were burning. I felt it coming and I refused it. I picked up my napkin, folded it once, and pressed it against my dress. My hands were somehow steady.

"You've got some on your cuff," I said.

He blinked.

"Being born into a powerful family doesn't make a person respectable," I said. "It only means nobody ever told you no."

His face changed. "A rented womb doesn't lecture me about manners."

"That's enough."

Adrian stood in the doorway. I hadn't heard him come in. I don't think anyone had.

He crossed the hall without hurrying and stopped between us. His eyes went to my dress and stayed there.

"Apologise."

"To her?" The young man laughed, but it came out thin. "She's a contract, Alpha. She's not even pack."

"Apologise."

"No."

Something moved in the room that wasn't sound. The wine glasses began to turn. The candle flames leaned toward Adrian as if he'd taken the air out of everything else. My own wolf flattened against my ribs and went still. Adrian's eyes had turned gold, all the way across, with no white left in them. At the top table, Elder Haldane gripped the edge of the wood.

The young man's knees went first. He didn't kneel. He folded, one hand on the floor, his head down, and he didn't say a word. Nobody did.

I had thought I understood what Alpha meant. I hadn't.

Across the hall, Celeste watched him with both hands pressed flat on the table. She wasn't looking at the young man at all.

* * *

My room was at the far end of the east wing, and the walls were thin if you were a wolf.

"You promised me," Celeste said, somewhere down the corridor. Her voice was very low and very steady. "You promised that this would never touch us. That she would be a thing we needed and nothing more."

"Nothing's changed."

"You defended her in front of the who long silence. Then her footsteps, going away.

I lay in bed with the wine still in my hair. At some point I heard other steps, slower. They stopped outside my door and stayed there. Through the wood I heard him speak to someone. "Someone has been asking the maids about her appointments. Who, and when. Find out tonight."

He stayed another minute. I held my breath until he left.

I was nearly asleep when the pain came.

It wasn't a cramp. It was a hand closing inside me, hot and twisting, and I curled around it and couldn't make a sound. I felt the door crash open. Then I was in the air, in his arms, and his coat smelled of rain. "Stay with me, Nora," he said, in a voice I had never heard him use.

******

The pack hospital was white and loud. The physician took one look at me and turned on everyone in the corridor. "Out. Everyone out."

The door shut. I heard him speak, low, quick, meant only for the Alpha.

"Alpha, we have a serious problem. Someone has administered wolfsbane to the surrogate.”