Chapter 3

Three weeks after Adrian Blackthorn rejected me in front of the entire Blood Moon Pack, I had become very good at disappearing.

I ate breakfast before everyone else woke up, took the long route to the training grounds whenever I had no choice but to go there, and stopped accepting invitations to gatherings where I knew someone would eventually mention Adrian's name and watch my face to see whether I would break. I even changed the time I went to the market because apparently the pack had decided my humiliation was public property, and every time I walked past a group of women who suddenly lowered their voices, I knew exactly what they had been discussing before I arrived.

It was always the same story.

The Alpha rejected Elena.

Rosalie was going to be Luna.

Elena had embarrassed herself.

Elena had probably done something to make him choose her.

Nobody ever seemed interested in what happened after I was rejected, which was convenient because I wasn't interested in telling them either.

The strangest part was Adrian. He had not apologized. He had not come looking for me. He had not tried to claim me again, explain himself, or even send someone to ask whether I was alive after watching me collapse in front of half the pack.

He simply went back to his life.

I hated that more than I wanted to admit. Whenever I heard his name, my stomach tightened before I could stop it, and then I would get angry with myself for reacting to a man who had already made it very clear where I stood in his life.

So I kept telling myself I was relieved. I repeated it so often that sometimes I almost believed it. Then my body started acting strangely.

It began with the mornings.

I would wake up feeling sick, not the normal kind of sick that disappeared after eating something, but the horrible kind that made me sit on the edge of my bed with one hand over my mouth while I wondered whether I was about to throw up.

I blamed the rejection.

Everything had been strange since that night, so why wouldn't this be another part of it?

Then I nearly fainted during training.

I had been carrying a tray of drinks across the courtyard when the entire world tilted sideways, forcing me to grab the nearest table before the tray slipped from my hands. Someone asked whether I needed help, and I told them I had not eaten enough, even though I had eaten breakfast.

I also stopped eating meat.

That should not have been a big deal, except I had always loved meat, and suddenly the smell of roasted chicken was enough to send me running outside with my hand over my mouth.

Mira noticed. She always noticed everything. She had been the pack's healer for longer than I had been alive, and she was one of the few people in Blood Moon who had never looked at me like I was some burden that had accidentally been left behind.

I found her in her little healing room one afternoon, sorting dried herbs into jars.

She looked up when I entered, then immediately put down what she was holding.

“You look terrible, Elena, and before you start telling me that you're fine, I have known you since you were a child and I have watched you lie about being fine so many times that you are honestly getting worse at it.”

I tried to smile.

“I've just been tired lately, and everyone keeps saying I look sick, so I thought maybe you could give me something that will make them stop staring at me like I'm about to collapse.”

Mira's eyes narrowed.

“Sit down and let me examine you before you start making jokes about something that might actually be serious.”

I sat, then she checked my pulse, pressed her fingers against my wrist, examined my eyes, and asked several questions that I answered with increasingly irritated shrugs.

Then she stopped. Her fingers remained against my wrist.

I looked at her.

“What?”

Mira didn't answer immediately, which made my stomach twist.

“What is wrong?”

She finally lowered my hand.

“When was your last heat?”

The room seemed to shrink around me then I stared at her.

“I don't know.”

“You do know.”

“I've been stressed.”

“That wasn't what I asked.”

I looked away, but the moment I did, my mind dragged me straight back to the ceremony, to the rejection, to the forest, and finally to Adrian.

I remembered that night all over again, the way I had tried to hate him, tried to convince myself that I wanted nothing to do with him, while my own body had betrayed every sensible thought I had left. The memory was enough to make heat rush into my face, and judging by the way Mira suddenly looked at me, she had noticed.

Her expression changed.

“Your last heat was after the rejection, wasn't it?”

I swallowed.

“Yes.”

She leaned back slowly.

“Elena, I want you to take a pregnancy test.”

I laughed.

“You're joking.”

Mira didn't smile which made my laughter die.

“You're seriously telling me that you think I'm pregnant?”

“I am telling you to take the test before we decide anything else.”

I left her room with three tests hidden beneath my clothes.

I locked myself in the bathroom, then I took the first one with shaking hands and placed it on the edge of the sink, then immediately told myself it was ridiculous because there was no way.

I waited until the result appeared, then stared at the two lines on the first test for a few seconds before opening the second one with trembling fingers. I checked it twice, almost expecting the result to change, but there they were again, two unmistakable lines staring back at me. My stomach dropped as I slowly looked between the two tests, knowing exactly what they meant and still struggling to believe it.

My fingers began shaking so badly that I nearly dropped it.

I took the third because apparently I had decided that maybe pregnancy tests could lie twice, which was stupid, but at that point I was willing to believe anything that wasn't what those little lines were telling me.

The third test showed the same thing.

I sank onto the bathroom floor.

Pregnant.

The word kept repeating inside my head while I stared at the tests scattered across the tiles.

Pregnant.

With Adrian Blackthorn's child.

My hand slowly moved over my stomach even though there was nothing there to feel yet, and instead of happiness, instead of excitement, instead of any of the things women were apparently supposed to feel when they discovered they were going to have a baby, the first thought that entered my head was embarrassingly simple.

Everyone was going to laugh at me.

Rosalie would have a field day.

The same pack that already called me desperate would say I had slept with Adrian to trap him, that I had planned the whole thing after he rejected me, that I had somehow managed to get pregnant just to force the Alpha to take me back.

And Adrian would know.

I could already imagine the ceremony.

Hundreds of wolves staring at me while Adrian stood in front of everyone with that same cold expression, except this time he would know there was a child involved.

What if he said he wanted nothing to do with either of us?

What if he called me a liar?

What if he told everyone I had seduced him?

I pressed both hands against my face.

“No.”

Mira was waiting outside when I finally opened the door.

She looked at the tests in my hand and understood before I said anything.

“I need you to keep this to yourself.”

Her expression softened.

“Elena, Adrian deserves to know that he has a child.”

“He had his chance to treat me like a person, Mira, and he chose to humiliate me in front of the entire pack.”

My voice cracked, but I forced myself to keep going.

“I am not walking back to him with a pregnancy test in my hand and begging him to care about me after he already made it clear what he thinks I am worth.”

Mira sighed.

“You don't have to beg him, but hiding his child from him is not going to make this easier.”

“I'm not thinking about making it easier for him.”

I folded the test into my palm.

“I'm thinking about getting away before he can turn this into another spectacle.”

That night, I waited until the house was quiet before opening the old wardrobe in the corner of my room.

Behind a stack of clothes I never wore anymore was a small battered bag I had packed years ago when I had been desperate enough to imagine leaving Blood Moon Pack behind.

I pulled it out and stared at it.

Then I began putting clothes inside.

I added the little money I had saved, a pair of shoes, some food, and the documents I had hidden beneath my mattress.

When I finished, I looked down at the pregnancy test still clenched in my hand and felt my throat tighten.

“I’m leaving before he ever finds out.”

I turned toward the door.

Rosalie was standing there and her eyes fixed on the test in my hand.