Twenty-four hours after giving birth, I stood at the hospital entrance, Ava bundled against my chest while Weston loaded the car seat.
She-wolves recovered faster than humans—our bodies designed for survival, for protecting our young immediately after birth.
But nothing about my rapid healing prepared me for Weston's next move.
I assumed we’d drive to my parents’. Yet Weston's SUV idled at the curb, and the route didn’t turn toward Evernight estate. Pines replaced sidewalks while Ava slept, lip working in a ghost-suck.
Every bump plucked an ache in my abdomen, yet beneath the ache rose relief: no Celeste here. No perfume on banisters. No shadow in doorways.
And also no time to plan, no time to prepare.
“We’re going to your place,” I said when the silence thickened.
“We’re going home,” Weston replied. “Our home.”
The possessive landed heavy. The manor rose from the trees—too large, too polished, a gilded cage with excellent taste. Inside, the air held its breath when he led us up the main stairs, not the guest wing.
At a door beside his office, he paused.
“I didn’t want to say anything until it was ready,” he said, opening it.
A nursery. Not a last-minute crib and blanket, but a world built to hold a life: pale wood crib, moon-shaped nightlight, a chair with a folded throw, neat stacks of diapers, tiny cotton hanging in the closet like waiting days.
New paint and cedar. It was thoughtful. It was presumptuous. It was both.
“I had your things brought from Evernight estate,” Weston added. “You won’t need to go back.”
The knot in my chest tightened, then loosened. He didn’t know what his decision spared me; he only knew what it gave him.
Conflicting emotions warred in my chest. The presumption of moving my life without asking should have enraged me. But underneath lurked treacherous relief—no more morning teas with Celeste, no more "accidental" stumbles near stairs, no more constant vigilance against my sister's poison.
"This is... overwhelming."
"This is right." He cupped my face, thumb stroking my cheekbone. "You belong here. Both of you."
That first night in what he insisted on calling "our home," I sat in darkness, cradling Ava while she nursed. Her tiny fingers wrapped around mine, her heartbeat steady against my chest—alive, perfect, mine.
"This time, sweetie," I whispered into the shadows, "Mommy knows the faces of all the monsters. Every single one. This time, I'll protect you from them all."
She made a small sound, not quite a coo, and my heart cracked with fierce love.
"I promise you," I continued, my voice barely audible, "no one will ever hurt you. Not Celeste, not anyone. Mommy will burn the world down first."
* * *
Morning arrived in pieces—feed, change, doze, repeat. I must have drifted, because unfamiliar male voices climbed the stairwell. When I reached the landing, the first floor had transformed into a hothouse.
Flowers covered every surface—roses, lilies, peonies, exotic flowers I couldn't name. A jungle of congratulations for the Alpha’s heir.
Weston stood in the center of it all, holding the most magnificent arrangement I'd ever seen. Birds of paradise mixed with rare orchids, the kind of flowers that cost more than most people's monthly wages.
For a moment I only breathed. In my other life, gifts carried strings or pity. Here was beauty for its own sake.
“They’re… stunning,” I said, surprised by the gratitude in my voice. "I've never received so many flowers."
His jaw ticked. “They are.”
He didn’t offer me the grand bouquet. He only gripped it tighter.
“From you?” I asked.
“No.” His mouth thinned. “That one isn’t mine.”
A prickle lifted along my skin. I reached for the card before he could reconsider. Heavy cardstock, expensive ink, decisive hand.
"To Harper and Ava
May your daughter know only joy and safety. She's fortunate to have such a devoted mother. If you need anything, anything at all, you have only to say a word.
—Kieran"
Heat rolled through the foyer that had nothing to do with humid air over flowers.
"Give me that." Weston snatched the card, reading it with darkening fury. "Devoted mother? If you need anything? What the fuck does that mean?"
"It means he's being polite."
"Polite? This is from the man you used to write secret letters to. The man who couldn't take his eyes off you at dinner. Now he's sending you personal messages?"
Weston’s expression shed diplomacy—raw possessiveness underneath. His fingers closed around my arm, hard enough to bruise. The bouquet slammed onto the console, leaves snapping, petals bruising.
“Explain,” he said, voice ground down to an edge. “How did he know to send anything here? What have you told him? What have you kept from me?”
I pulled but his grip tightened, pain lighting bone. “Let go.”
“Don’t make commands you can’t back,” he said, but a second later he released me—subtraction as punishment. I refused to rub the mark he’d left.
“There’s nothing to explain,” I said, steady. “He’s an Alpha of an almost allied pack. He sent congratulations to another Alpha’s house after a public dinner and a birth. It’s etiquette.”
“This is not etiquette.” He pointed at the extravagant tower bleeding petals. “It’s a message.”
“To you?” I asked. “Or to me?”
Color rose high on his cheekbones. “He doesn’t get to—”
He cut himself off, then cooled into something more dangerous.
“Why would he send you anything? What does he think he is to you?”
The truth pressed at my teeth. The pull in my wolf, a name that changed the room when spoken. I swallowed both.
“A political ally,” I said. “We’re building an alliance. You asked me to help. I did.”
“Perhaps the alliance isn’t necessary,” he said. “Perhaps keeping distance from Wolfhart would be wiser. Safer.”
The name rang like a coin on a tile. Wolfhart—the pack he wanted to posture against. The Alpha who had turned rot into order. The man who had looked at me like he was reading my future line by line.
“Safer for whom?” I asked. “For our business, our pack, our child? Or for your pride?”
“You’re not listening.” Command slid into his tone. “He’s testing boundaries. I will not have another Alpha reaching into my home and touching what’s mine.”
Flowers brushed my calves as I stepped closer.
“I am not a possession,” I said. “If you care about this alliance—and you should—stop throwing a tantrum over a bouquet and look at the numbers. At projects his companies fund. At roads they built that we drive when we go north. At what peace buys a leader who secures it.”
He stilled—the way men do when the mirror doesn’t match the picture in their heads.
“If,” he said flatly. “If it benefits us.”
“Then be rational,” I said. “Stop making decisions because your ego stung.”
“My ego,” he said softly, dangerous now, “isn’t the only thing at risk when another Alpha circles my Luna like a carrion bird.”
“He’s not circling,” I said. “He’s watching. There’s a difference.”
“Not to me.” The last word snapped. “Not when your eyes do that when you think about him.”
My mouth went cool. “What do my eyes do?”
“Look alive,” he said.
Before I could answer, a wail rose upstairs. A thin, escalating siren from the smallest, fiercest heart in the world. The argument blurred.
“Ava needs me,” I said.
“Harper—”
“We can discuss the alliance later,” I said, already moving. “When you remember why we’re doing any of this.”
He didn’t follow. I took the stairs. At the nursery door I looked back once.
Weston stood rooted in a sea of stems and paper and water, the floor littered with petals from another Alpha’s tribute, the broken tower of white and silver collapsing against his leg.
He stayed below, surrounded by evidence of another Alpha’s interest, while I fled to my daughter’s cry.