Chapter 2

AURORA

I waited until the house got quiet before I went looking for Dylan again, telling myself I just wanted the truth. Really, I wanted him to fix it. I wanted him to look me in the eyes and say it was all just a huge misunderstanding, that Ivy meant nothing to him, and the word "engagement" didn’t mean what I thought it meant.

I found him in his room, alone this time, and I shut the door behind me before my nerves could talk me out of it.

"We need to talk…" I said. My voice shook on the word "talk." I hated that it did.

Dylan looked up from whatever he was reading and set the paper down slowly, like he was buying himself time. "Aurora—"

"Is it true?" I cut in. "Is the engagement real?"

He didn't answer right away, and that was answer enough. I felt my whole body go cold, but I kept standing there because I still had one card left to play, one thing that definitely had to make a difference.

"Dylan, just say something," I said. "Anything. Tell me I'm wrong."

"I'm not going to lie to you," he said, finally meeting my eyes. "Not about this."

"So it is true."

"It's complicated."

"It's a yes or no question!" I snapped, my voice breaking even more. 

Then I took a deep breath and said the magic words that were supposed to fix everything. "I'm pregnant.”

I watched his face when I said it. For half a second, I saw an emotion behind his eyes. I didn’t know if it looked like fear or even surprise, but I held onto it like it meant something.

Then it was gone.

"That doesn't change anything," he said quietly.

"What?" I whispered.

"I've already made my choice, Aurora. It's Ivy. The alliance with her family is not just about me anymore, it's about the whole pack. My father's been planning this for months."

"You're choosing an alliance over your own child?" I could hear my voice getting louder, but I couldn't stop it. "Over me?"

"It's not that simple."

"It's exactly that simple!" I stepped closer, my hands already trembling. "Dylan, we've been together since we were kids. I gave up my place on the training team for you. I gave up everything, every single time because I believed you'd do the same for me one day." 

He looked away first, his gaze moving out the window, like the view was more interesting than me standing there falling apart in front of him. "I never asked you to give up anything."

"You didn't have to ask. I did it because I love you." My voice cracked on the last word and I hated that. "Dylan, please look at me. There's a baby. Our baby."

"Aurora—"

"Do you even hear yourself?" I pressed on, because if I stopped talking I was going to fall apart completely. "You used to tell me we'd have kids someday. You used to say it like it was the easiest thing in the world, remember? On the back porch last summer, you said it right to my face."

"That was before," he said.

"Before what? Before your father decided Ivy's family was worth more to you than I am?"

He flinched at that just barely, but it wasn't enough. It was never going to be enough.

"It doesn't change anything," he repeated, and this time his voice was flat and tired, like I was nothing but an inconvenience to him.

I stood there for a moment longer, waiting for some crack in him, some sign that the boy I used to know was still in there somewhere. He just looked like my presence was irritating and he never wanted to set his eyes on me anymore.

"Fine," I whispered because there was nothing else left to say. 

I walked out of his room feeling smaller than I'd ever felt in my life, like I'd shrunk three sizes just standing in that doorway.

Back in my own room, I sat on the edge of my bed and let myself cry properly for the first time that whole day. Willow was quiet inside me, which somehow made it worse. Even she didn't know what to say.

I don't know how long I sat there crying my heart out, looking puffy-eyed and pathetic over a man who'd already made up his mind, before I noticed the pain in my stomach. 

At first, I thought it was just the crying. I thought my body felt weird and achy because I’d been sobbing too hard. So I pressed a hand to my stomach and told myself to breathe.

It didn't fade like the earlier waves had. If anything, it got sharper, until it turned into a deep, pulling pain that made me suck in a breath through my teeth.

At that moment, what I didn't know was that earlier, before I'd even gone looking for Dylan the second time, someone had slipped something into the drink a maid had brought up to my room. Right now, I didn't know anything except that something was very wrong, and it was getting worse by the second.

I tried to stand, thinking maybe walking it off would help, or maybe even some air. The room tilted the moment I got to my feet, spinning slowly until I felt so sick that my legs gave out from under me.

I reached for the edge of the bed and missed.

That's when I felt something warm and wet spreading beneath me on the floor, and the panic that I’d been holding back all day finally broke loose all at once.

I looked down and saw blood.

I was bleeding.

"No," I said out loud to no one except the empty room.

Now Willow was suddenly wide awake and howling somewhere inside my skull. ‘No, no, no.’

I tried to push myself up again, my hands slipping on the floor, my whole body shaking now in a way that had nothing to do with crying. I opened my mouth to call for help, but the sound that came out was barely loud enough for me to hear.

My hand moved desperately over my stomach. “Please,” I whispered. “Please, don’t take my baby.”

The room blurred as another wave of pain ripped through my body. And then Willow went completely silent.

My heart stopped. “Willow?”

But there was nothing.

For the first time since I’d gotten my wolf, I couldn’t feel her at all.

Was I really going to die here, alone in this room?