LENA'S POV
Three red lines. Not two. Three.
Lena stared at the pregnancy test in her shaking hand and couldn't breathe right. Her bathroom was small. Dingy white walls. A cracked mirror. The kind of apartment a broke nurse could afford on a hospital salary. The kind of place that was supposed to be temporary but somehow became permanent.
The test confirmed what her body had been screaming at her for two weeks.
She grabbed the second test from the sink. Same thing. Two pink lines forming a plus sign that felt like a death sentence. Her stomach twisted. Then she picked up the third one. Just to be absolutely sure. Just to make sure she wasn't losing her mind.
All three tests gave her the same answer.
Pregnant. Actually pregnant. Not maybe. Not possibly. Definitely.
She dropped onto the bathroom floor because her legs didn't want to hold her anymore. The tile was cold under her thighs. She pulled her knees to her chest and pressed her forehead against them, trying to think of something that didn't make the panic worse.
Nothing came.
Two months. She'd been hiding the nausea at the hospital for over two months. Every morning shift, she'd excused herself three or four times to throw up in the staff bathroom. She'd covered it up by saying she had a stomach bug. She'd lost five pounds even though her breasts were tender and swollen and her jeans didn't fit right anymore.
How had she convinced herself it was anything other than this?
Because the alternative was impossible. That's how.
Lena closed her eyes and saw his face. Saw the lake. Saw the dock where everything changed in one single night. Three months ago. Ninety-one days if she was counting. And she was definitely counting.
The man with kind eyes and rough hands who'd vanished like he'd never been real at all.
She pushed her palm against her stomach, pressing hard like she could undo this somehow. Like her body was making a mistake and she could fix it with enough pressure and enough denial. But her stomach was already starting to curve. She'd noticed it last week when she showered. She'd thought she was just gaining weight from stress.
Now she knew better.
Her phone buzzed on the bathroom sink. She lifted her head and stared at it without moving. Another buzz. Then another. Text messages coming through one after another.
She reached up and grabbed it.
Blake. Of course it was Blake.
You free tonight? Craving wings from that place on Fifth. You in or what?
She didn't respond. Just stared at the message like it was written in a language she didn't understand anymore. Blake was her best friend. Had been since they were kids. He was the only real family she had left. And she was sitting on a bathroom floor holding three positive pregnancy tests like they were going to change if she held them long enough.
Another text came through.
Lena, you alive? Haven't heard from you in like a week.
A week? Had it really been that long? She'd been pulling extra shifts at the hospital. Staying late. Going in early. Anything to keep herself busy and exhausted enough that when she finally got home, she could sleep without thinking. Without remembering the lake house. Without remembering how it felt to have someone look at her like she was the only thing that mattered.
Before he left. Before he decided she didn't matter at all.
She stood up slowly. Her reflection in the mirror was pale. Hollow. She looked like a ghost of herself. Her dark hair was pulled back in a messy bun. Purple circles under her eyes from working too much and sleeping too little. She didn't look like someone carrying a life inside her. She looked like someone barely holding her own life together.
She was twenty-six years old and completely alone.
The thought made her chest tight. She touched her bathroom mirror, pressing her fingers against the cool glass. Behind her reflection, she could almost see her mother's face. Elena Morrison, who'd told her countless times that the world was cruel but that brave people didn't wait for the world to treat them fairly. Brave people fought.
Brave people didn't panic on bathroom floors.
Lena turned away from the mirror because looking at herself made the panic worse. She grabbed the three tests and shoved them into the trash can under some paper towels. Out of sight. Not real if she couldn't see them.
Her phone buzzed again.
Blake again. Seriously dude, what's going on with you?
She should tell him. Blake knew everything about her. He knew about her parents dying in that pack accident six years ago when she was twenty. He knew about the funeral she hadn't cried at because crying meant accepting it was real. He knew about moving in with his family because staying near her pack after losing her parents felt like drowning. He knew about her decision to become a nurse because she wanted to heal people instead of falling apart with them.
He knew everything except this.
Lena typed and deleted three different responses. Nothing felt right. Nothing felt possible. How was she supposed to text "hey by the way I'm pregnant and I have no idea what to do" to her best friend like they were just catching up?
Her legs started shaking again.
She sat back down on the bathroom floor and wrapped her arms around herself. The apartment was quiet. Too quiet. She could hear the neighbors through the thin walls. Someone's TV. A couple arguing. The normal sounds of people living normal lives. People who weren't sitting on bathroom floors discovering their entire future had just changed.
She thought about the man at the lake house again. She shouldn't. It didn't help. But she couldn't stop herself.
He'd looked at her that morning when the sun was coming up. Really looked at her. Like he was memorizing her face. Like that moment mattered to him. He'd kissed her forehead and told her his name was Wyatt. Just Wyatt. No last name. No explanation. No mention of his life or his family or why he was at the lake house running from something.
She'd traced her fingers along his jaw and asked if he felt it too. That pull. That bond. The way their souls seemed to recognize each other like they'd been searching for years.
He'd said yes.
Then his phone rang and his whole face changed. Some older man's voice came through the line and whatever he heard made something shift behind his eyes. Like shutters closing. Like walls going up. He'd gotten dressed slowly. Avoided looking at her. When she asked if she'd imagined what happened between them, he'd said something that she'd replayed a thousand times since.
You didn't imagine it. But I can't.
Then he was gone.
And now she was here. Alone. Pregnant. With a child whose father didn't want to remember her.
Her phone buzzed again.
Okay seriously, I'm coming over. Something's wrong. You're scaring me.
Lena stared at the message and felt something crack open inside her chest. Blake always knew. He'd always known when she was hurting even when she pretended everything was fine. It was one of the reasons she loved him. It was also why she couldn't hide this much longer.
She typed back: Come over. But bring ice cream.
His response came immediately: I'm already in my car.
Lena put her phone down and looked at her hands. They were still shaking. She pressed them against her stomach again and felt the smallest flutter of movement. Or maybe she was just imagining it. Maybe her body was playing tricks on her.
She closed her eyes and made herself a promise. The same promise her mother had made to her when she was born. The same promise Elena had lived by even when her family had treated her like she was less than they were.
This child would know they were wanted. This child would know they were loved. Even if their father wanted nothing to do with them. Even if Lena had to move heaven and earth to make it happen. Even if it destroyed her.
Her phone buzzed.
I'm outside. Are you okay?
Lena looked around her tiny bathroom. At the empty pregnancy tests hidden in the trash. At her pale reflection in the mirror. At her life as it had been just ten minutes ago, which felt like a completely different existence from this moment.
She stood up. Took a breath. Opened the bathroom door.
And then Blake was there, his face tight with worry, his eyes searching hers for the truth she'd been hiding. He took one look at her and his expression changed. Not to anger. Not to judgment. To something worse.
To understanding.
"You're pregnant," he said. Not a question.
Lena nodded.
Blake's jaw clenched. His hands balled into fists. And then he asked the question that would start everything falling apart.
"It's the Alpha, isn't it? The man from the lake house. It's an Alpha and you didn't tell me."