Alpha, She Is Done With You

Chapter 02

Sora's POV

Yuki's eyes sparkle like she's waiting for me to celebrate the end of our family with her.

"Why would you ask that?" My voice shakes. "Did your grandmother say something to you again? Your dad and I are fine. You don't have to listen to everything she says."

Yuki pouts. "I want to learn music."

I crouch down and kiss her. Her forehead, her nose, her cheek. Her sweet pup scent steadies me for one second.

Then I pull back to say something, and I see her lift her hand.

She wipes her face. Not a quick brush. She rubs, hard, over and over, the same spots I kissed, until her skin goes red.

Something jams in my chest.

"Why the sudden interest in music?" I ask.

"I'm not a baby, you can't just kiss me whenever you want!" She rubs one more time. Then her whole face lights up. "There's a new school by the Packhouse. Silver Paw Moonlit Academy. All the kids there learn music. It's amazing. I want to be like Lyra. I want to grow up and shine like she does."

Lyra.

His first love. The famous music therapist. The whole werewolf community thinks her playing heals people. I spent years watching Lyra glow on a stage. Then one year Ethan took Yuki to one of her concerts, and after that my daughter's whole heart belonged to the shining woman.

It stings, how much she looks up to Lyra. But I can't turn down the rare moment of her wanting something from me.

"Okay," I say. "We'll go."

Yuki looks pleased. "You're the best, Mommy." Flat. Automatic.

I smile at her, and my hand drifts to my stomach without my meaning it to.

"Yuki," I ask, careful. "Would you want a little brother or sister?"

She thinks it over, serious. "A brother. Grandma says I should have a little brother to play with."

The pain goes through me sharp and fast.

"And what if Mommy is scared?" I say it low.

She looks right at me. Answers like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Then Mommy shouldn't be so selfish. You had me, didn't you?"

The floor drops out from under me.

I stand there, face gone white, my mouth working around nothing.

"Aren't you afraid of losing Mommy?" I finally get out.

Yuki frowns. "Having a baby isn't that scary. No wonder Grandma says you're too delicate. You're not like a real Luna at all."

The door shuts.

I stand in the dark hallway and let the sentence sit on me a while.

Then I make myself go to bed. I have an early shift. Seven o'clock. I don't have time to fall apart.

The next morning the head nurse pulls me aside in the corridor.

"That emergency you ran yesterday. It was excellent work." She hesitates. "Which is why I don't understand. Why did you turn down the advanced trauma training slot?"

"What slot?"

"They only open two a year. Almost always for licensed physicians. For a nurse to get one is unheard of." She watches me. "You got one. And then this morning I get a notice it's cancelled. Withdrawn. By you, or by your family, on your behalf."

I go very still.

"I never withdrew anything," I say.

"That's what I thought." She frowns. "So do you want it or not? Because someone in your house is deciding you don't."

I already know who.

I go to Violet's office.

She doesn't even look up for long. What she says is short. It's enough.

"An Omega with no wolf. What makes you think you're fit to represent this pack anywhere?"

I don't fight back.

Not because she's right. Because fighting back here is useless. The decision was never hers to give or take. She's just the one who enjoys saying it out loud.

The person who decides is Ethan.

I go back to the Packhouse to find him. His Beta makes me wait outside the office door.

I wait a long time. Long enough to count the rhythm of the hallway light buzzing overhead. Long enough to feel exactly what I am in this house, standing in a corridor waiting for permission.

Then the Beta opens the door. "The guest's gone. You can go in."

I step inside, and I smell it before I see anything. That scent. I waited on Lyra for years. I'd know it anywhere.

She was here. She didn't wait in any corridor.

Nobody waits but me.

I sit down across from him.

"Did you cancel the training slot?"

"Staffing at the pack hospital isn't your concern."

"Why."

"Because it draws attention we don't need. It's not good for the pack." He doesn't look up from his papers. "Just focus on our children."

As he says it, he nudges a glass of water toward the edge of the desk. Turns the handle so it faces me.

I look at that angle.

Something moves in my chest.

Then I understand it. He was just with Lyra. That little habit, the handle turned out, the water pushed within reach. That's hers. He learned it for her.

I push the moving thing back down.

I stand up.

"I don't want your mother saying things about me to Yuki anymore."

He softens, just slightly. Smoothing it over. "Alright. I'll talk to my mother again."

I look back at him.

Seven years. I know every one of his faces, including this one. I know exactly what he's doing.

But my body doesn't listen.

The bond throws its signal the moment he comes close, and I know that signal, and I hate that I know it. He crosses to me. He lowers his head. I turn my face away, and his mouth lands on my cheek instead of where he aimed.

The next second the floor is gone. Weightless. My arms lock around him before I can decide to.

"Still angry I cancelled that exhausting training?" His voice is right at my ear. "I just don't want you working yourself to the bone. Besides, the more you're home, the sooner you and Yuki get close again."

I don't deny it. "I need Yuki to stop treating me like this."

His voice drops into that low register I have never been good at resisting.

"Then if I put on a good show tonight, can I earn some leniency?"

Any other time, that signal would have taken me under. Not tonight. Tonight there's nothing in me answering it.

Ethan doesn't wait to find out. Like he already knows my answer and won't give me room to say it, he drops me onto the expensive couch.

I start to sit up.

He's already on me.