CHAPTER FIVE: Two Lines

Gavin POV

Gideon Brandt has been talking, on and off, since this afternoon, and he hasn't finished

his coffee.

He sits across my desk with a legal pad on his knee and a pen he doesn't use. Sixty-one

years old, gray at the temples, a man who has never raised his voice in a meeting and has

never lost one. I have known him since I was twelve. I have never once seen him hurry.

"Six people on the household staff," he says. "Minimum. A night nurse. A dietitian, not

the clinic's, one of ours. Ninety grams of protein a day in the second trimester."

"Fine."

"The pup is going to be the first Alpha heir born in this territory in thirty years. People

are going to watch how she's treated." He turns a page I don't think has anything on it.

"And I'd like it understood how that will look. A woman carrying the heir of this pack,

living in a guest room. Under a Luna who has, forgive me, shown very little interest in

her."

"Lena has shown interest."

"Lena is frightened of her." I rub my eyes. It's past midnight. I haven't slept in two days, and my head has been

pounding behind the left eye since the hospital. My phone is in my pocket, with Lena's

phone under it, a weight against my hip I keep forgetting about.

"There's a council meeting in the spring," Gideon says. "Four of the elders are prepared to

support a petition. If it were presented properly. If the Alpha showed some leadership."

"A petition for what?"

"You know for what."

I put both hands flat on the desk. "No."

"Gavin. Think about the position you're in. My daughter is the right match. She's trained.

She's tough, she's smart, she's respected in the ranks. She's carrying your son. And your

Luna is—" He stops, chooses the word with care. "Gentle. Which is a fine thing. In a

different pack, in a different century. But she's too fragile to bear a strong heir, and every

one of us knows it. You know it. The pack's stability depends on—"

"Sloane is my friend."

He looks up.

"I mean it. She's been at my side for six years. She's covered my back. I'll take

responsibility for the pup, because it's mine, and that's the end of it." I keep my voice

level. "But there's nothing between us except that. Friendship. Comradeship. I'm not

going to say it again."

"Then you're making this very difficult for her."

"I know." "For all of us."

"Lena is the only Luna this pack has. She'll be the only Luna this pack has when you're

dead and I'm dead." I stand. "I think we're finished."

Gideon puts the pen down.

It's then that the hair on the back of my neck stands up.

I don't have a word for it. My wolf has been quiet all day, the way he's quiet when he's

angry and has decided not to show it. Now he's on his feet. He doesn't growl. He just goes

still, and then he starts to pace, and the pacing is in my chest, in my ribs, under the skin.

Every muscle in my back tightens.

Lena.

I can't say how I know it. I never could. In five years of marriage there have been three

times I knew, and every time I was right: the day she fell off the ladder in the garage, the

night of the car, the morning her tests came back clear. The same pressure behind the

breastbone. The same sense of a door standing open somewhere.

"Gavin?" Gideon says.

I'm already moving. I take the study door, I take the hall, and I take the stairs two at a

time with Gideon calling after me, and "We haven't finished," and then something about

the council.

The suite door is open. It shouldn't be. I locked it from the app at one fourteen. I stop in the corridor with my

hand on the frame and look at the green panel, and the green panel looks back at me,

and the room behind it is dark.

I flip the light.

"Lena?"

Nobody answers.

The bed's made. The carpet by the foot of it is soaked in a patch the size of a desk, dark

and spreading. A white plastic basin lies on its side near the nightstand. By the window

the felt moons she sewed with Marta are in a row, damp.

I check the bathroom. The tub, the shower, the cabinet. I check the closet. The duffel's

gone from the top shelf. Two hangers swing on the rail.

"Lena." Louder. "Lena!"

On the dresser, next to the cafeteria cup I left there this afternoon, is her ring.

I pick it up. It's still warm from the lamp, or I'm making that up. I stand with it in my

palm and I can't make my hand close.

I search every room. The laundry, the gym, the guest rooms. Her car is in the garage. Her

coat is in the front hall. I walk the lawn with a flashlight, shouting her name until the

dogs in the kennel start up.

She's run away. I know it, standing in the kitchen with my hands shaking. This is to force

me to choose. To make me come after her and say what she wants me to say, in front of the pack, in front of Gideon. She's never done it. Not once. But she asked me for a divorce

this afternoon, and I said no, and this is what comes next.

I call Elias.

He's my Gamma. He picks up on the second ring. "Alpha."

"The Luna's gone. Find out how."

"Give me an hour."

"You have thirty minutes."

I go back up. I can't stay anywhere else. I stand in the middle of the room with the lights

on, and I breathe in.

The room smells of her. Jasmine and warm cotton. I stand in it.

Elias is back in twenty-six minutes. He stands in the doorway with a tablet held against

his chest, and when I say, "Speak," he doesn't.

"Elias."

