My Alpha, Kane Volkov, shirt unbuttoned, pinned me firmly beneath him. His searing chest pressed against my heaving breaths, and through the thin nightgown, it rubbed slowly, again and again, over my swollen pregnant belly. His left hand teased faintly at my chest while his right hand trailed downward along the curve of my abdomen. Just as he was about to cross that final barrier, a gush of heat surged forth without warning. Amniotic fluid soaked through my nightgown in an instant and dampened his shirt as well. Kane, who had been pressing down on me, demanding kisses only a second ago, went deathly pale. He didn't even bother to button up — he grabbed his coat, wrapped it around me, carried me barefoot off the bed, and barked at the driver to ready the car for the hospital. I thought he would stay with me to welcome our child. But instead, he carried me into a Moonrest Med-Pod — one with no delivery bed. Cold restraints snapped around my wrists. A wolfsbane injection to suppress contractions pierced my vein. I screamed in agony, but Kane leaned down to brush away my tears, his voice soft and tender. "The child in Selena's womb must be born first — must complete the First Howl first — before he can become my heir. Evelyn, you already have my love. Selena has nothing left but this child. Let her have this one." With that, he severed our private mental bond, turned away, and ordered the doctor. "Without my command, she is not to give birth." Much later, as he held Selena's newborn — the one that had just completed its First Howl — he finally remembered me. But the Beta who came to report was drenched in blood. "Alpha... the Madam and the baby... neither made it."

My fated mate, Sebastian Percy, had one rule he never broke. After nine at night, he didn't take a mind-link from anybody. He said that as an Alpha, he spent all day taking in the feelings and the voices of a few hundred pack members. Nine o'clock on was the quiet he kept for himself and his wolf. Even back when we'd just recognized each other and couldn't keep our hands off each other, nine came around and he'd cut the link without blinking. A stray wolf followed me home once. I reached for him, scared out of my mind, and what I got was Sebastian annoyed with me. "You're going to be Luna. You're not some kid who needs walking to her door. Get a handle on your fear and quit bringing me every little thing." Then, seven days out from the marking ceremony, I opened his Alpha terminal to check the guest list and pulled up the pack link logs without meaning to. Five years. Every night, nine at night to nine in the morning, a private link open to his assistant, Alice Palmer. Twelve hours a night. Not one night missed. So it was never about the quiet. It was about who he wanted on the other end, and it was never me. That link was never going to come on for me after nine, and I was done sitting around waiting for it. But when I called off the ceremony and the coronation, and cut the bond between us, he went to pieces. He was on his knees in front of me, begging.