Eamon stopped coming.

No one told me. The black dots just disappeared from the kitchen calendar. A week later I heard two guards talking by the gate.

"The Alpha's brother asked for border duty. The north ridge."

"The ridge? Nobody asks for the ridge."

"He did."

I kept walking. I didn't let myself turn around.

For the first few weeks, Blaine glowed.

He brought me ginger tea in the mornings. He read to my belly at night in a silly voice.

Then, slowly, the tea stopped. The reading stopped.

One night I reached for him in bed, and he rolled to the edge of the mattress.

"Blaine?"

"I'm tired."

"You used to hold me."

"You're hot. The pup makes you run hot." He pulled the blanket over his shoulder. "Go to sleep, Odette."

I lay there and stared at his back until the candle burned out.

It happened at breakfast.

I leaned past him to reach the honey. He went still. His nostrils flared.

"What is that?"

"What's what?"

"On you." He grabbed my wrist and pulled it to his face. He sniffed the inside of my arm like a hound on a trail. "Him. You smell like him."

"Eamon hasn't been here in a month."

"Then why is he still on your skin?"

"Because his pup is in my body!" The words flew out before I could catch them. "Blaine, that's how it works. You know that's how it works."

He shoved his chair back. His cup was in his hand, and then it wasn't. It smashed against the wall behind me. Tea ran down the wallpaper in a brown streak.

I flinched so hard I knocked my plate to the floor.

"You're thinking about him." His voice shook. "Even now. Even carrying my heir, you're thinking about my brother."

"I'm not." My throat closed up. Tears spilled before I could stop them. "I never think about him. I never think about anyone but you. I did this for you."

He stared at me. His chest rose and fell.

Then his face crumpled.

He crossed the room in two steps and dragged me into his arms. He buried his face in my hair.

"I'm sorry. Gods, I'm sorry." His hand slid to my stomach and stayed there, warm and heavy. "I don't know what's wrong with me. It's the waiting. It's making me crazy."

"You scared me."

"I know. I know." He kissed my forehead, my temple, my wet cheek. "When the pup comes, everything goes back to normal. I promise. Just us. Just our family."

I nodded against his shirt.

I wanted so badly to believe him that I did.

I went back to the nursery that afternoon.

I hung tiny gray curtains. I folded blankets into a drawer, then unfolded them and folded them again.

That was when I felt it. A flutter, low and soft, like a moth against glass.

I froze with a blanket in my hands.

My first thought should have been joy. It was, mostly. I laughed out loud in the empty room.

But my second thought was a blanket tucked up to my chin. A low voice in the dark.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

I sat down hard in the rocking chair and pressed both hands to my belly.

"You're mine," I whispered to the baby. "Whatever else happens. You're mine."

The flutter came again, like an answer.

Three weeks later, I woke up alone.

Blaine's side of the bed was cold. I lay still, listening.

A thump. A low laugh. Then a woman's voice, soft and breathless.

It came from the dressing room next to our bedroom.

I got up. My bare feet stuck to the cold floor. The door was open an inch, and lamplight leaked through the gap.

I pushed it open.

Blaine was on the narrow daybed. Briony was in his lap, her arms around his neck, her mouth on his jaw.

Briony. Who carried my breakfast tray. Who cried when her mother died, and I held her.

She was wearing my blue dress. The one with the silver buttons. I'd given it to her on her birthday because she said it was the prettiest thing she'd ever seen.

And on the little table by the daybed sat Blaine's wedding ring.

He'd taken it off. He'd set it down neatly, like a man setting down his keys.

"Blaine."

Briony squeaked and twisted around. Her cheeks went red.

Blaine didn't move. His hand stayed on her waist.

"Go back to bed, Odette."

"Go back to—" My voice cracked in half. "Get your hands off her."

"No."

The word was so calm that, for a second, I thought I'd misheard.

He looked at me over Briony's shoulder. His eyes were bright and hard.

"Do you know what it's like? Every month, I watched my wife walk down that hall. I counted the minutes. I sat on our bed and listened for the door." His jaw clenched. "Every month, it broke me a little more. She"—he squeezed Briony's hip—"is the only thing that kept me from tearing this house apart."

