Chapter 2

Elena

The room had gone quiet in that specific hospital way. A monitor beeping somewhere down the corridor. And a fluorescent hum above us.

I heard my own voice ask the question before my brain caught up.

"Is he your husband?"

Sophia's hand was still flat against her stomach. She looked at me, then at Barrett, and her mouth curved. Not smug, not quite. Careful.

"This is Barrett's baby and mine."

"Shut up, Sophia."

Barrett's voice snapped across the room. Her smile froze halfway.

I should have shouted. Wept. Said something the woman I was ten minutes ago would have said.

Instead, I looked at the man who had kissed me goodbye over his coffee that morning, and I asked him, very quietly, "Is it true?"

He crossed to me in three steps.

"Elena. Sit down. Let me explain."

"Is it true?"

"It is not what you think." His hand closed around my elbow, grounding, coaxing. He used the voice that made a room settle. "Sophia is a surrogate. Artificial insemination. I never slept with her. I never touched her."

I looked down at his hand on my arm.

Sophia cleared her throat from across the desk.

"Oh. You're the Alpha's wife?"

She set both hands neatly in her lap. Posed for cameras that weren't there.

"I didn't realize he was married. To a human." She said it the way people say things at dinner parties. "Barrett and I have an understanding. I am not here to ruin a marriage, doctor. I am a career woman. I don't want a man. I want a title."

Her voice stayed light. She'd rehearsed it somewhere.

"I carry the heir. After the birth, Barrett promotes me from Press Secretary to Chief Press Secretary. He gets a healthy wolf child. I get the chair I should have had two years ago. You keep your husband. Everyone wins."

She smiled at me the way she'd smile at a camera.

"And honestly, doctor, I admire you. Not many human women would be brave enough to marry an Alpha. Most of us would worry about not measuring up."

Something in Barrett's jaw moved.

"Sophia. Out."

Sophia hesitated. Her eyes flickered between us with the sharp calculation.

Barrett didn't look at her. "Now."

"Of course." She rose slowly. "I do hope the two of you won't fight over this. I'd feel terrible."

The door closed softly behind her.

We were alone.

Barrett turned back to me. His face had softened. The mask lifting, the husband returning. He took a step closer, arms already opening to pull me in.

I stepped back.

"Don't."

"Elena."

"You promised me a baby." My voice sounded far away. Not mine. "Three years of shots. Three years of me telling myself the body pain was worth it. And you promised me."

"I am giving you a baby." He said it like it should have been obvious. "Do you understand what you have been doing to yourself? Your labs. Your body. Look at you."

"Don't make this about me."

"It has always been about you." His voice dropped. "A human carrying a wolf child can die, Elena. I was not going to let you die. Sophia looks enough like you. She is a wolf. She is healthy. She will give us a child. Ours."

Because she is a wolf.

"This is a gift," Barrett said, softer now, reading my face. "You wanted a baby. I could not let you keep trying. I built you a way out. This was supposed to be a surprise on our anniversary. I am sorry you had to find out like this."

A surprise.

I looked up at him.

For the first time in three years, my husband looked like a stranger.

"Elena." He softened again. Reached for my face.

I let him.

His palm curved along my jaw the way it had on a thousand mornings, and my body did the stupid thing bodies do. Leaned toward the warmth it recognized before the mind caught up.

I hated how much I still wanted him.

"Am I worth less than this baby?"

I said it into his chest.

He went still.

Then his hand moved to the back of my neck. Not harsh. Not kind. Firm.

"Don't be childish. The Pack needs an heir. I needed to protect you. These are not separate things, Elena."

I had heard him say this is for you maybe five hundred times. It had always warmed me.

It had never disappointed me the way it did in that room, with another woman's prenatal chart still glowing on the screen behind us.

But there was one hinge left. One thing he could still give me.

I stepped back until his hand dropped.

"If the baby isn't mine, then I need something else from you," I said. "I need you to announce me. The marriage. My Luna title. I have waited three years and I have nothing, Barrett. I don't even have the child. I just need you to say it out loud."

Something flickered in his face.

Then, slowly, he reached for me.

He wrapped me against him the way he had in our first week of marriage. One arm across my back. The other cradling my head, slow and careful. His mouth pressed into my hair.

"Elena. You have me. You have always had me."

I closed my eyes.

His breath moved warm against my skin. His thumbs traced the line of my cheekbones, and for one fragile, stupid second, hope flickered in my chest.

"But the public announcement—" He pulled back just enough to meet my eyes. "That still needs to wait a little longer."

Every muscle in my body went still.

He kept holding me. Didn't notice.