THE ALPHA’S WET NURSE

Chapter Four

The crying started at two in the morning.It cut through the castle walls the way infant crying always did — high and desperate and completely indifferent to the hour.

In the east wing nursery the nanny, a stout woman named Pela, had been trying for forty minutes. She had rocked. She had walked.

She had tried the formula that the physician had prepared three different ways and the baby had taken one pull, turned his face away and resumed screaming with renewed conviction.

Two maids appeared in the doorway.

"Should we get Luna Serene?" The first one asked.

“I already sent for her." Pela said, still rocking, her own face tight with exhaustion.

More footsteps in the corridor.

Then voices.

Then the particular quality of silence that moved ahead of certain people like a warning. The door opened.

Alpha Aldric stood in the frame in a dark shirt with his hair undone and his eyes carrying the specific expression of a man who had been awake anyway and had followed the sound more out of instinct than decision.

Everyone in the room straightened.The baby kept crying. Aldric looked at the child in Pela's arms — red faced, mouth wide open, fists clenched at his chest like he was furious at the world for existing.

He was six weeks old and had been furious at the world for most of them.

"What's wrong with him?" Aldric asked, his voice cold and commanding, making Every one tremble.

"He won't take the formula, Alpha." Pela said. Her voice was steady but her hands weren't. "He hasn't taken it properly in two days. Physician Corra says his weight is —"

"Where is Corra?"

"Sent for, Alpha."

Luna Serene arrived before Corra did, her silver hair loose down her back, a shawl pulled around her shoulders. She crossed the room without looking at anyone else, took the baby from Pela's arms in one practiced motion and held him against her chest with the settled confidence of a woman who had raised children and knew exactly what she was doing.The crying didn't stop but it shifted — less furious, more exhausted.

"There." Serene said quietly, more to the baby than anyone else. "I have you."

Aldric watched his mother from across the room. She moved with the baby the way she had moved with all of them when they were small — unhurried, certain, like the child could feel through her hands that everything was going to be alright.

He had two memories of his mother from before he was old enough to remember clearly and both of them felt like this.He pressed two fingers to his temple where a headache had been building since he woke.

"Tell me about the child." His voice less interested as he adjusted his cuffs. Elder Rowan, who had appeared silently in the doorway at some point, stepped forward.

"His name is Beren." He said quietly. "Born six weeks ago. His mother — your cousin Lira — did not survive the delivery." He paused.

"His father was killed in the border skirmish four months before he was born. The child has no parents."

The room was very quiet except for the small sounds the baby was making against Serene's shoulder.

"He has family." Aldric said.

"Yes, Alpha." Rowan said."Then he has what he needs." Aldric looked at the child. "Except for whatever this is.”

“He won't take formula." Corra said from the doorway, stepping in now with his bag already open.

"I've tried four different preparations. His body is rejecting all of them." He set his bag on the side table and looked at Aldric directly.

"He needs wolf milk, Alpha. From a nursing mother. Formula is not sufficient for a wolf pup of this age in good health and he is not in good health. If we don't find a solution in the next few days —" He stopped.

"Say it." His voice came out eerie.

"He will decline." Corra said simply.

Aldric said nothing for a moment. He looked at the baby — at Beren, he corrected himself — small and red faced and exhausted from crying, finally quieting against his grandmother's shoulder with the worn out stillness of a child who had run out of ways to ask for what he needed.

“What should we do for him?" Aldric said

"He needs a wet nurse." His mother said. She said it without turning around, still focused on the baby, her voice carrying the particular calm of someone who had already thought it through.

"Then find one." Aldric said.Serene turned then and looked at her son across the room with an expression that was equal parts love and complete authority.

"I intend to." She said. "First thing in the morning I want a decree issued across the full pack territory. Every lactating wolf in good standing is to be assembled at the castle gates by the end of the week." She looked at Rowan. "See to it personally."

Rowan pressed his fist to his chest. "Yes, Luna."

Aldric looked at his mother for a moment, then at the child in her arms, then at the window where the sky outside was the particular dark blue that came just before dawn.

."Handle it." He said to the room in general and walked out.

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The news reached the outer residential quarter before midmorning. It moved the way news always moved in a pack — person to person, doorstep to doorstep, gathering detail and urgency as it went until by the time it reached the eastern streets it had accumulated enough excitement to make grown women run.

Mara was in the backyard pulling wet clothes from the basin when the gate flew open.She straightened, a shirt still in her hands, water running down her wrists.

Her friend Sefa was coming across the yard at a speed that was not her usual speed, both hands raised, her face doing something complicated between excitement and the effort of running.

"Mara." She grabbed the fence post to stop herself. "Have you heard?"

"Heard what?" Mara asked, eyes narrowed in confusion

"The castle." Sefa pressed a hand to her chest, catching her breath. "Luna Serene issued a decree this morning. They need a wet nurse for the Alpha's nephew — the little one, Beren, Lira's boy."

She shook her head. "Poor thing won't take formula. They're calling for any nursing wolf in good standing to present herself at the castle gates before the end of the week.”

Mara looked at her.

"The pay, Mara." Sefa lowered her voice like the amount was something sacred. "Three gold a month. Plus full board inside the castle walls. Meals, a room, everything provided."

Mara turned back to the basin and wrung out the shirt in her hands.

"You should go." Sefa said.

"I'll think about it.” Mara brushed her off with a sigh.

"Think about —" Sefa stepped closer. "Mara. Three gold. When did you last have three gold? When did any of us?" She paused.

"And it would help you. You know it would. You're still producing and it's going nowhere and I know that's — I know it's hard." She said it carefully, watching Mara's face.”

“This would help."Mara kept her hands in the basin. Before she could answer the back door opened. Edna stepped out into the yard with her arms folded and her eyes moving between Mara and Sefa with the sharp attention of a woman who had heard more than she was supposed to from inside.

"What's this about the castle?" She asked .Sefa glanced at Mara. Mara said nothing."A wet nurse?" Edna said slowly.

"Three gold a month?"

"That's what the decree says." Sefa said carefully.Edna was quiet for a moment. Something moved across her face — calculation dressed as consideration. She unfolded her arms. Folded them again.

"You should go." She said to Mara.

Mara stared at her mother in law in total disbelief.

"It's good money." Edna said. Her voice had shifted into something that wanted to sound generous and didn't quite get there. "Steady work. Respectable. And you'd be doing something useful instead of —" She stopped herself.

“We could use the income. Both of us."Mara held her gaze for a moment.

"I'll think about it." She shrugged and picked up the empty basin and carried it inside, leaving them both in the yard.

ln the kitchen she set the basin down on the table and stood with her hands flat on the wood and stared at the wall in front of her.

Three gold a month.

A room inside the castle.

A baby who needed what her body wouldn't stop producing.

She stood there for a long time.Then she thought about the name she had heard in the market that morning — the one that had stopped her cold, the one that belonged to a life she had buried — and something quiet and warning moved through her chest.

Going to that castle meant being seen.Being seen meant being found.

And there was someone out there who already knew where to look.