— Sera —

I didn't ask him why.

Why he humiliated me. Why he let them talk about me like that. Why he lied.

I didn't scream. Didn't throw the glass in his face.

I just whispered, "Not tonight. I'm… not feeling well."

My forehead was burning. Fever, maybe.

Or maybe it was my body trying to burn away what was left of my dignity.

Cole looked genuinely worried — like the perfect boyfriend again.

He drove me to the hospital, one hand on the wheel, the other resting protectively on my knee.

The same hands that had held me down.

I kept my face turned toward the window and didn't say a word the whole drive.

While filling out the intake form, I mentioned the nausea that had been haunting me every morning.

The nurse suggested a blood test. I didn't care enough to refuse.

We were waiting for the results when shouting broke out near the entrance.

Before I could process anything, Cole shot up, his chair clattering to the floor. He was across the room in seconds, his fist connecting with another Alpha's face.

The sound of bone cracking echoed through the hall.

Screams followed — Omegas running, nurses shouting.

And then I saw her.

Talia.

Her mate trying to shield her, a bruise blooming purple on her thigh.

"What did you do to her?!" Cole roared, punching again and again, blind with fury.

Talia's mate — Zane Harper, the heir of the Harper Pack — spat blood, gasping. "It's none of your damn business!"

I ran toward them, yelling for Cole to stop. A blow came out of nowhere — I wasn't even sure whose. I stumbled, fell — right into Talia. We both went down.

Before I could move, Cole shoved me aside and scooped Talia into his arms.

"Are you hurt?" His voice was soft, trembling. He brushed her hair away from her face.

He didn't even look at me.

Not once.

The floor was cold against my cheek. Something warm trickled down my thigh.

It took me a second to realize it was blood.

For a long moment, I just lay there — listening to the chaos, to Cole's voice comforting Talia, to the nurses rushing past me.

No one saw me.

No one ever did.

I pressed my palm to the cut and made myself get up. One hand on the wall, knees shaking, the fluorescent lights too bright overhead. Someone actually stepped around me to get to Cole's side.

Not to help me.

To watch.

By the time I made it to the doctor's office, my vision was swimming. Dr. Ellis frowned when he saw me, then helped me onto the exam table. He cleaned the wound on my leg. Wrapped it with steady hands. Then went very quiet.

That kind of quiet that means something else is coming.

"You're… pregnant," he said. "About two months."

Pregnant.

The word hit me like a cruel joke.

"You've always had a fragile body," he continued. "This pregnancy itself is a miracle. But your condition isn't good. You need rest, care, and…" He hesitated. "You'll need the father's support. Can you… both handle that responsibility?"

I almost laughed.

If I hadn't been half-dead inside, I might've screamed.

I tried to stand and nearly collapsed. Dr. Ellis wouldn't let me leave without an escort, so I called Cole.

He didn't answer.

He didn't even text.

My father? He wouldn't care. My mother was gone. Just a name carved into cold stone.

There was no one left to call.

A knock at the door. Soft.

Zane Harper was standing in the doorway. Face swollen, lip split, one eye nearly shut. He looked like absolute hell.

"I'm… sorry," he said quietly. "I didn't mean for you to get hurt. I'll cover your medical bills. And if you need help… I'll make sure you're safe."

It was the first time anyone had looked at me like I was still a person.

So when he offered me a ride home, I said yes.

He didn't ask questions in the car. Just drove. Both hands on the wheel, jaw tight. I stared out the window and thought about the tiny thing growing inside me that I had no idea what to do with.

He pulled up in front of my building and put the car in park but didn't cut the engine.

"I'll wait out here for a bit," he said. "In case you need anything."

I looked at him. "You don't have to do that."

"I know."

He held out his hand. "Give me your phone."

I didn't know why I did it. I just handed it over.

He dialed a number. A second later his own jacket pocket buzzed. He saved the contact, checked it once, and passed my phone back.

"Now you have mine," he said. "If you need out, just text me. I'll be right here."

