The Council's Demand

Three days passed.

Three days of breakfast trays and afternoon walks with Lila. Three days of avoiding Kael and failing. He was everywhere — in the hallway at midnight, in the garden at dawn, in the doorway of the library when I thought I was alone.

He never spoke.

Just watched.

Like he was waiting for something.

I didn't ask what.

---

On the fourth morning, Marta woke me before sunrise.

"Alpha requests your presence in the great hall," she said. Her voice was tight. "The council has arrived."

"The council?"

"Pack council. Seven elders. They come once a season to review Alpha's decisions." She paused. "They heard about the pregnancy."

My blood went cold.

"Who told them?"

Marta's face flickered. "Someone always tells them, miss. This house has ears."

---

The great hall was on the first floor.

I'd walked past it a dozen times. Heavy wooden doors. Iron handles. The smell of old meetings and older secrets.

This morning, the doors were open.

Seven people sat around a long oak table. Old. All of them. Gray hair and gray eyes and gray expressions. They looked at me like I was a bug under glass.

Kael stood at the head of the table.

He was wearing black. Formal. His jaw was set. His hands were behind his back.

When I walked in, his eyes found mine.

Stay calm, they said. Stay quiet.

I didn't plan on doing either.

---

"Elara Vance." The woman at the far end spoke first. Silver hair. A scar across her left cheek. "Omega of the Fellshadow Pack. Age twenty-two. No surviving parents. One younger sister, age eight."

"I know who I am."

Her lips thinned. "Impudent."

"Hungry," I corrected. "There's a difference."

Someone at the table coughed. Kael's expression didn't change.

"The council has reviewed your contract," Scarface continued. "Clause 7 is clear. If you carry a male heir with Alpha genetic markers, the child belongs to this pack. Not to you."

"I read Clause 7."

"Then you understand the situation."

"I understand that Clause 7 was written by a dead woman who was afraid of something she didn't name." I looked at Kael. "What I don't understand is why no one's told me what she was afraid of."

Silence.

The kind of silence that lives in graveyards.

Kael spoke first. "Leave us."

"Alpha —" one of the elders started.

"I said leave."

They left.

Chairs scraping. Footsteps fading. The great hall doors closing with a sound like a coffin lid.

And then it was just me and Kael and the empty table.

---

"You shouldn't have said that."

"Why? Because it's true?"

Kael moved closer. His footsteps were silent on the stone floor. "Because now they know you're a threat."

"A threat to what?"

"To everything." He stopped in front of me. Close enough that I could see the shadows under his eyes. He hadn't been sleeping either. "My mother wrote Clause 7 because she was carrying a child like yours. Two souls. Two heartbeats. She was afraid of what the council would do if they found out."

"What did they do?"

Kael's throat moved. "They wanted to take the baby. Cut it out of her. Study it."

I couldn't breathe.

"She ran. Hid in the mountains for three months. My father found her. Brought her back. Promised to protect her." His voice dropped. "He couldn't. The council had already decided. The baby would be theirs. Not hers. Not his."

"What happened to the baby?"

Kael looked at me.

Gray eyes.

Empty.

"I happened," he said. "I was the baby. And my mother died three months after I was born. Not from complications. From what the council did to her while they were 'studying' me."

---

I sat down.

The floor was cold. I didn't care.

"You're telling me the council murdered your mother."

"I'm telling you the council doesn't care about mothers. They care about power. And a child with two souls — a child like me, a child like yours — is the ultimate power."

"My child isn't a weapon."

"Tell them that." Kael crouched in front of me. His face was level with mine. "Tell the seven people who just walked out of this room that your baby is just a baby. See if they believe you."

I wanted to argue.

I couldn't.

Because I'd seen their faces. The hunger underneath the gray expressions. The way Scarface had looked at my stomach.

Not at me.

At what was inside me.

---

"What do I do?"

Kael reached out. His hand hovered near my face. Didn't touch.

"Trust me."

"Trust you? You gave me a contract with a hidden clause. You locked me in this house. You —"

"I gave you a contract to protect you." His voice cracked. Just slightly. Just enough. "The council wanted to claim you the moment you crossed pack lands. Clause 7 was the only thing that kept them from taking you to their facility."

"Facility?"

Kael closed his eyes.

"There's a place. Underground. The council calls it the Nursery. They take surrogates there. Pregnant omegas. Ones carrying 'special' children." His hand dropped. "No one comes out."

I thought of Lila.

Of her bedtime stories.

Of the way she'd asked if I was okay.

"I want to go home."

"You can't."

"I want my sister."

"She's safe in the guest house. Marta won't let anyone near her."

"I want —" My voice broke. "I want this to not be happening."

Kael's hand found mine.

Warm.

Calloused.

Holding on like I was the only thing keeping him standing.

"I know," he said. "I know."

---

Someone knocked on the great hall doors.

Kael stood. Pulled me up with him. Didn't let go of my hand.

"Enter."

The doors opened.

Scarface stood in the doorway. Alone.

"Alpha," she said. "The council has reached a decision."

"Already?"

"We don't need time to deliberate when the matter is clear." Her eyes slid to me. To my stomach. To Kael's hand wrapped around mine. "The omega will be transferred to the Nursery at the end of her first trimester. For her safety and the child's."

"Denied."

"This isn't a request, Alpha. The council has the authority to —"

"The council has authority because I give it to them." Kael's voice was ice. Colder than I'd ever heard. "I am the Alpha of this pack. Not you. Not them. Me. And I say she stays."

Scarface smiled.

It was the worst thing I'd seen all morning.

"The council expected you to say that, Alpha. Which is why we've already filed a challenge."

"A challenge?"

"Your leadership. Your right to this pack. Your claim to the omega and her child." She tilted her head. "The hearing is in three days. If you lose, everything — and everyone — belongs to us."

She left.

The doors closed.

And Kael's hand tightened around mine.

---

"That's bad," I said.

"Yes."

"How bad?"

He looked at me. Gray eyes. No cracks now. Just steel.

"If I lose, they take you. They take Lila. They take the baby. And there's nothing I can do to stop them."

"Can you win?"

He didn't answer.

And that was the worst part.

---

That night, I didn't sleep.

I sat in the window seat and watched the gardens turn dark. Somewhere below, a wolf howled. Lonely. Lost.

The hallway light was on.

But for the first time since I'd arrived, it didn't make me feel safe.

I heard footsteps outside my door.

Not Kael's.

Too light. Too quick.

They stopped.

Then kept going.

And I couldn't shake the feeling that someone had been listening.