Alpha, She Is Done With You

Chapter 06

Sora's POV

Ian pushes the second page in front of me.

Numbers. Markers. He walks through each one the way a surgeon walks a chart. My body's been running on a deficit for two years.

Nutrition low across the board. The uterine wall never fully healed after the embolism with Yuki. And my leg has been throwing my spine and pelvis out of line for decades, making everything compensate for everything else.

He talks slow. Level. Every word landing where it should.

"Sora." He sets the page down. "I'm a surgeon, not an OB. But I can read this. The shape you're in right now, the odds of this baby making it to term safely aren't good. Your body and your stress are both riding the edge. Any big spike, and it could—"

"But the baby's fine right now?" I cut in.

He stops. "The numbers I'm seeing today are normal."

I pick up the report. Fold it. Put it in my bag.

I'm thinking about the driveway this afternoon. Ethan, Lyra, Yuki, driving off together to the house I built with my own hands. The house Grandma signed over to Lyra in one line of a will.

"Sora."

Ian's voice pulls me back. He takes the report out of my hand and lays it flat on the desk again. He points at the markers, one at a time, and looks me in the eye.

"I need you to hear me out. The way you are right now, this baby is not your only option."

I look up.

He doesn't look away. "You have the right to make a different choice. Nobody can force you. Nobody should."

"This baby matters to me," I say.

"I know." His voice drops. "But Sora—" He pauses, like he's picking the words. "You're the one who matters most."

The room goes quiet.

Ian isn't a soft man. He's sharp, he's picky, he watches this whole pack's performance with a surgeon's cold eye.

When he says you matter most, he isn't handling me. He isn't saying a pretty thing. I can hear that. So it lands heavier than I expect.

I look down at the report and I don't say anything.

Out in the hall, nurses are trading off a shift. A cart rolls over the floor. Everything running like normal.

"If you decide to keep it," Ian says, "you'll need more than this pack hospital can give you. Specialized prenatal care. A high-risk team." He stops. "And a stable environment."

We both know what those two words mean. And what they can't mean, not here.

I sit there with my hand on my stomach, not moving.

Then Ian gets called into surgery. Werewolves are always tearing themselves open, and their wolves knit them back together fast. My leg, I waited decades, and the wolf never came to fix it.

I was nine when it happened. Compound fracture, left leg, out near the pack border. It healed into a limp I've carried my whole life.

The Voss family told everyone the same thing. Sora was running around near the border and got caught in a trap.

Nobody knew the trap was silver. Nobody knew who was caught in it. Nobody knew I knelt in the mud and beat the lock out of shape with a rock, one strike at a time, until it bent and she pulled free, and the snap of it coming loose broke my leg.

Afterward she found me. Knelt down. Took my hand. Her hand was big and steady and covered in blood.

I owe you my life. Call it in whenever you need to.

That was nineteen years ago.

In all those years, every so often, someone comes with the same question. Are you ready?

Every time I say the same thing. Not yet.

That card is too heavy. Once I play it, it's played. I keep it for something that's worth it.

And right now I don't need it. Because I've got a better one, and my own body handed it to me.

I sit alone in the exam room and I let myself think it all the way through.

A Blackwood heir. Grandma's will says it in plain ink. Produce a male heir, and the fund is mine, the marriage assets get reassessed.

But a pregnant Luna comes before any will.

Moonridge. I'm getting it back. Not for the money. Because I cut that place out of nothing over two years, because it's the yard where Yuki learned to ride a bike, because it's the truest thing I made in seven years of this marriage. If it stays at Lyra's, then Lyra has a clean reason to keep coming near Yuki. The house Grandma left me. A story she'll never have to explain, and Yuki will believe every word of it.

I'm not letting that happen. Lyra goes. The house comes back. Nobody gets to borrow another excuse to get close to my daughter.

I want this baby. I want that house. I want Lyra out of every c***k she could reach my daughter through.

And the one thing I can't spend down is my own body. Ian's right. I matter most, because only if I hold up does the baby hold up, only if I stay standing can I push any of this the way I need it to go.

Seven years, and this is the first time I've had a card in my hand that nobody gave me. My body gave it to me.

I stand up. Button my coat. My leg's hurt all day and it's still hurting, but I walk fast.

One thought in my head. Go home. Tell Ethan.

The car stops in front of the Packhouse. I push the door open.

"Ethan. There's something I need to tell you—"

Ethan's inside. Lyra's there too.

Not at the far end of the sofa. Next to him. Turned toward him, one leg tucked under her, her knee almost against his thigh. She's holding a cup from the set I picked out seven years ago when I came here as Luna. Holding it like she's held it a hundred times.

Their heads are close together. She's saying something low. He's listening, that faint crease in his brow he only gets when he's actually weighing something.

I've seen that crease a lot in seven years. Never once for anything I said.

They both look up.

I take a breath. I walk in. I stop in front of Ethan.

My eyes go to Lyra's face and hold there one second.

In that one second, I think it all through. What changes when I say this. What doesn't. What I have to take back first.

Then I look at Ethan, and my lips move.

"Ethan. I need to talk to you. Now."