I looked down at the screen.

Zane Harper. Ten digits. That was it.

I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything. I nodded and got out of the car.

The lobby door felt heavier than usual.

I could hear them before I even put my key in the lock — voices, low music, the comfortable hum of people who had nowhere else to be. I told myself it was fine. I'd walk in, go straight to my room, deal with everything in the morning.

I opened the door.

Talia was sitting on Cole's lap, crying softly into his chest.

His arms were around her. His friends stood in a loose circle — worried, quiet, protective. Like a wall built around something precious.

Nobody looked at the door when I walked in.

Talia lifted her head first. Her eyes found me across the room and went wide, like I was the last person she'd expected to see.

"Sera?" A little surprised. A little — almost annoyed. "What are you doing back?"

I opened my mouth.

Cole glanced over his shoulder. Just a glance. Like I was a notification he'd already decided to dismiss.

"Oh." Easy voice. Easy smile. "She's the house cleaner."

Nobody laughed.

Nobody corrected him either.

They just looked at me — Cole's friends, people who'd eaten at my table and borrowed my chargers and told me I was lucky to have a guy like Cole — and looked right through me.

Like I wasn't standing in my own apartment.

Like I wasn't even there.

— Sera —

I think I left my body for a second.

That's the only way I can describe it. One moment I was standing in the doorway of my own apartment, and the next I was somewhere else — hovering somewhere near the ceiling, watching a girl I used to know stand very still while everyone looked through her.

Just the house cleaner.

Just the house cleaner.

The words kept bouncing around inside my skull like they couldn't find anywhere to land.

I couldn't feel my hands. Couldn't feel my feet. I was pretty sure I was still breathing, but I couldn't have told you for certain. I kept waiting for something inside me to react — to scream, to cry, to do something — but there was nothing. Just a strange, floating quiet. Like the part of me that processed pain had finally hit its limit and clocked out.

Just the house cleaner.

Cole's friend said something. I didn't hear it. Talia shifted in Cole's lap and I didn't see it. The whole room kept moving around me and I just stood there, untethered, waiting to come back down.

It took a few seconds. Maybe longer.

And then — slowly, the way feeling comes back to a limb that's fallen asleep — I found myself again.

My feet. My hands. The strap of my bag still over my shoulder. The door still open behind me.

I didn't say a word.

I turned around and walked out.

The door clicked shut behind me and I stood in the hallway, back against the wall, staring at a water stain on the ceiling that I'd never noticed before.

My hands were shaking now. That was new.

I pulled out my phone. Found the contact he'd saved less than twenty minutes ago.

[ can you wait a little longer ]

The reply came in under ten seconds.

[ still here. ]

I closed my eyes.

Breathed.

Okay.

* * *

His car was still at the curb. Engine off, window cracked, like he'd settled in for the long haul without making a big deal of it.

He saw me come out and didn't say anything right away. Just watched me walk down the steps. Took in whatever was on my face.

"How bad?" he asked.

I laughed. It came out all wrong — too short, too hollow.

"He introduced me as the house cleaner."

Zane looked at me for a long moment. Something shifted in his jaw.

"Get in," he said.

I got in.

* * *

I went back up twenty minutes later.

Not for Cole. Not because of anything he'd said or done.

I went back because the apartment was mine. My name on the lease. My books on the shelves. My mom's photo on the nightstand. I was not going to let Cole Reed take that from me without at least getting my own things out first.

I packed fast. Quietly. Clothes, my med kit, the photo.

My hands were steady again. That scared me a little.

Cole appeared in the doorway before I'd zipped up the bag.

"Sera." He leaned against the frame. Tired. Like I was the one being dramatic. "Come on. It was a joke. You know how the guys get."

I kept packing.

"Talia just needed somewhere to crash tonight. It's not what you think."

I folded a sweater. Set it in the bag.

"Will you say something? You're just standing there like —"

"You called me a toy."

