ONE NIGHT WITH THE BIKER ALPHA

WHAT WAITS AT HOME

Elena didn't cry on the drive back. She told herself she would. The tears never came.

The front door opened before she even reached it.

"There you are." Diane Hart stood in the doorway in a robe, arms crossed. "Elena, where have you been? Marcus called here at midnight, hysterical, saying you'd disappeared—"

"I didn't disappear. I left."

"Left? Left where? He said you caught him with—"

"Claire," Elena said. "My maid of honor. On our couch. Three weeks before the wedding."

Diane pressed a hand to her mouth. "Claire. Your maid of honor."

"Yes, Mom. That Claire."

"Oh, Elena."

"I don't want sympathy. I want him gone from every part of my life, starting with the invitations we already sent out."

Her father set his phone down at the kitchen table. "This isn't just about invitations."

"What does that mean?"

"Dad. What does that mean?"

Robert exchanged a look with his wife. "The alliance with the Cross pack was tied to this wedding. Marcus's family and ours have been negotiating territory rights for two years. This marriage was supposed to secure it."

"So my wedding was a business deal."

"It was supposed to protect this pack," Diane said.

Elena laughed, short and humorless. "So it's not even a surprise you're upset. You're not upset that he cheated. You're upset the deal fell through."

"That's not fair."

"Isn't it?"

"We can find another way to secure the alliance," Robert said, rubbing a hand over his face. "There are other options."

"I don't want to hear about options right now." Elena's voice cracked. "I want to shower and sleep and not think about pack politics for one single day."

"Okay," Diane said, crossing the kitchen to hug her. "Okay, sweetheart. Go rest. We'll figure the rest out later."

"Where were you last night, anyway?" Robert asked. "Marcus said your phone was off for hours."

"I got caught in the storm. Stayed somewhere safe until it passed."

"Alone?"

"Does it matter?"

"It might."

"It doesn't. Not tonight."

Diane studied her a beat too long, then wisely let it go. "Go shower. You look like you haven't slept."

"I haven't."

Upstairs, Elena stood under the water until it ran cold, replaying the kitchen conversation. An alliance. Territory rights. Her wedding had never been about her at all.

Her cousin Vera found her that afternoon on the porch swing, tea gone cold in her hands.

"I heard," Vera said, sitting beside her. "Marcus is an idiot."

"Marcus is a symptom. The real problem is bigger than him."

"The alliance thing. I heard Uncle Robert on the phone this morning. He's already talking to the council about other options."

"Of course he is."

"You know they're going to push you toward someone else."

"I know."

"Are you going to fight it?"

"I don't know if I can. Not right now. Not with everything else falling apart."

"You should though."

"Should I. And say what, exactly? That I'd rather leave the pack without protection than marry a stranger for territory?"

Vera squeezed her hand. "I don't think you should just accept whatever they hand you next. You deserve better than being someone's business deal."

"Tell that to two years of failed territory negotiations."

"I'm serious, Elena."

"So am I. But I don't exactly see another option right now."

"There's always another option. You just haven't found it yet."

"Optimistic of you."

"Somebody's got to be."

She didn't know yet that an option was already growing inside her, one that would make every plan her family had drawn up completely irrelevant.

She found out three weeks later, standing in her bathroom at six in the morning, staring down at a small plastic stick with two solid pink lines, her hands shaking so badly she nearly dropped it into the sink.

"Okay," she whispered to the empty bathroom. "Okay. Think."

She said it again, quieter. "Okay."

A storm. One night. A man whose real name she still didn't know.

And now, unmistakably, his child.