Chapter 3

Lila's POV

The doctor came soon.

She was older, with steel-gray hair pulled back in a tight bun and hands that didn't shake. My father stood behind her in the doorway, arms folded, watching me the way a man watches something he's about to throw out.

"Please." I looked at the doctor, not at him. "Please don't do this."

She set her bag on the bed and opened it. Instruments. Gauze. A vial of something clear.

My father left the room. He didn't need to watch. He'd given the order. That was enough for him.

The doctor looked at the closed door, then at me. She pressed two fingers to my wrist, checking my pulse, and her hand lingered there.

"How far along?" she asked quietly.

"About a month."

She closed the bag.

"There's a window in the bathroom," she said. Her voice was low and even. "It's small, but you're thin enough. I'll tell them you overpowered me and escaped. "

I stared at her. "Why?"

"Because I became a doctor to save lives." She tucked the bag under her arm. "An at-home abortion could easily kill you both. But your father is too determined."

I climbed through the bathroom window in the oversized t-shirt and shorts I'd slept in, the watch pressed flat against my ribs beneath the fabric. My face was swollen. My ribs ached where my father had kicked me that morning.

The night air hit my skin. And I ran.

That's when I realized I didn't bring that watch with me. But I guess that doesn't matter anymore.

I didn't have a dollar or a phone or anyone to call.

I walked for hours along the highway shoulder, barefoot, until I found a motel with a flickering neon sign. Half the letters were burned out. The parking lot held nothing but a rusted pickup truck and a dead potted plant by the door.

But something about it gave me the courage to walk in.

The woman behind the counter looked me up and down. The bruises. The bare feet. The hand pressed against my stomach.

"We don't do charity," she said.

"I'm not asking for charity." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "I'm asking for work. Cleaning rooms, laundry, phones. Whatever you need. I'm pregnant... And packless now."

She studied me for a long time. Her jaw tightened.

Then she pulled a key off the pegboard and slid it across the counter.

"Room six. Uniform's in the closet." She jerked her chin toward the back hallway. "Breakfast is at five. Don't be late."

I picked up the key. My hand was shaking. I made it three steps before her voice stopped me.

"First aid kit's under the bathroom sink." She didn't look up from her ledger. "Help yourself to the soup in the staff fridge."

Her name was Wendy. She was a rogue — packless, mateless, no family she ever mentioned. She'd built this motel from nothing, and she ran it the way she ran everything: alone, on her own terms.

The first week, she barely spoke to me beyond work instructions. The second week, she left a bag of prenatal vitamins on my bed without a note. The third week, she sat across from me at the staff table during a thunderstorm and said, "When's the baby due?"

I told her everything. She listened without interrupting, without pity, without the look people give you when they think your life is a cautionary tale.

When I finished, she refilled my tea. "My pack threw me out when I was nineteen," she said. "Different reason. Same ending."

She shrugged. "We figure it out."

She gave me work. And when I'd earned my keep, she gave me something better. A list of community colleges that accepted packless rogues without pack references.

I had believed my whole life that the pack was my safety net. My father's name, his house, the comfort of belonging to something bigger than myself.

It was a cage. And the woman who ran a half-lit motel on the side of a highway was the first person who ever treated me like I was worth something.

Five years later, I packed my life into two suitcases and a cardboard box, heading back to the Capital pack again.

The apartment was small. One bedroom, a kitchen counter that doubled as my desk, Luca's drawings taped to every inch of the fridge. Wendy had helped me find this place when I started at the university. I'd lived here through four years of classes, a pregnancy, a birth, and three years working as a corporate assistant while raising a boy alone.

I was wearing leggings and a faded university sweatshirt with a coffee stain on the sleeve. Moving day clothes.

I folded Luca's shirts into the smaller suitcase. He sat on the bed behind me, quiet as always, watching my hands move. He was four and a half, and he had said maybe thirty words today. That was a good day.

The doctors called it a rare bloodline condition. Without his biological father nearby, part of Luca's wolf just hadn't come in right. It left him withdrawn. Not unable to speak, but reluctant.

He talked to me in short sentences. He talked to Wendy sometimes. With everyone else, he went silent.

"We're going somewhere new, bug." I kept my voice light. "Big city. New school. You'll like it."

He held his stuffed wolf tighter and didn't answer.

Luca needed his father. Not for love, not for a relationship. Just for proximity. The doctors said even limited contact with his biological parent could help his condition.

So I'm going to the Capital Pack again, where I met Luca's father, to find him.

I didn't expect the man to be decent. He'd slept with a stranger and vanished before sunrise. But I just needed him to exist somewhere I could find him. Provide just enough contact for Luca's curing process.

Some nights I still thought about him. The warmth of his chest, how my wolf had reached for his scent before I could stop her. I never let the thought stay long.

The only problem is my own wolf had gone dormant two years ago. Not dead. The pills I swallowed every morning kept her from crossing the line, but she was dormant. Silent.

The doctors said it happened to female wolves who went too long without a mate. Probably also caused by too much stress of raising a child alone too.

I'm not sure if he can recognize me because the most 'impressive' thing about that night was probably my heating scent.

My phone buzzed. Wendy.

"You watching the news?" she asked.

I glanced at the TV in the corner. A news anchor was covering the Alpha King Kael's schedule. Policy summits, charity galas, official receptions.'s schedule. Policy summits, charity galas, official receptions. The kind of events where every powerful wolf in the Capital showed their face.

"I got the interview," I said. "King Kael's office. Administrative assistant. Working that close to the King gives me access to every event in the Capital. If the mystery man moves in those circles, I'll find him."

"Good." Wendy paused. "Lila. Look at the screen."

I looked. The camera had cut to a close-up of King Kael. Dark hair, hard jaw, eyes that cut straight through the camera.

Luca slid off the bed and stood in front of the television. He tilted his head the way he always did when something caught his attention.

"Mommy." His voice was soft. "He looks like me."

I almost dropped the suitcase.

Wendy's voice came through the phone, dry and careful. "I was going to say the same thing."