"There's footage from the east corridor." He turns it toward me. "Alpha, I'd like you to sit."

"Talk."

He talks.

The intercom log shows one call to the front desk at 6:41 p.m. from this suite. Rourke

picked up. She asked for water and food. The call ends. There are nine more attempts after that, none answered. At 6:44 there's a camera still of the east corridor, empty. No

guard went to the door. No one brought a bottle of water. At 7:30 she stopped calling.

"She was silent for hours," Elias says. "No movement on the inside camera. The sensor

on the bedroom floor shows weight, no motion, from about eight."

"She was asleep."

He doesn't say anything.

"Elias."

"I think she fainted, Alpha."

It goes quiet in my head.

I don't remember crossing the room. I'm in the hall with Elias's collar in my hand before

I realize it, and I hear myself say, "Who was on the front desk?"

"Rourke."

"Get him."

Rourke comes up in six minutes with two guards. He's got his uniform jacket zipped to

the chin and a look on his face I have seen on a thousand men who know. He stops three

feet from me. He doesn't meet my eye.

"Alpha."

"She asked you for water." "I—" He swallows. "She did. Yes. I thought—"

"You thought."

"The Luna had angered you, Alpha. In front of the pack. When you locked her in, I

thought—" He's talking to my shoes. "I thought it was an order. That she wasn't to have

anything. That you wanted her to learn."

I hit the wall. Not him, the wall. The plaster gives. Rourke flinches so hard he almost sits.

"She's the Luna." My voice isn't loud. That's what frightens him. "Whatever she did.

Whatever I said. She is the Luna of this pack, and you are a guard on a night shift, and

you do not decide she goes without water. You don't decide that. You don't get to decide

that."

"Alpha, please—"

"The cells."

"Alpha—"

"Take him. Don't let him call anyone."

They take him. His boots drag on the floor.

Sloane comes in ten minutes later. She's in sweats and a silk scarf, tied high around her

neck. The house is warm. I notice that, and I don't think about it. She stands in the

doorway with her arms folded and her eyes red, and she looks at the wet carpet, and she

looks at me.

"I heard," she says. "Gavin. I'm so sorry." "Were you in here?"

She hesitates. Just long enough.

"Yes." She presses her hand to her mouth. "Around midnight. I couldn't sleep. I came to

check on her, because I felt terrible about this morning, and I—she was on the floor.

Unconscious. I thought she was hurt. I got water and I tried to wake her."

"You poured water on her."

"I was frightened. I didn't know what else to do." She breathes in. "She woke up. And she

was confused, Gavin. She was so angry. She said she'd hate us both forever. She said

things about the pup. I don't want to repeat them. She said she hoped—" Her voice

cracks. "I left. I thought she needed time. I never thought she'd just leave. The whole

pack. You."

I look at her for a long moment.

She's crying. I believe the crying. I don't know what else I believe.

"Lena wouldn't say that," I say.

"People say all sorts of things when they're hurt, Gavin."

After a while she goes out, and Elias goes with her, and I'm alone with the lamp.

I sit on the edge of the bed. I put my elbows on my knees.

Lena doesn't curse. She never has. In five years I have heard her angry maybe twice.

When the whole table turned on her over Pryce's toast, when the Beta's wife said that thing about her parents, she went white and silent and said thank you. I'd find her

afterward in the pantry with a hand over her mouth. I'd say, I'll fix it. I'd say, whatever

you want. And I'd buy something. And she'd smile and say it was fine.

I did that. Every single time.

I get out my phone to call someone and I see the screen. Three missed calls from my

wife, last night. And a text, 9:12 p.m., unread.

Please come back. I need to tell you something.

I read it four times. At 9:12 last night I was in a hospital room, holding a cup of coffee,

watching Sloane's heart rate on a screen. I felt my phone buzz. I didn't look.

There's a faint glimmer of green behind the lamp.

I reach over. It's a box, small, white, with a green ribbon. It's been pushed back against

the wall where somebody set it down in a hurry. The tissue paper's coming loose at one

corner. I saw her holding it on the driveway, in the green dress, against her chest.

I remember thinking, What is that? I remember thinking, Later.

I untie the ribbon. My fingers are slow.

Under the tissue is a pregnancy test.

I turn it over.

Two lines. I don't breathe. I read it again. I hold it under the lamp and tilt it in case the light's wrong.

Two. Pink, clear, no mistake.

Pregnant. Lena is pregnant.

She stood in front of me in this room. She said it. She said, I'm pregnant too, and I said,

Don't joke, sweetheart.

The phone's in my hand. I'm already dialing.

"Elias." My voice cracks in the middle. "Every team. Every road out of the territory, every

bus station, every motel. Pull the traffic cameras. Call the clinic. I want her found,

tonight. She's pregnant. Alone. On foot. Find her."

"Alpha—"

"Bring her back," I say. "Whatever it costs.”