Chapter 5

Orion 's POV

"I'm sorry Lily was so much trouble for you."

Celeste was crying, quiet and steady. "Once she's out of the exam room, you should go home. I can handle her on my own."

I nodded, but my head wasn't in the room.

I was still thinking about what Elara had said.

Truth was, I'd been meaning to go in for Mia's compatibility test for a while. Things kept getting in the way—Lily's situation, one crisis piling onto the next. Then Elara told me they'd found a matching donor, and I'd figured that had bought us time.

Now she was telling me the marrow had been taken.

Who in the hell would pull something like that? Who would go after my daughter's match?

Frankly, my human mate has never been the sharpest tool in the shed—she panics at the drop of a hat and has a habit of bending the truth. I couldn't help but wonder if she was feeding me a line right now.

I said a few words to Celeste and stepped out of the exam room, pulling out my phone to reach Director Raymond—

And ran almost directly into Dr. Landon.

"Mr. Whitemoon." He fell into step beside me. "Lily's transplant prep is finalized. We're ready whenever her family gives the go-ahead."

I told him to coordinate with Celeste—she was Lily's mother. The timing was hers to decide.

As he turned to go, something stopped me.

"Do you know a patient named Mia? Four-year-old girl."

Landon was the best hematologist in the hospital. It was a reasonable guess that he'd have her on his caseload.

He paused. "Of course. She's mine. Is something wrong?"

"Someone apparently took her marrow—"

Before I could finish, the exam room door burst open.

Celeste came through it in tears, one hand pressed to her mouth. "Orion—Lily just collapsed. She started bleeding from her nose—she was sitting right there and she just—"

Landon moved past both of us. "Don't panic. Let me look at her."

I took hold of Celeste's shoulders and told her to breathe. Landon knew what he was doing. "Lily is tough. She'll come through this."

A few minutes later, Landon came back out. His expression had gone careful.

"Lily needs to go into surgery now. Which of you is signing the consent?"

I tilted my head toward Celeste.

At least we were already here. At least everything was already in place. Some version of luck, if you could call it that.

I exhaled.

* * *

Elara's POV

Mia and I made it back to the apartment. I hung up my coat by the door.

My phone rang.

Veronica—Orion's sister. The woman had never once tried to disguise how little she thought of me.

Whenever she called, it was either to pick a fight or to put me to work.

I answered anyway.

"Do you have any idea what time it is? Are you dead?" Her voice rattled the speaker. "Margaret's birthday is tomorrow. Are you planning to have the guests eat off bare floors?"

Right. Tomorrow was Margaret's birthday—Orion's mother, former Luna of the White Moon Pack. Every year she invited the nobility of every major pack to celebrate at the White Moon Estate, and every year I was responsible for cleaning the full twenty acres of grounds and preparing all of the food. Start to finish—fifty hours of solid work without a break.

I wasn't going this time.

"I won't be there," I said. "If you don't trust the maids to handle it, you can do it yourself."

"I'm sorry—what?" The shock in her voice was genuine. I don't think it had ever once crossed her mind that I might refuse. "Have you completely lost it, Elara?"

I took a breath and repeated myself, calm and clear. "I said I won't be going. Not this time. Not anymore."

She was still yelling when I ended the call.

Mia gave me a solemn thumbs-up.

I laughed. First real one in a while.

I got her into the bath, dried off, into bed. We talked in low voices—the kind of conversation that only happens between a mother and daughter in the dark—until she drifted off against my shoulder.

Then Orion called.

I slipped out to the hallway, slid the door shut behind me, and answered.

I could feel the leashed tension in the silence before he spoke.

"Veronica says you refused to help." His voice had dropped to that controlled, deliberate register. "I need an explanation."

I had actually thought, for a moment, that he might be calling about Mia.

Just Veronica running to him. Of course.

My hand was cold. My chest was colder.

I knew it wouldn't change anything. But the words came out anyway.

"Five years, Orion. Every single one of those birthdays—you know how big that estate is? Did you ever ask? They won't let me use a vacuum or a floor machine. That three-hundred-square-foot rug in the main hall, I scrub it by hand. Every inch. Three days straight sometimes, no sleep. Your mother and your sister come through afterwards and if there's so much as one speck of dust anywhere, I start over from scratch."

"And it's not just the birthday. Every month. Every single month, they call me in for a full clean, when there are perfectly capable Omegas and staff right there. They claim they don't trust the others. They want me."

Just saying it out loud put a weight on my chest like a stone. "Orion. I'm done."

He wasn't going to feel sorry for me. I knew that going in.

I was saying it for myself, mostly.

I moved to hang up.

After a beat of silence, he spoke.

"Okay. If you don't want to go, don't go."

My finger stalled on the end-call button.

That was a first. He had never let me off the hook. Not once, not ever, in five years.

I let out a short, hollow laugh.

Celeste's influence, no doubt. She'd softened some edges in him that nothing else had ever touched.

"Just show up tomorrow," he said. "I have things to deal with, so I'll arrive late. Take Mia and go on ahead."

Then he hung up.

God, I was exhausted.

But it was almost over. The end was already in sight.

I didn't want to pick any more fights before the paperwork went through.

I'd go tomorrow.

One last family appearance. And then I was done.

Three days. Three more days.