Chapter 10: The Lobby

We should have taken the private elevator.

We didn't.

Alexander tried. He pressed 87-P-Lobby-Private. I pressed Lobby.

"I am not hiding him," I said, holding Leo's hand so tight my knuckles went white. "Not anymore. You made me hide in the snow. We are going through the lobby."

Alexander looked at Leo's curls — still covering the crescent, barely — and at my white wool coat, and understood.

His hand hovered over the button. Then he moved it to Lobby.

"As you wish, Luna," he whispered.

The elevator dropped. 87 floors. Same drop as five years ago when I bled.

Only this time I wasn't bleeding. I was holding a four-year-old boy with AB negative blood who stopped cranes when he was mad.

Ding. Lobby.

Thorne Tower lobby at 10:30 a.m. is Wall Street rush hour. 200 humans, 50 wolves, cameras, press — because Thorne Port contract renewal is today and Bloomberg was live-streaming.

The doors opened.

And everyone saw us.

Alexander Thorne, Lycan King, in a $10,000 suit, holding the hand of a four-year-old boy who looked exactly like him. And next to him, a woman in white wool — not Elena Stone in red.

Seraphina Romano.

Whispers exploded like gunfire.

"Who is that child?"

"Is that Thorne's son?"

"That mark — behind his ear —"

A Bloomberg camera swung toward us. Red light blinking. Live.

Alexander could have run. He could have used his private exit. Instead, he did something no one had seen him do in five years.

He picked up Leo.

In front of 250 people, in front of live cameras, the billionaire Lycan King who had rejected his fated mate on the 87th floor picked up a small boy with a crescent mark and held him like he was made of gold.

Leo didn't cry. He put his small hands on Alexander's face and said, very loudly, because four-year-olds don't know what microphones are:

"Are you my daddy?"

The lobby went silent. Even the fountain stopped sounding.

Alexander looked at Leo. Then at me. Then at the camera with the blinking red light.

He made a choice that would burn the Northern Pack, burn the Stone Pack alliance, burn five years of Elena's lies.

"Yes," he said into the microphone, voice carrying across marble. "I am your daddy."

Flashbulbs exploded.

"Mr. Thorne! Is this your heir? Is this AB negative?" a reporter shouted.

"Is that the crescent mark? Royal birthmark?"

"Where is Miss Stone? Is the Stone engagement off?"

"Who is the mother? Is she human?"

Alexander didn't answer them. He looked at me, Leo on his hip, AB negative, crescent glowing under lobby lights.

"Seraphina Romano," he said, and this time he said it into the microphone. So all of Manhattan could hear. So the Elder Council could hear. So my mother could hear if she was watching Bloomberg. "Five years ago I rejected my fated mate in a snowstorm. I called her a stray. I let her leave Manhattan with $43 in her bank account."

He stepped closer to me. Leo reached for me from his arms. I took his other hand. We stood there — broken family, white coat, black suit, four-year-old between us.

"Today she came back with my son. And today I am going to do what I should have done on the 87th floor."

He went to one knee.

Not to Leo. To me.

In the middle of Thorne Tower lobby, in front of live cameras, in front of 250 witnesses, the Lycan King knelt in the same slush position as five years ago — but this time not in snow, in marble, and not to let me go.

To ask me to stay.

"Seraphina Romano," he whispered, but the microphone picked it up, "Will you —"

The lobby doors burst open.

Elena Stone walked in. No fake belly now. Red dress ripped. Behind her, five Elder Council members in black robes.

"STOP THIS BLASPHEMY!" Elder Rowan roared. "That child is a half-breed! That woman is human! The King cannot —"

Leo's crescent mark, exposed by lobby lights, suddenly burned white-hot.

And Leo, four years old, AB negative, royal heir who stopped cranes when he was mad, looked at Elder Rowan and said one word with full Alpha command that shouldn't be possible at four:

"STOP."

Every wolf in the lobby — including Alexander — dropped to t

heir knees.

Except me.

Because I was dormant no more.

My white wolf finally howled out loud.