"You asked me to go." I gripped the door frame. "You begged me. You cried in my lap, Blaine. You walked me to that room yourself."

"I asked you to give me an heir." His lip curled. "I didn't ask you to enjoy it."

The floor seemed to tilt.

"What?"

"I'm not deaf. I'm not stupid." He leaned forward. "I smelled you every time you came back. You liked it. You liked him."

"That's not—"

"How many times?" His voice rose. "How many times did you go soft for him? Once? Every time?"

"Blaine, my body—I didn't choose—"

"Stop." He held up one hand. "I don't want to hear it. Not another word."

"You will hear it!"

"Odette." Cold. Flat. "Enough."

Briony slid off his lap. She swayed. Her face went gray.

Then she bent over and threw up on the rug.

Blaine half rose. "Briony?"

"I'm fine." She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. My sleeve. My dress. "I'm fine, my Alpha. I just—I wanted to tell you properly. Not like this."

She reached into the pocket of my dress and pulled out a thin white stick. She held it up in the lamplight.

Two lines. Dark and clear.

"I'm pregnant," she said. Her eyes flicked to me, then back to him. "It's yours. It's only ever been yours."

The room went silent.

Blaine stared at the stick. He didn't blink. He didn't breathe.

"That's impossible," I said. "The healers—three healers said—"

He wasn't listening to me.

He took the test from Briony's fingers like it was made of glass. He turned it over. He turned it back.

Then he started to laugh.

The laugh sounded nothing like the broken one from the nursery. It rose huge and wild. It filled the tiny room and bounced off the walls.

"They were wrong." He grabbed Briony's face in both hands. "All of them. They were wrong."

"Blaine—"

"I can sire pups." He kissed her hard on the mouth, right in front of me. Then he dropped to his knees and pressed his ear to her flat stomach. "Do you hear that? Mine. This one is really mine."

I stood in the doorway in my nightgown.

My hand found my belly on its own. The baby fluttered under my palm.

Blaine didn't even look at it.

He looked up at Briony with an adoring expression he hadn't given me in months. Then, slowly, his gaze slid to me. To my stomach.

And his smile changed.

"Well," he said softly. "That changes everything, doesn't it?"

The healer came before breakfast.

Her name was Celia, and she had pressed her palm to my belly two months ago. Now she pressed it to Briony's.

Briony lay on our bed. On my side of it.

"Well?" Blaine stood at the footboard, arms crossed.

Celia leaned close and breathed in at Briony's throat. Her brows lifted.

"There's a change in her scent, Alpha. Sweeter. Heavier." She touched Briony's breast through the borrowed silk, and Briony winced. "Tender here. Swollen. It's early, but the signs are there."

"Early," I said from the doorway. "How early?"

Celia didn't look at me. "Too early to say much more, Luna."

"She's not your Luna much longer," Briony murmured.

Blaine didn't correct her.

He turned to the hallway and raised his voice. "Tomas! Get two men. Clear out the nursery."

My stomach dropped. "What?"

"The crib, the curtains, the blankets. All of it." He finally glanced at me. "Take everything to Briony's room."

"I painted those walls." My voice came out smaller than I wanted. "I sewed those curtains, Blaine."

"And now they'll be used for an heir."

"This is your heir!" I grabbed my own belly with both hands. "You knelt on that floor and kissed it!"

He stepped close. He smelled like her now. Like lavender soap and sleep.

"I kissed what I thought was my only chance," he said quietly. "I have a better one."

Down the hall, wood cracked. Someone was taking the crib apart.

I didn't go watch. I didn't trust my legs.

The bells rang at sunset.

Every wolf in Alderfen knew what that meant. The Alpha was calling the pack.

By the time I reached the great hall, it was packed wall to wall. Torches hissed. Two hundred faces turned toward me, then away.

Blaine stood on the dais. Briony stood at his side, wearing my blue dress again.

"Wolves of Alderfen." His voice rolled over the room. "Tonight, I bring you joy. And I bring you shame."

He held out his hand. Briony took it.

"This female carries my pup. My true blood. The healer confirmed it this morning."

A murmur swept the hall. Someone whistled. Someone cheered.

