Rejected While Pregnant with the Alpha’s Secret Heir

Chapter 16 – When the Past Knocks

The knock comes just as I’m deciding between a shower and collapsing face-first onto the couch.

Three short raps, too brisk to be a neighbor, too polite to be a drunk from the laundromat who picked the wrong door.

My wolf lifts her head, nostrils flaring.

Not Corin. Different strength. Familiar in a way that makes my skin prickle.

I freeze halfway between the kitchenette and the living area, one hand on the back of a wobbly chair, the other automatically drifting to my belly.

Lio does a slow, uneasy flip under my palm.

“Easy,” I murmur. “Probably just a delivery mix-up.”

Another knock. Same rhythm. Impatient now.

I move to the door on silent feet and press my eye to the peephole.

Dark hair. Sharp cheekbones. Eyes like the river at dusk—green-gray, too bright, too sad.

Ivara.

For a heartbeat I think I’m still half-asleep on the couch, trapped in one of those fever dreams where the pack house hallways all lead here. But when she shifts her weight, the old floorboards outside my door creak exactly where I know they do.

My wolf surges forward, confusion and hurt tangling in my chest.

I unhook the chain, flip the deadbolt, and open the door halfway.

“I found you,” Ivara says, like a confession.

“What are you doing here?” My voice comes out flatter than I mean it to. “And how.”

She lifts a small, defeated-looking paper bag in one hand. It smells vaguely of takeout and rain.

“I brought food,” she says. “And a very long apology. And a promise not to cross your threshold unless you say yes.”

Her gaze drops, briefly, to where my hoodie hangs loose over my belly. Her throat works.

“And I followed my brother’s scent,” she adds, looking back up. “He is… not subtle.”

“i***t,” I mutter, half to myself. “Of course he isn’t.”

We stare at each other for a beat. Ten thousand memories crowd the space between us—training runs, whispered jokes in council meetings, the night she braided my hair and called me sister.

And the morning she watched me walk out of the pack house with a bag on my shoulder and didn’t follow.

“Can we talk?” she asks softly. “On the stairs, if you don’t want me in your den.”

Den.

The word makes some small, wounded part of me want to slam the door. Another part remembers that once, she was the only person who could make Corin laugh when he was too deep in his own head.

“Stairs,” I say. “For now.”

I slip out and pull the door mostly closed behind me, leaving only a sliver of my world visible: the edge of the couch, the corner of the thrift-store lamp, a flash of the ultrasound photo pinned crookedly to the wall.

We sit on the middle step, side by side, the bag between us. The banister digs into my spine; the hallway smells like dust, detergent, and wolf.

Her wolf.

Up close, I see the exhaustion on her face. The strain around her mouth. The way her hands twist in the fabric of the bag until the paper crinkles.

“You look…” She stops herself. “Different.”

“Pregnant?” I offer dryly.

Her eyes shine. “That too.”

Silence stretches.

“You were supposed to be my sister,” I say finally. The words taste old and sharp. “And when he broke our bond, you stayed.”

“I stayed,” she says quietly, “and watched him fall apart.”

Anger flares. “He made his choice.”

“I know.” Her fingers tighten. “I’m not here to defend him, Aeryn. I’m here because I didn’t come after you when I should have. Because I let the word ‘duty’ be louder than the word ‘friend.’”

The admission knocks some of the wind out of my anger.

I lean my head back against the wall, stare at the cracked plaster above us.

“Why now?” I ask. “You’ve had months of ‘duty.’ What changed?”

She lets out a breath that sounds like it hurts. “He did,” she says. “And the pack. And you.”

“Me?”

“You exist,” she says simply. “In a city Morin can’t control. Carrying a life he can’t categorize. And my i***t brother, who once stood in a clearing and chose fear, is now standing in council halls and saying ‘no.’”

I blink.

“Is that why you’re here?” I ask. “To convince me he’s suddenly heroic?”

Ivara gives a small, humorless laugh. “No. He’s still an i***t. Just… a slightly less cowardly one.”

She shifts to face me more fully.

“I’m here,” she says, “because Morin has started asking me questions about you. About whether you’re dangerous. About whether you’ve ‘stolen’ something from the pack.”

Ice slides down my spine.

“And?” My voice is too calm. “What did you say?”

“I said you can’t steal what was thrown away,” she snaps, sharper than I expected. “I said if the pack wanted a claim, it shouldn’t have watched you walk out carrying half its heart.”

Half its heart.

My eyes burn.

“He didn’t like that answer,” she adds wryly.

“Good,” I say.

She digs in the paper bag and pulls out a smaller envelope, creased and slightly damp.

“This is the official reason I came,” she says, holding it out. “Morin wanted me to invite you ‘back into the fold’ for a talk. Off the record. To ‘clear the air.’”

My laugh comes out as a bark. “Is he out of his mind?”

“Yes,” she says. “But he also underestimates you. He thinks you’re still the girl who would rather rip out her own heart than risk the pack’s disapproval.”

“That girl is dead,” I say.

“I know.” Her voice softens. “He doesn’t. That scares him.”

I don’t take the envelope.

“And the real reason you came?” I ask.

She hesitates, then reaches out—not quite touching my arm, hand hovering.

“To see with my own eyes that you’re alive,” she says. “That you’re… building something here. To tell you that not everyone in that forest agreed with what he did. Or with how Morin handled it.”

Her gaze skims my middle again, reverent and stricken all at once.

“And to tell you,” she adds roughly, “that if you ever need someone on the inside, if you ever decide this little wolf should see where he came from on your terms, not Morin’s—”

She swallows hard.

“—you won’t be alone walking back into those trees.”

For the first time since she knocked, my wolf leans toward her.

“Careful,” I say. “If you keep talking like that, he’ll call you a traitor.”

“He already has,” she says, a flash of teeth. “Just not to my face yet.”

We sit with that for a long moment. Two women on a cracked stairwell, the weight of a pack’s broken promises between them, and something new and fragile attempting to sprout through the concrete.

“Can I…” She falters. “Can I at least say hi to him?”

My hand tightens over my belly. Protective. Possessive.

“He’s still small,” I say. “He won’t know.”

“You don’t know that,” she answers, with the reckless faith of someone who has seen too much weirdness to discount instinct.

Slowly, carefully, I nod.

“Once,” I say. “You touch, you speak, you leave. No messages from Morin. No ‘think about the pack.’”

She presses a hand over her heart. “On my wolf.”

I shift, angling a little so the curve of my stomach is toward her. The hallway light flickers overhead.

Ivara’s hand shakes as she reaches out. When her palm finally settles, warm and tentative, over my hoodie, a faint flutter answers.

Her eyes go wide. Her lips part.

“Oh,” she whispers, the same stunned syllable Corin used. “Hello, little river-stone. You’re really there.”

River-stone. The old nickname she used for me when we were pups, always rolling, never staying where you put me.

My throat closes.

I look away, blinking hard, as my past and my future touch for the first time on a narrow stair, and a tiny, unseen wolf kicks back at a world that is finally starting to show up for him.