Chapter 2
I don't know how long I lay there before the door opened.
I heard the heels first. Slow. Measured. The kind of walk that didn't need to hurry because everyone else got out of the way.
Eleanor.
She stepped inside and pulled the door closed behind her with a soft click. The healer had left a small lamp on. Its yellow light caught the edge of Eleanor's pearls, the silver in her hair, the perfect line of her mouth.
She didn't sit. She never sat in rooms she considered beneath her.
"Well," she said. Her voice was quiet. Almost gentle. "This is a mess."
I didn't answer. I kept my eyes on the ceiling.
"Look at me, Aria."
I didn't.
She waited a beat, then continued anyway. She had practiced enough not to need me to perform for her.
"Do you understand what you've cost this pack?" she said. "That child was a Crawford heir. Generations of bloodline. And you couldn't even carry him to term."
The word him hit somewhere I'd already stopped feeling. The healer hadn't told me yet. Maybe Eleanor knew. Maybe she was guessing. Either way, she watched my face for the flinch.
I didn't give her one.
"The healer briefed me," she went on. "Permanently barren. Aura extinguished. Do you know what that makes you, in the eyes of the elders?"
She waited. I said nothing.
"A liability," she answered for me. "A Luna who cannot produce. A bond that cannot bear fruit. Every allied pack at this summit will hear of it within the week. Do you think the Crawford elders will let that stand?"
She took one step closer. The lamp light caught the underside of her chin.
"By the end of the week, Aria, you will be demoted. Omega status. You will keep a roof. You will keep a place in this house. But the title is gone. The seat at the table is gone. Hadlee will be raised under my care, as she has been. That much, at least, is mercy."
She paused. She wanted me to beg.
I looked at her.
That was all. I just looked.
For years she had read every expression I made and used it. The grief. The pleading. The patience. The love. Tonight there was nothing on my face for her to use, because there was nothing left in me she could reach.
She took it for what she wanted to take it for.
"Good," she said softly. "I'm glad you understand."
She turned. Her heels clicked toward the door. At the threshold, she paused without looking back.
"Rest, dear. You'll need your strength."
The door closed.
I listened to her footsteps fade down the hall.
Then I sat up.
My abdomen pulled. My head swam. I planted my hand against the cot and waited for the room to stop tilting. When it did, I reached down to the bag the healer had set beside the bed. My clothes from before were folded on top. Underneath was the sketchbook I never went anywhere without.
Leather cover. Soft from years of being carried. The corners worn pale.
I opened it on my lap.
I didn't cry. I want to say that clearly, because for years I had cried in rooms exactly like this one, and I knew the difference now.
I turned to a blank page.
My pencil was tucked into the spine. My hand was steady enough.
At the top of the page, I wrote: GIVEN.
Underneath: Seven years. The pack house. The northern wall. The scent-line at the eastern border. A daughter. A son. My wolf's ability to carry again. My aura. My name in his mouth.
I moved to the next column. LOST.
Underneath: Everything in the first column.
Then I drew a third column, and the pencil paused over it.
LEVERAGE.
I looked at the word for a long moment.
Then I wrote one line beneath it.
A barren Luna is a story Shadowcrest cannot afford the other packs to hear.
I stared at the page. Eleanor had said it herself, less than ten minutes ago. She had handed it to me thinking it was a verdict. It was a key.
The one thing the Crawfords could not take from me was the very thing they thought made me worthless. I could not produce an heir. The whole hall full of allied Alphas downstairs did not know that yet. By morning, if I chose, they would.
That was the weight on my side of the scale.
For the first time since the water closed over my head, I felt my own heartbeat. Slow. Even.
Clear.
I tore the page out, folded it once, and slid it back inside the cover.
Then I turned to a clean page and began to write again. Not in pencil this time. In the small ink pen I kept clipped at the back. The handwriting that came out was nothing like the soft cursive I had used in this house for seven years. It was the handwriting from my drafting desk. Square. Exact. The kind that signed plans.
I addressed it to Marcus Webb, Beta of Shadowcrest. Pack Council Channel. Bypass the Alpha's office.
I wrote four short paragraphs.
The first stated the medical findings.
The second stated what I would say, in person, to every allied pack representative still inside the lakeside pavilion, if my conditions were not met by sunrise.
The third stated the condition. Immediate, formal dissolution of the mate bond. Full council convening. Tonight.
The fourth was one line.
I will not be asking twice.
I signed it. I folded it. I called the night nurse and asked her to deliver it to the Beta directly. Not to the Alpha. Directly to Marcus.
She took it without a word. She had seen me carried in two hours ago. She knew what room she was in.
The door closed behind her.
I sat alone in the lamp light with my sketchbook on my lap and waited.
Forty minutes later, I heard the bells.
The pack council had been convened.
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