My voice came out flat. Quiet. Not angry. Just done.

"In the group chat," I said. "To all your boys. She's nothing but a toy. Easier than a doll."

Something moved across Cole's face. Not guilt. More like the expression of a guy who just realized the mess he left is bigger than he thought.

"That's just how we talk —"

"There were photos, Cole."

Silence.

"Of me," I said. "That your friends were passing around. And you didn't say stop. You didn't say one damn word."

His mouth opened.

Closed.

For the first time in two years, Cole Reed — the golden Alpha, the smooth talker, the guy who always had an answer — had absolutely nothing.

I zipped up the bag and stood.

"Don't call me," I said. "Don't text me. Don't show up."

I walked past him.

He didn't stop me.

Part of me waited for it anyway — a hand on my arm, my name, something.

Nothing.

Just Talia's soft voice from the living room asking Cole if he was okay.

I let the door shut behind me.

* * *

Zane was still on the porch. Sitting on the top step, elbows on his knees. He looked up when I came out and took in the bag on my shoulder without a word.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"No idea."

He nodded once. Pushed to his feet. "I know a place. Nothing fancy. But nobody'll bother you there."

"Why are you helping me?"

He was quiet a moment. Jaw tight. Like he was deciding how honest to be.

"Because Cole Reed's been pulling this crap for years and nobody ever says anything." He paused. "And because you shouldn't be alone right now."

He knew. About the pregnancy. Thin walls, a nurse talking too loud — whatever it was, he knew. And he was still standing here.

I waited for the pity. The step back.

It didn't come.

"Okay," I said.

* * *

The guest suite was on the edge of Harper Pack campus. Clean. Quiet. Nothing on the walls. It smelled like pine and something older underneath — the kind of stillness that made the noise in my head settle.

Zane set my bag down by the door. Stayed near the exit, like he wanted me to know he wasn't going to crowd me.

"Lock works from the inside. No one gets in without your say-so. I'll have someone bring food in the morning."

"You don't have to do all this."

"I know."

He moved toward the door. Stopped at the frame. Didn't look back.

"For what it's worth," he said, "you deserved better than him."

He left before I could answer.

I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time.

No buzzing phone. No group chat. No Cole.

I put my hand flat against my stomach.

Eight weeks. Barely anything. And yet.

"I don't know what I'm doing," I said out loud. To the room. To myself. To the tiny impossible thing that had decided to exist without asking me. "I really, really don't know what I'm doing."

But for the first time since I'd seen those messages on my screen, I could breathe.

That was enough for now.

* * *

— Caelum —

The report was three pages long and said very little.

I set it on my desk and looked out the window at the Silverclaw campus below. As honorary director, the administration kept me informed of anything that might turn into a political headache.

Tonight's report had my son's name in it. That wasn't unusual.

What was unusual was the other name.

Lane.

I picked the report back up.

Sera Lane. Omega. Second-year healer. No wolf.

No wolf.

I read that line twice.

I'd heard that before. About a woman from the same bloodline, years ago — an Omega born without her wolf, something the pack considered a defect. Something they were wrong about.

She had been the furthest thing from worthless.

And I had been too young and too focused on the right political match to tell her so.

I closed the folder.

Stood at the window for a while.

I told myself I was only doing due diligence. That I checked the file of anyone who ended up on Harper territory without prior arrangement.

I pulled up her academy photo anyway.

She was looking slightly to the left of the camera. Like she hadn't expected the flash. Dark hair. Quiet face. Young. Tired even in the photo.

Top of her class in applied healing. Scholarship student. No disciplinary record.

No emergency contacts listed.

No one.

"Make sure the Lane girl has everything she needs," I told my head of security. "Food. Medical supplies if she needs them. Quietly — don't make a fuss."

"Yes, sir."

I stayed at the window longer than I needed to.

I didn't know her yet.

I didn't know that her laugh — when she finally trusted someone enough to let it out — would sound exactly like her mother's.

And then, without meaning to, I closed my eyes.