Then Blaine lifted his other hand and pointed straight at me.

At my belly.

"And that," he said, "belongs to my brother."

The silence was worse than the noise.

"Blaine." I pushed forward through the crowd. "Tell them the truth. Tell them about the healers, about the paper you showed me—"

"The truth?" He cut across me so fast my words died. "The truth is my mate crept down the east wing every month. The truth is she seduced Eamon under my own roof while I slept."

"You sent me!"

"Listen to her." He spread his arms to the crowd. "Caught, and she still blames me."

"Ask him!" I spun toward the nearest faces. Old Hester, who taught me to weave. Garrick, who carried me over the threshold on my wedding day. "Ask him why there are dots on the kitchen calendar! Ask him who picked the dates!"

Hester's mouth pinched. She looked down.

Garrick shook his head slowly. "Luna. Have some dignity."

Nobody else had been in that study. Nobody else had heard Blaine cry in my lap. There were only three of us.

And two of us were standing on the dais.

Briony tilted her head and smiled at me, almost sweet.

"Poor thing," she said. "You're carrying your lover's bastard, and you still want the crown? Did you think we'd bow to it?"

A few wolves laughed. Not many. Enough.

Blaine let go of her hand and stepped to the edge of the dais.

"I, Blaine Vale, Alpha of the Alderfen Pack—"

"No." I knew the words. Every wolf knew the words. "Blaine, no. Please."

"—reject you, Odette—"

The mark on my neck split open.

It felt like teeth. His teeth, sinking in again, then tearing out. I hit the floor on both knees. Warmth poured down my collarbone.

"Stop," I gasped. "Please. Please stop. The baby—"

Then a cramp clenched low in my belly, sharp and twisting. I folded over it. Something wet slid down the inside of my thigh.

I looked down.

Red, spreading across the hem of my nightgown.

"Blaine." I raised my eyes to him. "Look."

He looked.

For one second, his face changed. His mouth opened. One foot shifted toward the steps.

Briony's fingers slipped into his. She squeezed.

He closed his mouth.

"—as my mate and my Luna."

The bond snapped like a bowstring.

I didn't scream. I just stopped hearing anything.

The doors slammed open.

I knew his scent before I saw him. Pine and cold rock and wind off the ridge.

"Move." Eamon's voice tore through the hall. Wolves stumbled out of his way.

He dropped beside me. His hands hovered, then slid under my knees and back.

"Odette. Look at me. Stay with me."

"Eamon—" I clutched his shirt. "The baby."

He bowed his head to my belly. He went very still, listening.

"There's a heartbeat," he said hoarsely. "It's weak. But it's there."

He lifted me against his chest.

"Put her down, brother." Blaine's Alpha command cracked across the room.

Eamon's shoulders shook with the force of it. Every wolf in the hall bent their necks.

Eamon straightened his.

"No."

The word rang off the rafters. Nobody had ever said it to Blaine. Not once.

He turned his back on the dais and carried me out.

I cried into his collar the whole way across the courtyard.

"He's been sleeping with Briony. For weeks. She's pregnant, he says it's his, he told them the healers were wrong—" My words tumbled over each other. "He told them I seduced you. He told them I went to you. Eamon, they believed him. All of them."

His arms tightened. His jaw was rigid against my temple.

"I know what he is," he said. "I've always known."

"Then why did you ever say yes?"

He didn't answer. He only walked faster.

Behind us, the bells began to ring again. Fast. Frantic.

Then Blaine's voice boomed from the hall steps.

"Eamon Vale and Odette have plotted against this pack! They meant to steal my seat with a bastard heir! Hunters, bring them back." A pause. "If they fight, kill them."

Eamon broke into a run.

The forest swallowed us. Branches whipped my face. My blood left a trail he couldn't hide, and we both knew it.

"They're close," he panted. "Hold on to me."

A hiss split the air.

Something brushed my ear, hot and stinging. An arrow buried itself in the oak ahead, its shaft glittering.

Silver dust.

"Eamon—"

The second arrow struck him.

It punched into his shoulder with a wet thud. He staggered. His knees buckled.

And as we fell, I heard the hunters laughing in the dark.