Alpha, She Is Done With You

Chapter 04

Sora's POV

I didn't make it in time.

The two days after Grandma passed, I barely slept.

I checked every detail of the funeral. Walked the Moonrise farewell rites with the elders, step by step. Sorted the guest list. Made sure every pack member traveling in had somewhere to stay.

I got maybe three hours, face down on the desk in the little study. Then I got back up and kept going.

Ethan was buried in his grief. I know how much he loved her. I needed to shield him from the rest of it.

I owed her a send-off that meant something. I never got to see her one last time. The nurse told me afterward that the old woman kept waiting for someone, right up to the end, and that someone never came.

I don't dare decide whether that someone was me. But I can't stop my mind from going there.

So I couldn't let anything about this funeral go wrong.

The morning of, I put on the black dress and checked myself in the mirror. Then the room went dark.

I caught the edge of the vanity and lowered myself down. Breathed. Two days with almost no food. Low blood sugar. I'm a nurse. I know exactly what it feels like.

I dug a piece of candy out of my bag, held it in my mouth, and waited for the dizziness to pass.

I showed up almost forty minutes late.

Ancestor Grove, deep in pack territory. The sacred ground where our kind lays its dead.

These oaks are older than any Alpha who ever led us. The canopy swallows the whole sky. The floor is decades of fallen leaves, and every step lands heavy. The Passing Rite is held at sundown. The pack lights deep-red pitch torches at the headstone, so the wolf's spirit can go back under the moon.

By the time I get there the crowd is already thick. I push toward the middle. Being late has me sick with guilt, and my leg picks now to start aching, so I move even slower. But I can't leave Ethan standing up there alone. I have to get to him—

Ethan stands at the center, taking the pack's condolences.

Lyra is standing next to him.

Sharp black dress. Hair pinned low. Eyes down. That restrained, tasteful grief, measured out to the exact right amount. Her hand is holding Yuki's. Yuki's in a little black dress I've never seen, quiet, leaning into her side.

The three of them, standing together.

The pack files past, bowing their heads to Ethan, eyes drifting over the three of them and leaving with a look I know too well. The look people here get when they see something they think is finally right.

I stand at the edge of it a long time.

I think about the first time Grandma took my wrist in front of the whole pack and pushed me forward. This is Ethan's Mate. My granddaughter-in-law. You treat her well. Everyone clapped that day. More manners than meaning in it. But the grip on my wrist was real.

She's gone now. That grip is gone with her.

I go over and plant myself beside Ethan.

"Ethan. We need to talk. Now."

His brow pulls tight. His voice drops. "I'm a little busy. Can it wait?"

Before I can answer, Violet comes in from the side. Her fingers pinch into my arm, her voice low enough for only me, her eyes like she wants to swallow me whole.

"This is not the time. You make a scene here, I'll make sure you regret it."

Then Lyra moves.

She lets go of Yuki's hand, crosses to Violet, voice gentle. "Violet, you've been on your feet all day. Let me sit with you a while. Give them some room."

She steers Violet off to the side. As she passes me, her eyes sweep over me, calm, blank. Nothing on her face at all.

Somewhere in the crowd people are already murmuring. I catch a piece of it. "Of all the days to pull something..." Low. Unfinished.

Ethan looks at me. His face has already closed.

"We'll talk when this is over."

He turns to greet the next guest.

I stay where I am. Pitch smoke drifts around me. The pack pays its respects to their Alpha, and nobody looks at me. Or the ones who do, look with that thing in their eyes. Not pity. Judgment.

I'm the Luna. This is my husband's family's funeral. The one I ran on no sleep for two days. And I'm standing in it like a stranger who wandered in off the road.

Ian finds me after.

Dark suit, that easy, careless way he carries himself. He steps out of the crowd, stops beside me, and puts a cup of black coffee in my hand.

He doesn't say I'm sorry for your loss. He doesn't ask are you okay. He just says, low, "You haven't eaten all day. Start with this."

That one line, and my eyes go hot out of nowhere.

Ian's an old friend from med school. Best surgeon in the pack, and one of the few people here who ever treated me like an actual colleague. He's picky, sharp-tongued, and he's got no patience for the whole Lyra performance. But with me it was always just one thing. Eye level. No more, no less.

He rests a hand on my arm and tells me quietly that she went peacefully. That she'd mentioned me. That some regrets you just can't fix. I nearly lose it. I force the tears back down and stare into the coffee, letting the heat of it hold me in place.

Then I hear a scoff off to the side.

"Interesting. My wife can't get here on time, but she finds her way to another man just fine."

Ethan's voice. Not loud. Just loud enough for Ian and me.

I look up. He's a few steps off, eyes fixed on Ian's hand where it rests on my arm. Something dark in them.

Ian lifts his head and looks straight back at him. Calm. Every word clear.

"Alpha Ethan. When's the last time you actually looked at your wife? She's been running on empty for two days straight."

The grove goes quiet for a second.

Ethan's eyes hold on Ian's face. He doesn't say anything. He turns and walks off.

Ian lowers his head, looks forward again, and says it just for me.

"Don't let him do that to you."

I keep my head down. I don't say anything.

After the rites, an elder announces Grandma left a will. The lawyer wants all direct family present. Minors included.

I go up to the guest room to get Yuki.

The door isn't shut all the way. I push it open a c***k—

Lyra's sitting on the edge of the bed. Yuki's tucked into her lap, chattering away, bright and clear.

"Lyra, you shouldn't have a baby with Daddy."

"Mommy told me having a baby is really dangerous. There's tons of blood, and you can even die!" Yuki says it so seriously, little hands moving. "So leave the baby part to Mommy. She already had me. She won't be scared."

Every bit of air goes out of the room.

Yuki is six.

How would she know any of that. There's only one way she could. She heard it from my husband.

From Ethan.