Chapter 1

It took Soren a while, but he finally noticed I’d gone quiet.

I bought a gown for the Full Moon Gala and never sent him a single photo to ask which one he liked. Ashen Ridge held its annual Winter Ball, and I walked in alone as their Luna. When the doctors told me the silver fragments buried under my shoulder blade had to come out, I set up the surgery on my own. I didn’t call. I didn’t text. I didn’t even try the mate bond.

Then Soren heard about it from my doctor, and his jaw locked. “Why am I only finding out now? Send me the scans. I’ll get the medical center to clear the schedule.”

“Don’t bother. I’ve got it covered. You have enough going on.”

Neither of us spoke after that.

Two weeks before, I’d still been texting him earring pictures, asking which pair would look best at a council dinner. I’d message him over lunch to check whether he’d eaten. I’d lie awake at night, waiting for his headlights to cross our bedroom window. My whole world used to turn around one man. My husband. My mate. My Alpha.

Now the silver wound had me shaking in pain, and he was sitting with my stepsister while she cried. I didn’t say a word. I kept the pregnancy to myself, too.

Soon, he’d learn one more thing without any help from me.

I was already gone from his pack, and I wasn’t coming back.

---

"Tomorrow morning?" Dr. Prescott glanced up from my chart, as if he'd misheard. "You don't want to wait a few days? Alpha Soren gets back tonight. I'm sure he'll want to be here for his Luna."

I shut the folder. "It's a few silver splinters and a local anesthetic, not a heart transplant. I've already signed the consent forms."

He just kept staring at me.

Everyone in Ashen Ridge knew how much I used to lean on Soren. When I sprained my ankle at training, I refused to let anyone touch it until he got out of a council meeting. Once, the edge of a folder nicked my finger, and I held it up so he could kiss it better.

So when I said I could handle this myself, Dr. Prescott had no idea what to do with me.

I walked out of his office and stopped cold in the lobby.

Soren Rourke had just come through the front doors, rolling a carry-on behind him. He was broad-shouldered and intimidating enough that the younger wolves stepped aside without even thinking about it. One of his hands rested on my stepsister Marnie's back, guiding her over the two low steps like she might shatter.

A hand-embossed leather cuff circled her wrist.

I'd made it for Soren on our third mating anniversary.

His eyes dropped to the folder in my hand. "Wren? What are you doing here? Is the silver wound flaring up again?"

Again. Such a small word, and it made me sound like one more problem on his desk.

Before I could answer, he took the folder and skimmed the report. "Tomorrow doesn't work. My schedule's packed. Have them push it to next week."

I pulled the papers back out of his hand. "They don't have to work around your schedule. I'm going alone."

Soren blinked.

Two weeks ago, I'd asked him whether I should wear red or black to the council dinner. Now I was planning surgery without telling him. If we hadn't run into each other today, he might never have found out.

I took a step back. As I did, a white pharmacy box slid out of his coat pocket and hit the floor. The label was for a drug commonly prescribed for severe morning sickness.

Soren snatched it up. "Don't start. Marnie was sick the whole flight. I just picked it up for her."

Marnie lowered her lashes and turned the cuff on her wrist. "I'm sorry, Wren. Soren was supposed to go straight home, but I felt awful, and I was too scared to come here by myself." Then she gave me a soft, embarrassed smile. "I wish I were as independent as you. The Alpha wouldn't have to worry about me all the time."

Independent. I almost laughed.

A month ago, the skin around the silver fragments had flared up so badly that I woke in the middle of the night and couldn't move my shoulder. I called Soren, expecting him to be worried. The first thing he said was, "Is it really that bad? Do you have to call me right now?"

I told him I didn't know. I told him I was scared and I wanted my mate to come home.

"Call the doctor, Wren. You're a grown wolf, and you're the Luna of Ashen Ridge. You can't hand me every little problem. I'm your husband, not your nurse."

Funny how that worked.

The strongest Alpha in the region had time to solve everyone else's problems, just never his own mate's. But all Marnie had to do was whisper that she felt sick, and he'd drive her straight from the airport to the clinic.

Anyone watching the two of them would have assumed the woman in his gift was his Luna.

The old me would have demanded answers. I would have cried, fought, and made him prove that box of pills meant nothing.

This time, I just nodded. "Okay." No accusations, no jealousy, no tears.

Soren still didn't know about the tiny heartbeat inside me.

And my baby was never going to grow up listening to me beg his father to come home.

He'd grow up with me, somewhere far from Ashen Ridge.