Chapter 1

Elena

"You need to stop the ovulation shots."

Dr. Marin said it the way she always said hard things. Flat. Clinical. No room to argue.

I sat cross-legged on the exam table in my hospital scrubs, wedding ring on a chain tucked under my collar where it always lived. I smiled at her anyway. I was the doctor here. I'd written the prescription myself.

"One more round," I said. "I've got a good feeling about this one."

"Elena." She set the chart on her knee. "Look at your labs. You're wrecking your adrenals. Human bodies were not built to carry a wolf."

I did look. I'd read those numbers for three years.

I knew what they meant the way other doctors knew what a fever spike meant. But I was the patient now, and patients believed things they shouldn't.

"I'm fine."

Dr. Marin folded her arms across her white coat and pinned me with that motherly stare of hers. "Who is he, honey."

She'd asked me the same question once a month for three years. I'd never answered.

Today, for no reason I could name, I wanted to.

My hand drifted to the flat of my stomach.

The answer to her question was Barrett.

Alpha of the Ironbound Pack. Broad shoulders, black hair, a voice that dropped half an octave when he said my name. The man the city pages called the rising wolf of the east.

He had been my husband for three years.

Nobody knew. The Pack wasn't ready for a human Luna. He'd told me that on our wedding night, and again on our first anniversary, and again on our second.

The old families still muttered about bloodlines. Ironbound was climbing, and an Alpha with a human wife was a crack in the climb.

So we kept it quiet. I kept my last name on my hospital ID and my ring under my scrubs. He kept a private calendar just for us. Late dinners. Locked doors. My body tucked into his at four in the morning.

He was still mine.

Three years was enough to know him. The way he stirred his coffee clockwise. The way he laughed through his nose at my jokes about pack politics. The way he stood in front of me in crowded elevators so no stranger could bump my shoulder.

I had catalogued those things like evidence.

I was still the luckiest woman in this city.

The only thing missing was our baby.

Today I was going to fix that. I should’ve been home. Third anniversary. Our dinner at seven. The dress he liked was already laid out on the bed.

Three was a lucky number.

"Elena." Dr. Marin's voice had gone soft. "Whoever he is, I hope he knows you're burning yourself out for him."

"He does."

She sighed. "Go on. Take this file to Dr. Park for me, then go home. I don't want to see you on this floor after two."

"You're not sorry for me at all," I said. "You just want a free errand."

She laughed, because it was partly true. "You are the best doctor on this floor. Also the most exhausted. Go."

I took the file.

The corridor between the OB wing and radiology was long and over-lit, the kind of hall where the fluorescents hummed louder than the people. I shifted my lab coat on my shoulders and pulled out my phone.

I'm ready for tonight.

I sent it to Barrett before I could overthink it. I was still smiling at the screen when I looked up.

At the far end of the hall, near the stairwell door, a tall man was leaning against the wall.

Black hair. Broad shoulders. One hand resting low on the back of a woman in a navy blazer.

My chest did something strange.

I took a step forward, and the two of them turned into the stairwell. The door clicked shut.

I stared at the door.

Barrett was at the Pack offices all day. Ironbound was finalizing the Vitalis Corp deal; the whole building was locked down in meetings. He would not be at a hospital.

My phone buzzed.

Something came up with the partnership. Meetings all day — I’m stuck here until tonight. Just stay home and wait for me, okay? Tomorrow is yours. The whole day. I promise.

I breathed out. Of course it wasn't him. Every wolf in this city had broad shoulders. Every building downtown was full of men in dark suits. I was tired and seeing things.

I tucked the phone away and walked faster.

Dr. Marin took the file without looking up from her desk. "Good girl. Go."

"I'm not going. Date's canceled." I dropped into the chair beside her desk. "He's working."

Her face did that careful thing where she tried not to look disappointed on my behalf.

"Don't," I said. "Just let me sit here and feel professional."

"Fine." She tapped her tablet awake. "I have a board call in five minutes anyway. Cover my one o'clock for me. First prenatal, standard panel, heartbeat, two-minute answer, wave goodbye. Can you manage?"

"I'm the best doctor on this floor, remember?"

"Brat." She was already halfway out the door.

I used the quiet to steady my hands.

Three years of hormone shots had hollowed me out in ways nobody but Dr. Marin could see. My nails were ridged. My hair broke off in the shower. Some mornings my heart raced for no reason and I had to sit on the bathroom floor with my head between my knees until it passed.

I had never told Barrett any of it. He already worried about me being human.

I was a doctor. I knew the long road. I could walk it.

A knock.

"Come in."

The door opened.

The woman who walked in was tall, dark-haired, in a navy blazer and cream blouse. I recognized her from half the city's front pages before I recognized her in my doorway.

Sophia.

Barrett's press secretary. The one who stood at his shoulder during every Ironbound briefing. Sharp profile, straight spine, the same look of controlled competence she'd worn on every podium I'd watched from our bed.

I'd envied her once, in my first year of marriage. Her proximity, not her job. I'd talked myself out of it by year two.

We both paused.

"Dr. Halloran?"

"Sophia." I stood. I kept my voice pleasant, doctor-voice, the one I used for wives whose husbands wouldn't look at the ultrasound screen. "Dr. Marin had to step out. Please, sit. First prenatal?"

She sat. Crossed her ankles. Rested one hand flat against her stomach in a gesture I had practiced, alone, for three years.

My eyes went to her hand.

"Yes," Sophia said. "First prenatal."

I pulled her chart onto the desk and made my fingers type her name. Single on her intake form. No partner listed. No emergency contact except her own mother.

"And your partner?" I asked, the way I asked every woman. "Is he joining us today?"

Something moved on Sophia's face — not a flinch, not quite a smile. A pause. The kind lawyers take before deciding how much truth a client can handle.

"He said he'd try."

My fingers stilled on the keys.

The door opened a second time.

No knock.

I looked up.

Barrett.

Black suit, loose tie, hair damp at the edges like he had just climbed a flight of stairs. His eyes found me first. Then they stopped.

The warmth drained out of his face.

"Elena."

My hand was still hovering over Sophia's chart.

My stomach went cold.