Page 25

“Stand down.” My Luna’s voice cuts across the square. It comes out low, edged, carrying the particular vibration that lives in the back of her throat when her wolf has decided something and isn’t interested in negotiation. “All of you. Step aside.” The warriors turn aside immediately and show their necks to me as they say in unison, “Luna.”

Darian nods. He doesn’t slow. He’s past the warriors before their necks have finished lowering, his bare feet slapping the cobblestones in a rhythm that’s closer to a heartbeat than a stride, and the hospital doors are already swinging, I can see him using his nose to trail his mate’s scent. I’m slowly trailing behind him, Rylan to my right. Then he finds her, in the second room on the left.

He pushes the door open with his shoulder because his arms are full of pups, and the room is smaller than he expected.

Arlene’s sitting up. Her eyes find his across the room, and everything in the world narrows to that single point as if they are hypnotized. I see the relief hit him first. I see there’s color in her cheeks that wasn’t there when I last saw her, when the branch was still in her shoulder and her skin was the color of old paper and she was whispering their pups’ names like a prayer.

Her lips part. He sets the pups down on the edge of the bed, gently, carefully, his hands lingering on the tops of their heads for half a heartbeat longer and then his face is in the crook of her neck, smelling her aroma from her collar bone to her chin. I see her take in his scent too from him.

Behind him Damian climbs up first, his thin arms finding her right side, his face pressing into the curve of her unbandaged shoulder. Darlene follows, slower, her small body wriggling up against Arlene’s left hip, careful, so careful, of the bandage, her cheek coming to rest against her mother’s ribs.

Arlene’s arms open to receive them. Her right hand finds Damian’s hair. Her left, trembling, the fingers still pale from blood loss, settles against Darlene’s back, and the pups curl into her like commas, like they’re trying to fold themselves small enough to disappear inside her.

Darian watches it from the bedside.

“Mommy's pregnant. About six weeks. That means my little ones that you are going to be a big brother again, and you my darling will be a big sister.” The words land in the space between them like stones dropped into still water. Darian hears them. Process them. Hear them again. His hand is still on the sheet.

“Our pup. We saved you this time.” What did that mean by this time? Oh mother moon, what have you brought me this time? I continue watching the scene from the door, my head and hand resting on Rylan’s strong muscular chest. Calming his Lycan. I can tell he’s waiting to take Darian away for interrogation. He has to make sure there’s no risk to the pack, and I understand. I love it when he’s in Alpha mode.

8

Rylan's POV

Igive them five minutes. That’s all I can afford. Selena excuses herself, kisses me gently on the lips and tells me to behave. I knock on the door. Darian’s head turns, not fast, not startled, the way a man turns when he’s been expecting the knock. His eyes find mine across the room, and whatever he sees there makes his jaw set.

“Alpha.” Quiet. Respectful. The word carries weight coming from him… but he's a rogue.

“Walk with me.”

He presses his lips to Arlene’s temple. Holds it there. Then he stands, and the pups don’t let go of his hands until he’s halfway to the door, their small fingers uncurling one at a time like they’re releasing something they don’t trust the world to hold.

I lead him down the corridor. He doesn’t ask where we’re going. He doesn’t need to. The hospital interrogation room is at the end of the east wing… small, windowless, a table and two chairs and nothing else. I pull the door shut behind us.

“Sit.” He sits. I stay standing. The distance between us is deliberate… enough space for him to breathe, not enough for him to forget who or what I am.

“Talk.” He talks. It comes out clean. No hesitation, no circling, no performance. Just the facts laid out in order, like he’s been carrying them so long the telling is a relief… almost therapeutic.

“Nightwing Pack. I volunteered to be future Beta so I didn’t have to fight my brother for the alpha heir position and our youngest brother didn’t have a desire to be future Alpha either. My brother Daryl was next in line for Alpha.” His hands rest flat on the table. No fidgeting. No tells. “Someone framed me. Evidence planted in my quarters… correspondence between Nightwing Pack with rival packs and rogues, forged signatures, the whole thing. My father, the Alpha, had no choice. It was treason… He had two choices: death or exile for me and my family. He exiled us. Me, Arlene, the pups only 2 and a newborn at the time, Alpha.”

Nightwing Pack, we know this pack. Great grandfather gave us information about them. It’s one of the packs that’s seeking an alliance with us since everyone knows you’re a Lycan Alpha now. But isn't Daryl that spineless tweak you put in his place during Alpha training.

“Yup, the same evil little dastardly that I put in his place…. Maybe he's grown.”

I doubt it, but if everything this rogue says is true…

“I know a possible future threat. I'll investigate after I get more information.”

“Who framed you?”

“I don’t know, but my older brother promised to find the culprit.” The frustration in his voice is old. Worn smooth. “It had to be someone with power, an elder, maybe a councilman. They had access to my private seal and office. Knowledge of patrol rotations, supply routes, everything. It was thorough. Later after I was exiled, I was sent a map to a waystation and instructions to lie low. It was from my brother promising he believes me and he'd prove my innocence, Alpha.”

That's unlikely from that coward.

“A map?”

His jaw tightens. “Coordinates for a refugee camp… it was supposed to be safe, off the grid, temporary… We… followed it.” A pause. The kind of pause that costs something. “It led us to a rogue camp. Thousands of wolves. Organized. Armed. Once you enter… you either become a part of the rogue camp or die. They keep the mates and children near the leader in the center for that reason. The map… it was supposed to be a waystation. It wasn’t, Alpha.”

“Do you have any idea who set you up? Some names, maybe?”