Her face and her mother's face — the one that had lived in my dreams for twenty years — slowly overlapped. Same dark hair. Same quiet mouth. Same way of existing in a room like she was apologizing for being there.

I opened my eyes.

I could not let this happen again.

— Cole —

I couldn't settle.

That was the only word for it. I'd been pacing the same stretch of living room floor for the better part of an hour, and Talia kept looking at me with those soft, patient eyes, and I kept not feeling whatever I was supposed to feel.

"Cole." Her voice was gentle. Careful. Like she was handling something that might break. "She's gone. Come sit with me."

I sat.

I put my arm around her the way she wanted and stared at the TV screen and told myself this was what I'd been waiting for. Talia, finally. The girl I'd spent two years thinking about while lying next to someone else.

I told myself that.

It didn't help.

Talia reached up and touched my jaw. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

She smiled — the soft, sad smile she'd always been able to do so well. "It's her, isn't it? You're thinking about her."

I didn't answer.

Which was its own kind of answer.

"She'll be fine," Talia said. She curled closer into my side. "She always is. You know how Omegas are — resilient little things."

I thought about the way Sera had looked at me right before she left. Not crying. Not yelling.

Just — empty. Like I'd already been gone for a long time and she'd only just realized it.

I picked up the Xbox controller.

"Let's play something," I said.

* * *

— Sera —

I told myself I was going back for my things.

That was the only reason. My textbooks. My winter coat. The rest of my clothes. Practical things. Things I needed.

I was not going back because some stupid part of me still wanted to see his face.

I used my key. The door opened quietly.

And then I stopped.

The Xbox was on.

Cole was on the couch, controller in hand, Talia tucked in front of him. And he had his arms around her — both of them — the way he used to hold me when we played golf. His chest against her back. His chin close to her hair. His hands covering hers on the controller.

Showing her how to swing.

I stood in the doorway and watched and felt something inside me go very, very cold.

That Xbox had been my birthday present. He'd shown up at my door with it in a big stupid bow and said, "You need a hobby that isn't medicine." And I'd laughed because who gives their girlfriend a gaming console for her birthday, and he'd said, "Trust me."

And I had.

God help me, I had.

We'd spent entire weekends on that couch. I was the one who hated the gym — too many wolves, too much posturing, everyone clocking the wolfless Omega who had no business being there. So Cole started bringing games home instead. Tennis. Bowling. Basketball. I was terrible at all of them and we both knew it and neither of us cared.

But golf.

Golf I'd pretended to be worse at than I was, just to feel him wrap around me from behind. His arms over mine. His hands covering my hands. His voice low against my ear, saying "like this, watch the follow-through" while I stood completely still and forgot about the club entirely.

I'd thought that was ours.

I'd thought a lot of things were ours.

Talia laughed at something — bright and delighted — and leaned back against Cole's chest, and I watched him smile down at the top of her head with an expression I recognized.

It wasn't borrowed.

It was the same one.

The exact same one.

My stomach turned. Every soft memory I'd been carrying — every quiet Sunday, every whispered joke, every time I'd thought this is real, this is mine — curdled all at once into something rotten. Like reaching into a drawer for something you love and finding it full of rot.

I had treasured garbage.

I had held it close and called it everything.

Talia spotted me first.

Her eyes found me across the room and something quick and sharp flickered through them. Not guilt. Not surprise.

Amusement.

"Hi, Sera." Sweet as anything. She sat up a little, like she wanted a better view. "I didn't know you were cleaning houses now. If Uncle Jack isn't giving you enough, you should tell me — you know he listens to me. I can put in a word."

Uncle Jack.

My father. Who had not called me in four months. Who had a new wife now, a Beta from the Thornhill pack, and was probably going to have the Alpha sons he'd always wanted and forget I'd ever existed.

I pulled my mouth into something that felt like a smile. "No need. I'm just here for my things."

I moved toward the hallway.

