She cannot leave

Mira's POV

"I'll leave." My throat was so dry it ached. "If that's what you want."

Getting the answer he wanted, Cyrus's mood settled at last.

I dragged myself toward the door. Pulling the treatment room door open took every bit of strength I had left.

Cold light slanted in from outside. Through the blur, I made out Leo and Tonia standing beyond the doorway — Cyrus's father and mother.

"Father..." My voice came out dry and scraping.

Leo's gaze came to rest on me. More precisely, it landed on the pale brand low on my abdomen. The muscles in his face pulled tight all at once, and his expression darkened.

But that displeasure hung in the air for half a second, and then it was gone.

Because his eyes moved past me and stopped on Cyrus's hand, closed around Angelina's wrist.

Leo's brow drew together. I knew that particular frown — it was the face he wore in the council chamber whenever someone put forward a stupid proposal. Disapproval, plain and simple.

He glanced at Angelina, and something in his eyes shifted, losing its edge of cold.

"Cyrus." Leo's voice was low, but everyone in the room could hear it. "Whatever has happened, what is in Mira's belly is your blood."

He was not looking at me. His eyes were on Cyrus's face.

"The family will not harm an unborn child. That is the bottom line. If you send her away, or—" Leo paused, "—or if you touch her again, and anything happens to that child, I will not pretend I did not see it."

Cyrus's lips pressed into a thin line, and his hand did not loosen around Angelina's. Leo watched that clasped hand for two full seconds, his throat working, and in the end said nothing more.

He stepped back and yielded his place to Tonia.

Tonia's palm pressed flat against the brand on my abdomen. The linking power of the previous Luna flowed in through her hand — a warmth that wrapped around the child curled inside me and smoothed out his uneasy fluttering.

The heartbeat steadied, one beat after another, travelling through skin and flesh into Tonia's palm.

"The child is fine." Tonia withdrew her hand and stood.

She looked at Cyrus, and her tone held unmistakable disapproval. "Mira is this family's Luna, Cyrus. Whatever she has done wrong, you cannot treat her this way. Sending her away — that is not how an Alpha treats his Luna."

Cyrus gave no answer. Tonia's gaze swept across him and pulled back quickly, as though she had no wish to pick at the matter any further.

But then Tonia did something that sent a chill down my back. Once she had confirmed the child was unharmed, she stepped back to Leo's side, and the expression on her face returned to the cool detachment she wore when handling pack business.

"There." She spoke as though the exchange before it had used up the last of her patience. "The little one was only frightened. No serious harm done to the body."

Not one word about my injuries.

Tonia tugged at Leo's cuff and gave him a pointed look.

Leo clearly understood what she meant. He turned his eyes back to Cyrus.

"Whatever Mira has done." His voice dropped low, weighted with an authority that left no room to argue. "Cyrus, I should not need to remind you how much your bloodline means to this family. This family accepts and protects every one of its members — without condition."

The sting of tears rose in my eyes again. At least Leo still cared about this child. At least he still cared whether I, as a member of this pack, lived or died.

But I had barely swallowed the taste of blood in my throat when Leo tacked on the next sentence.

"Even if this child's mother is nothing but an omega, he is still part of this family."

That small warmth turned cold in an instant.

Only an omega. That was the identity Leo had given me: an ordinary werewolf who, by rights, should have spent her whole life scraping along at the very bottom.

Cyrus kept his lips pressed tight and said nothing for a long while. When he finally lowered his head, his voice was cold. "Yes, Father."

Leo was about to nod. Then Cyrus lifted his eyes and pointed at me. "But this servant broke into my bedroom without permission and used Angelina's scent to try to seduce me."

I went rigid. Leo's brow furrowed, and he looked at Cyrus in open bewilderment. "Servant? Cyrus, this is your Luna. Don't you remember her?"

He did not wait for Cyrus to answer. His gaze came back to me, and the mockery in his voice was no longer dressed up as anything else. "Though I suppose she is a Luna who cannot even protect her own child. A truly useless she-wolf."

I bit down hard on my lip. Leo was right. If the two of them had not appeared when they did, I would already have left this place.

A she-wolf leaving the family on her own, without even the ability to keep her own child safe — if anything had happened to that child, the fault would have been mine as a mother.

I lowered my head by habit, ready to admit fault. Tonia's hand came down over the back of mine.

"Enough." She cut Leo off. The movement was light, but her hand was cold, carrying no warmth at all. "Have they found the poisoner?"

Cyrus shook his head. Tonia's expression dropped another degree, and she turned to me — whatever gentleness had been there was gone without a trace.

"Cyrus was unconscious for a whole week. You found nothing?" Her voice was pure accusation. "As the Luna of this family, you are far too weak. Your husband, the Alpha of the entire pack, was poisoned for seven days, and you accomplished nothing at all. Did you think that if you cried a few tears here, the poisoner would come out and confess on his own?"

I shook my head hard. "I did investigate. From the purchase ledgers to every servant in the kitchen, I went through every item that passed through anyone's hands. But there was no lead. Whoever did it wiped the traces clean. I found nothing."

The room went so quiet it was hard to draw breath. I lowered my head and waited for whatever was coming. Cyrus wanted me gone, and Leo and Tonia would not stop him — I had more or less accepted it.

But I waited a few seconds and Cyrus still did not speak. My throat tightened, and that thing I should not have felt rose up in me again. Would he— would he change his mind?

"Cyrus." Leo's voice came, low and steady. "She cannot leave."

Cyrus's brow shifted.

Leo went on. "The blood of this family cannot be left to wander the wild. What is in her belly is your child. If she leaves, it will be after the birth. And the matter of your poisoning has not been cleared up. She was the last one present. Until the truth is found, she does not leave pack territory."

I looked up at Cyrus. He would agree, wouldn't he? At least... at least I would not be thrown out into the wild for now.

"Fine."

He finally spoke, his voice cold but decisive.

"Then it waits until after the birth. But until then—" He pulled his gaze away and jerked his chin at the two guards by the door. "Take her back to her room and lock it. Keep her away from my study and the kitchen."

"And the poisoning — I will look into that myself."

"The sooner it is finished, the sooner she leaves."