The packhouse was still half-asleep, dawn spilling pale light through the tall windows when I slipped into the upstairs bathroom. My hands shook as I fumbled with the little cardboard box Cassia had smuggled into my room the night before.

“Just stress,” I whispered to myself, pacing as if the tiled floor could answer back. “Just jet lag. Just too much sangria in Spain, too many churros in Portugal. Not… this.”

But when the faint pink line bloomed across the stick, my breath caught. The world tilted. Two lines.

“Oh Goddess.” My knees nearly gave out.

And then—Cassia.

The doorknob rattled, followed by her too-loud whisper. “Elara? You’re in there forever. Did you faint? Did you pee wrong? … Are you pregnant?”

I dropped the stick like it burned. “GO AWAY!”

Of course, that was an engraved invitation. The door burst open, Cassia barreling in barefoot, blonde hair in a lopsided bun, oversized tee hanging off one shoulder. Her eyes landed on the stick. She froze. Then her jaw dropped.

And she screamed.

Not a delicate scream. A banshee shriek so shrill it rattled the mirror.

“I KNEW IT!” she screeched, bouncing up and down. “I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT—”

“Cassia!” I lunged, slapping a hand over her mouth. “For the love of the Goddess, shut up!”

Too late.

Caius’s lazy voice floated down the hall. “Do I need to call an exorcist or is this just Cassia before coffee?”

Footsteps followed. Doors creaked open. And then Alpha Darius himself appeared, looming in the doorway like an annoyed general dragged out of strategy council too early.

His hair was mussed, his jaw shadowed with stubble, but his eyes were sharp—always sharp. Arms folded across his chest, he scanned the scene: me pale as death, Cassia vibrating like she’d won the lottery, the stick clutched in my hand.

“What,” Alpha Darius said slowly, “is the reason my household sounds like a pack of banshees before sunrise?”

Cassia tore free of my grip. “SHE’S PREGNANT!”

I choked. “I—NO—I mean, not—not officially—”

Behind my uncle Alpha Darius, Luna Lyanna appeared, serene in a silken robe the color of moonlight. She carried a cup of tea with the calm dignity of a queen attending a coronation, though her eyes—warm, shrewd, all-seeing—landed squarely on me.

My mother, arrived next. Her gaze went straight to my face, then flicked down to the stick in my hand. No accusations, no gasp—just the quiet, crushing weight of her healer’s intuition.

Caius leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, smirking like this was the best entertainment he’d had in weeks. “So this is why you glowed after Paris,” he drawled.

My jaw unhinged. “You—WHAT—”

Cassia gasped dramatically, pointing between us. “You noticed too? I told you, she had the mystery-man glow!”

“Glow?” Alpha Darius echoed, one brow arching. “That what we’re calling poor life choices now?”

“Uncle!” I squeaked.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I let you two travel Europe under one condition—don’t start an international incident. And yet here we are, three weeks later, chaos at dawn and apparently another Valemont pup in the making.”

“It’s not—” I stammered, heat flaming my cheeks. “It’s too early to even—”

Cassia flung her arms around me, nearly knocking me into the sink. “Don’t listen to him. I’m going to be the best Aunt Cassia. I’ll babysit, I’ll buy it tiny leather jackets, I’ll—”

“Over my dead body,” Seraphina said crisply.

“Oh no..” Luna Lyanna murmured, sipping her tea.

Caius snorted. “I give it a week before Cassia loses the kid in a bookstore or swaps it for churros.”

Cassia gasped. “Rude. I’d never trade a baby for churros. Maybe for macarons.”

Alpha Darius’s mouth twitched. “This is my punishment. I asked for one quiet morning. Just one.”

“Consider this karma,” Luna Lyanna said smoothly, her eyes never leaving me.

And then—her question, soft, deceptively gentle: “Elara, who is the father?”

The room went still.

Cassia froze mid-bounce. Caius’s smirk faded into curiosity. Alpha Darius’s eyes narrowed just enough to make my pulse spike. Seraphina’s hand rested against the doorframe, her gaze heavy, her silence more damning than words.

I swallowed hard, clutching the little stick until my knuckles hurt. My throat worked, but no sound came.

“…It was just one night,” I whispered.

And even as the words left me, my chest ached, because I knew “just one night” would never be enough to explain Paris.

Elara’s POV

Silence held for one impossible heartbeat after I whispered it—just one night.

Then Cassia promptly burst into tears and laughter all at once, clapping like a deranged seal. “I KNEW IT! Mystery man! Paris fling! You glorious secretive minx!”

“Cassia—” I hissed, but she was already spinning toward Caius.

“You owe me twenty bucks,” she declared.

Caius arched a brow. “I don’t remember betting.”

“You didn’t,” she said smugly, “but you should still pay me because I was right.”

“Cassia,” Alpha Darius said, his voice carrying the weight of command, “sit.”

She sat instantly, cross-legged on the floor, muttering, “Still Aunt Cassia though.”

Luna Lyanna finally set down her teacup on the counter, serene as a glacier. “We should move this discussion somewhere less… tiled.”

Alpha Darius’s sharp gray eyes landed on me. I wanted to melt into the floor. Instead, he jerked his chin toward the hall. “Dining room. Now.”

The entire packhouse smelled of cinnamon and fried potatoes when we filed into the great hall. Wolves were already gathered, warriors and elders alike, chatter bouncing off the high beams. As soon as they saw Alpha Darius, silence fell. He didn’t have to command it; silence followed him the way shadows followed light.

We sat near the head of the long table—Cassia bouncing like she had a drumbeat under her skin, Caius smirking with the calm of someone who liked chaos as long as it wasn’t his problem, Luna Lyanna poised like royalty, and my mother, Seraphina, so still beside me I could barely breathe.

Alpha Darius remained standing, surveying the room. “Eat,” he commanded. And everyone did, like the word itself was law. Then his eyes returned to me.

I picked up a berry. My hand shook. Cassia noticed, of course. Cassia notices everything.

She leaned close and whispered, “Craving fruit already. Classic.”

“Shut up.”

“Can I be in the delivery room?”

“No.”

“What if I sneak in with a disguise?”

“Cassia.”

Across me, Caius smirked. “You’ll drop the baby in a gift basket at this rate. ‘Congratulations, surprise heir.’”

Cassia swatted him with a roll. “Don’t be mean. Elara’s child will be a beautiful, chaos-resistant prodigy. Just like me.”

“Moon help us,” Alpha Darius muttered, finally sitting, though his gaze was still carved steel. “Enough.”

My pulse pounded in my ears. I could feel my mother’s eyes on me—quiet, watchful, healer’s gaze sharp as a blade. She didn’t speak, but her hand brushed mine under the table. Warm. Anchoring. A question without words: Tell me later?

I bit my lip and nodded.

“Three weeks,” Alpha Darius said suddenly, his tone deceptively calm. “That’s how long you were gone. Three weeks in which, I trusted, you would not get yourselves killed, arrested, or pregnant.”

Cassia raised a hand. “Technically—”

Cassia gasped, delighted. “Oh no. That is not the answer. You don’t get to give me one pink line and a tragic one-night stand and then never! We are going to find him.”

My throat closed. Words knotted. My heart screamed his name—Thorne—but my mouth betrayed me.

But even after, the words over never meant done. They never did.

Later that evening

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