"Actually —" Talia's voice followed me, light and easy, like she was asking about the weather. "Could you make the tomato veal before you go? The braised one. I've been thinking about it for weeks." A small laugh. "Cole can't cook to save his life, and I never really learned. We'd pay, obviously. You're so good at it, Sera, honestly."

I stopped walking.

The tomato veal.

My mother's recipe. The one I'd spent three years perfecting in a pack kitchen I was barely allowed to use, learning to cook on scraps and leftovers while the real pack daughters ate in the dining hall. I'd been an Alpha's daughter and I'd lived like the help — worse than the help, actually, because at least the servants got paid.

I'd had to earn every pen and notebook I owned. Twelve years old, scrubbing floors to get fifty cents toward a composition book. Fourteen, running errands for the housekeeper just to afford a highlighter.

Talia had grown up in the same pack and never noticed.

Why would she. I was just the background.

I turned around slowly.

Cole still hadn't looked at me. He was staring at the TV screen with his jaw set, controller loose in his hands. He'd been quiet since I walked in.

Then he spoke.

"It's just a meal, Sera." Flat. Unbothered. Like he was asking me to pass the remote. "Talia wants it. Go ahead and make it."

Something clicked off inside me.

I thought about Dr. Ellis. No stress. No overexertion. Rest.

I thought about the tiny thing inside me that was eight weeks old and had no idea its father was sitting five feet away asking his side piece's new girl to cook dinner.

I thought about every floor I had ever scrubbed to buy a fifty-cent notebook.

I smiled.

A real one, this time. Calm and clean.

"Fine," I said. "I'll cook."

Talia brightened.

"But," I said, turning to her, "you said you'd pay. Right, Talia? As Alpha Zane's future Luna, Uncle Jack's favorite, Cole's — what was it — favorite friend?" I let that land for exactly one second. "You keep your word, don't you?"

She blinked. "Of course I —"

"Ten thousand dollars a dish," I said. "I'll make a full spread. Eight courses. That's eighty thousand total." I pulled my phone out of my pocket and held it up — the banking app already open, my account number on screen. "I accept transfers. Prepayment, please."

The room went very quiet.

Talia stared at me. Cole had finally looked up.

His expression was one I'd never seen on him before. Not anger. Not amusement.

Something that looked almost like — recognition.

Like he was seeing me for the first time.

Or realizing he'd been looking without seeing for a very long time.

I kept my phone extended. Steady. Eyes on Talia.

"Whenever you're ready," I said pleasantly.

* * *

— Caelum —

I called Zane at nine that evening.

"There's a student on campus," I said, when he picked up. "Sera Lane. Second-year healer. She's had a difficult few weeks and she has no reliable support around her. I want you to check in on her."

Silence on the other end. The specific silence of my son organizing what he actually wanted to say.

"Check in on her," he repeated.

"She's under Greymoor protection. It's a reasonable thing to ask."

"Sure." A pause. "What's her connection to you?"

"She's a student in difficult circumstances. That's sufficient reason."

"Dad."

"Zane."

Another silence. Longer this time. I knew what was coming. He'd always been good at this — at sitting with a question until he found the real one underneath it.

"I saw her photo," he said finally. "In your file on her. And I've been thinking about the watch. The one you've kept since before I was born."

I said nothing.

"She looks like her," Zane said. Quiet. Careful. Like he was carrying something fragile. "She is that woman, isn't she. The one in your heart. All this time."

The line was very quiet.

I could have said yes. The word was there, available, and it would have been the truth.

"No," I said.

"Dad —"

"She's a student in difficult circumstances," I said again, even, final. "Keep an eye on her. That's all I'm asking."

I hung up.

I sat at my desk for a while after, in the quiet of the evening, with the pocket watch on the table in front of me.

I didn't open it.

I didn't need to. I'd had the photograph memorized for twenty years.

No, I had said.

I was a man who had built his entire life on decisions made cleanly, with full information, for the right reasons.

I put the watch back in my drawer and went back to work.