The Alpha Rejected Me, But I Carry His Heir

Chapter 7: The First Morning

My eyes fly open long before the sun does-it’s a familiar habit-with the small sounds of my children breathing.

For a split second I permit myself not to know where I am. Aria is spread across half the mattress, one foot planted firmly in my ribs, and Rowan is nestled against my other side, his tiny fist still balled in the sleeve of my nightshirt. He sleeps the sleep of a boy who learned, very early on, that most people leave. I know perfectly who taught him that, and the knowing is a rock wedged into my chest.

Then the awareness of last night floods me-the long hallway, the pair of silver eyes, Kaelen at his knee-and I am awake, the Silvercrest heir once more, the need for stones replaced by the sheer terror of knowing that there is no time.

A soft rap on my door. Two distinct knocks, a pause, one last rap. Rurik’s coded summons.

I extract myself carefully from my children, tuck the quilt around them and open the door, sliding through just enough to meet him at the threshold. Rurik is standing in the hallway, and the tightness about his jaw tells me he hasn’t slept either.

“Tell me,” I whisper.

“The wards,” he says, his voice low. “I consulted the travel logs Silvercrest has kept-all transport logged and tracked, each gate encoded with bloodline markers. The children could not have gotten themselves across that boundary.

The western gate was opened the night we left by someone within the pack hierarchy, and signed under a falsified seal.”

He hesitates, then meets my eyes. “Nova, the seal isEastern.

Seraphine’s house.”

The shiver that goes through me has nothing at all to do with the bite of mountain air.

“She brought my children here.” The words are a soft puff of air against the darkness. “To take me down.”

“And that’s what doesn’t make sense.” Rurik shakes his head. “Seraphine was… genuinely shocked, last night.

You were there.

She showed no delight, no sign of the triumph I would expect from someone pulling strings. I think,” he lowers his voice almost to a murmur, “that somebody framed Seraphine. Somebody wanted you to suspect her more than they wanted to work the problem directly. Meaning there are at least two players here, Nova.

At least one of them is intelligent enough to frame the other.”

Two phantom paws. A trap nested within a trap. I can feel the slow shifting of some vast, predatory intelligence beneath the fragile skin of this pack, and it is making the careful efforts I’ve been deploying feel insultingly insignificant.

“Say nothing to anyone,” I tell him, and the sharpness of it surprises even me. “Not even a word directed at Seraphine. If they want me to suspect her, I will focus every ounce of my intention elsewhere. I will greet her warmly over breakfast tomorrow, and watch their plans falter when my curiosity remains firmly focused on the mountains.”

Rurik’s lips twitch. “You’re frightening when you’re being calm, Nova.”

“I’m always being calm.”

“And THAT’S the frightening part.”

He retreats obediently for a well-deserved rest, leaving me to turn back to the door of my chambers. I pause, a jolt shooting up my spine.

Kaelen is there at the far end of the hallway.

He's dressed down-no formal garb, only a dark, plain shirt and the gaunt weariness of a man who also hasn't slept. He's holding a tray, and resting on that tray are two small, intricately woven bowls filled with honeyed oats, two steaming cups of milk, and, unbelievably, impossibly, one single, perfect, moonflower. It lies across the wooden surface as if in lieu of an apology he doesn’t have the courage to give himself yet.

“I remembered,” he says, his voice quiet and hoarse. “You used to braid them in your hair.”

Something in my chest contracts tightly, and I squash it flat.

“That was not my habit.”

“ I know.”

He does not lower the tray. “The oats are for them.

The children wake up hungry, and I didn’t- I don’t know how they prefer it, so I made them what Mother made for me.”

He swallows hard. “I’m not asking for permission to come in, Nova. I’m not asking for anything. I just didn’t want the little ones to wake up in a new place and be hungry.

That’s all.

Take it or throw it at me. Either response is just fine by me.”

I look at the tray, and then I look at this man-an Alpha that couldn't afford me a second glance at most times during my apprenticeship, now standing patiently in a freezing hallway at four o'clock in the morning having learned to cook porridge on the minuscule chance that my children might take it.

My initial thought is that he needs to earn this back-slowly. My pace. On my command.

I hadn’t expected it to start with breakfast.

“Put it down,” I say at last, and the command doesn’t have quite the edge of steel I intended. “On the floor by the door. They can see it for themselves.”

It isn't an acceptance, it isn't even a truce. But Kaelen sets the tray down as if it's made of spun glass, then steps back and away, his gaze so unguarded and so filled with the sheer, aching hope that for just one beat, I fear I’ll break.

I lean my forehead against the door, my heart a runaway drumbeat in my chest, and listen to the sound of his footsteps echoing diminishingly down the hall.

From across the room, a sleepy voice mutters, “Mama? Who was that man?”

It’s Rowan. He's wide awake now. He's watching me with my husband's silver eyes.

I turn from the door and scoop him into my arms, burying my face in his dark, silky hair and offering no explanation because there is none I can give that will be safe enough for him.

“Nobody, baby,” I lie smoothly. “Go back to sleep.”

But Rowan, who is only five and therefore far more wise to a wounded heart than any of the Alpha guards, frowns at the shut door.

“He seemed sad,” my son says, his voice still thick with sleep. “Like he lost something.”