Chapter 6

Chapter 6

ANTONIO

Christiana fell asleep a little past nine.

I sat in the chair beside her bed until her breathing evened out completely, until the small crease between her brows smoothed and her hand went slack where it had been holding mine. Then I stood carefully and stood at the window for a moment, looking out at the dark grounds, and told myself that this was what mattered. That she was here, and she was unhurt, and in twenty-nine days everything would be the way it was supposed to be.

I left the room quietly and pulled the door shut behind me.

I had intended to go to my office. There were documents waiting — pack business that had piled up over the last two days while I had been managing the chaos Annalisa had introduced into what should have been a straightforward transition.

I was walking past the upper landing of the grand staircase when I heard them.

Two of the parlour maids, crouched over the foyer floor below. One of them was wringing out a cloth into a bucket. The water that came out was faintly pink.

I stopped.

"Adia should not have done it without permission," the first one murmured, scrubbing at something on the floor. "Taking the car out like that, using Dario—"

"What was she supposed to do? "The Luna was bleeding on the floor and the Alpha had already walked away."

A pause. The wet sound of the cloth against marble.

"Being a Luna and not his fated mate." The first maid shook her head slowly. "I don't know how she has carried it this long. Four years in this house and never once—"

"She carried it because that was what was asked of her," the second one said. "That's all she has ever done."

I did not move.

The blood on the floor was Annalisa's. I understood that with a clarity that arrived a beat slower than it should have. She had been lying on that floor. I had told her to stop performing and walked away.

I turned from the landing before the maids looked up.

I sent for the maid who had helped Annalisa after I had gone within the next ten minutes.

She came to my study. She stood straight, her hands folded in front of her, and she looked at me without flinching in a way that most of my staff did not manage.

"Where did you take her?" I asked.

Adia held my gaze for a moment. Then she gave me the address.

I was in my car before I had even thought it through.

I told myself it was practical. The pregnancy test had come back negative, which meant Annalisa had been lying, which meant whatever had happened on that staircase tonight was a separate matter that I had not caused. But the blood on the floor sat in the back of my mind and would not be filed away cleanly.

The hospital was quieter than I expected for the hour. I walked through the main entrance and followed the corridor signs without stopping at reception, like I was supposed to be there and no one had reason to question it.

I was heading toward the main ward when I heard the voices.

Two men in scrubs, standing near a break room doorway, their backs to me, cups of coffee in hand. Their voices were low and tired.

I slowed without meaning to.

"Bad night," one of them said. "The Luna that came in earlier—"

The other one exhaled. "I heard."

"Came in bleeding. The pregnancy was already unstable — needed consistent proximity to the mate, the Alpha's pheromones specifically, for the heartbeat to hold." He paused, wrapping both hands around his cup. "Without that, these early-stage pregnancies don't have a chance. And with the fall on top of it—"

"It didn't make it," the other one said. It was not a question.

"No." A silence. "She didn't say anything. Just sat there for a while after we told her. Then she left."

I had stopped moving entirely.

The corridor stretched ahead of me, empty and lit with the flat overhead light of a hospital at night. The two doctors had not turned around. They did not know I was there.

I stood where I was for a moment.

Then I turned around and walked back the way I had come.

The drive back to the estate was something I was present for only in the most functional sense.

There was no pregnancy. That was what the test had told me. That was what I had been certain of since the beginning. That was the position I had held and defended and not moved from.

Except that the doctor had just said otherwise. A real pregnancy. An unstable one. One that had needed something I had not given, and had not survived the night. This wasn’t happening, I quickly turned off the car, fear building in me as I had the urgent feeling to check on Annalisa, I had said those words to her, I had abandoned her.

I got out of the car.

I ran up the stairs without speaking to anyone. The house was silent and the few people awake bowed their heads but I ignored them. I sprinted past the east corridor, past my own rooms, and I found myself standing in front of Annalisa's door, breathing heavily as I tried to think of what to say.

I pushed it open, my mouth already forming her name just to stop shut at the darkened room and no sign of someone living here.

I reached for the light and stood in the doorway as it came on, and I looked at a room that was empty. The surfaces were bare. The small things that had occupied her dressing table were gone. The wardrobe door was slightly open, and what was inside it was not much

.

I crossed to it and looked.

A few things remained. The formal pieces, the Luna dress, the ceremonial things that were the pack's property and not hers. Everything else was gone. Whatever she had been able to carry, she had taken.

I stood in the middle of her empty room for a long time. Then I felt a sudden rush of panic overwhelming me, as I held onto my chest, the pain finally making itself known, as I gripped the door handle as my mind kept replaying back the cruel memory of abandoning her on the ground while looking after Christiana, while his mate was bleeding out, their child dying all because he did not care about them. This was all my fault, I was to blame. Footsteps came from outside stopping right outside the door as my Beta spoke, breathing heavily.

“Alpha, there is no sign of the Luna anywhere.” He said as I forced myself upright, anger and pain both present in my heart.

“Shut the city down, gather all the men, find her, bring her back here no matter what.” i ordered as the beta bowed and ran off leaving me in the darkened room.