Kaela's POV
I buy two more tests because the first one might be wrong.
It's not wrong.
All three tests are laid out on the table in my room. Three positive tests. Three lines saying the same thing. Three pieces of proof that I'm not losing my mind, I'm just losing my life.
My hands won't stop shaking.
I put the tests in a bag and I walk to Sable's apartment because I can't be alone with this. I can't sit in my room and pretend this isn't happening. I need someone to tell me I'm not crazy or I need someone to tell me I am and there's a fix for it.
Sable opens the door and takes one look at my face and pulls me inside.
"Okay," she says. "Whatever you're about to tell me, I'm ready."
I don't say anything. I just pull out the three tests and lay them on her kitchen table.
Sable stares at them for a long moment. Her hands are flat on the table on either side of the tests like she's trying to understand what she's looking at. She's usually loud. Usually has something sharp to say about everything. Right now she's just quiet.
"Three tests," she finally says. "You're thorough. I'll give you that."
I sit down in the chair next to her because my legs are giving out.
"Whose is it?" Sable asks.
I don't answer. I don't have to. She's smart enough to know that I wouldn't be this panicked if it was from someone local. If it was from someone I could just talk to.
"Oh shit," Sable says, and she stands up and she starts pacing. "Oh shit, Kaela. Tell me you didn't."
"I didn't mean to," I say, and it sounds stupid even as I'm saying it.
"You don't mean to get pregnant. It just happens. But you also don't mean to end up in another pack's territory and sleep with their Alpha," Sable snaps, but there's no anger in it. Just panic. "When?"
"Six weeks ago," I tell her. "More or less."
Sable sits back down and she puts her head in her hands and she stays like that for a minute while the reality settles between us.
"Okay," she says finally. "Okay. We can work with this."
"No we can't," I tell her. "We really can't."
"Listen to me," Sable says, and she grabs my hands so I have to look at her. "You cannot go back to Ironveil. A rejected mate showing up pregnant by an enemy Alpha is a scandal and a threat. Riven will deny any connection to you. The council will use it against you to make you look unstable or dangerous."
I know this already. I've been thinking about it nonstop since I saw those two lines.
"They'll say you seduced him on purpose," Sable continues. "They'll say you did it to weaken Ironveil. They'll make you into the villain so nobody has to feel bad about what they did to you."
She's right. She's completely right and it makes me want to scream.
"So here's what's going to happen," Sable says, and she's using her practical voice now. The voice she used when her own pack fell apart and she decided to leave everything behind. "You're going to stay here. In Greywater. You're going to have this baby and you're going to build a life that doesn't depend on anyone from your old pack or your new pack or any pack at all."
"And what about Zane?" I ask.
Sable's face changes. "What about him?"
"He doesn't know," I say. "He has no idea this exists."
"Then you don't tell him," Sable says. "Not yet. Not until you figure out what you want. Not until you know whether you're keeping this or not."
I touch my stomach without thinking about it. My wolf goes very still inside me. She knows. Somehow she knows that there's something alive in here that carries both of us.
"I'm keeping it," I say quietly.
Sable nods like she expected that. "Then we figure it out. You stay here. I'll help you. We'll make it work."
I look at her and I realize that Sable is the only person who's ever offered to help me without asking what I can give her in return. The only person who's ever made me feel like I matter just by existing, not by what I can do for her or who I'm supposed to be.
"Why are you doing this?" I ask her.
"Because you need me to," Sable says. "That's what friends do."
I start crying then. Not small tears. Big, ugly crying that makes my shoulders shake and makes it hard to breathe. I cry because I'm terrified. I cry because I'm alone. I cry because I left the one person who made me feel wanted and I can never go back to him.
Sable pulls me into a hug and she doesn't say it's going to be okay because we both know it might not be. She just holds me while I fall apart.
Two Weeks Later
In Ashford territory, a scout named Marcus is filing a routine border report.
He's been tracking movement patterns in neutral territory for weeks. It's boring work mostly. Noting where rogues are settling, which females are moving between towns, whether there's any threat to Ashford interests.
The report he files includes a note about a woman he's seen twice now in Greywater. Young. Pretty. Visibly pregnant. Living quietly above a shop. She keeps to herself mostly. Doesn't seem to be a threat.
Just a detail in a routine report.
Marcus doesn't know who she is. Doesn't know that the bonding dress she was wearing when Zane found her matches the pack colors in the description. Doesn't know that the timeline of her pregnancy lines up perfectly with a night Zane spent in that small holding room.
Marcus just files the report and moves on to the next patrol.
The report sits in a pile on Zane's desk for two days before he sees it.
He's been trying not to think about the girl. Trying not to check the holding room even though he knows it's empty. Trying not to remember the feeling of her body against his or the way she looked at him like he was something worth wanting.
He's failing at all of it.
He reads Marcus's report and his entire body goes very still.
Greywater. Visibly pregnant. Living quietly.
He reads it three times to make sure the words don't change.
Then he reads it a fourth time because his brain can't quite accept what he's seeing.
A woman matching her description. Pregnant. In a neutral town six weeks after she left his territory in the middle of the night.
The numbers line up.
The timeline lines up.
Everything lines up in a way that makes his wolf stand up and demand answers.
She ran and she was pregnant. She knew. She must have known or at least suspected. And she left him anyway.
Zane puts the report down on his desk and he stares at it like it might tell him something different if he looks at it long enough.
His wolf is pacing inside his chest. Not angry. Just focused. Like she's just realized what she should have known all along.
That girl. That broken girl in the bonding dress. She carried more than a broken heart when she left Ashford territory.
She carried his child.