The familiar medicinal scents of Healer Marcus's chambers, bitter herbs and preserved roots, twisted my stomach with revulsion that went far beyond morning sickness.
Six years had passed since I'd last sat on this examination table, begging him to keep my secret about the triplets, paying him gold that bought perhaps an hour before his betrayal.
Now I endured his clinical touch with practiced neutrality, maintaining the composed facade of a compliant Luna while my skin crawled beneath his weathered hands.
"Ah, there it is," Marcus said with the particular satisfaction of one who believes himself instrumental in great achievement. "The quickening is unmistakable, my lady. You carry new life within you, just as the Alpha hoped."
"You're certain?" I asked, though my body had already whispered its truths through waves of nausea and bone-deep exhaustion that reminded me too vividly of carrying the triplets.
"Absolutely certain. Perhaps three weeks along, I would estimate."
His hands glowed with diagnostic magic as they hovered over my belly, that same blue light that had once revealed three heartbeats now confirming one.
"Alpha Rheakar will be most pleased. After months of attempts, success has finally blessed your union."
The pregnancy was real. Yet this child bore a secret Marcus could never fathom: the blood flowing through its tiny form carried Korin's gentle strength, not Rheakar's brutal dominance.
"The Alpha's lineage runs strong," Marcus continued with casual certainty, already seeing what he expected to see. "This child will surely be another powerful son, another heir to continue Grimhowl's ancient traditions."
"Indeed," I managed, allowing him to interpret my tightened throat as emotion rather than revulsion. "The Alpha's legacy will continue as he desires."
"Shall I inform Alpha Rheakar immediately?" Marcus asked, already moving toward his desk to draft the announcement that would seal my fate.
"I would prefer to tell him myself," I said quickly, rising from the examination table with careful dignity. "Such news deserves to be shared privately between mates before the pack celebrates."
"Of course, my lady. Though I suggest not delaying—the Alpha has been quite... eager for confirmation."
I left Marcus’s chambers with measured steps, though every instinct screamed at me to run.
The corridors stretched before me, offering two paths—one leading back to my chambers and temporary safety, the other winding toward the forgotten corners of the estate where true knowledge waited.
My feet chose for me, carrying me through seldom-used passages toward Tavric's library.
A pregnant Luna visiting the scattered librarian would raise no suspicions, merely polite dismissal from those who considered both figures irrelevant to the real business of pack politics.
"You shouldn't be here," Tavric said the moment I entered his sanctuary, though his eyes held welcome beneath the warning. "If Rheakar discovers our connection…"
"He won't," I interrupted, closing the heavy door behind me with deliberate care. "Everyone knows I seek distraction in books during confinement. A pregnant woman's whimsy, nothing more."
"Pregnant." The word fell from his lips with weight. "So it's true? Marcus's examination confirmed it?"
"Marcus confirmed what he wanted to see—Rheakar's heir growing within me."
I moved deeper into the library, into the shadows between towering shelves where even whispers felt safe.
"But I need truth, not assumptions. I need to know what I actually carry."
Tavric's reluctance manifested in trembling hands, in the way he glanced toward the door as if expecting Rheakar to materialize from suspicion alone.
"The risk, Lyanna…If he learns I examined you, that I possess skills beyond organizing his dusty tomes…"
"The bonds of Silvermoon run deeper than terror," I said softly, invoking our shared past with deliberate purpose.
"I'm not asking the Grimhowl librarian. I'm asking the healer who used to tend scraped knees in meadows that no longer exist. Please, Tavric. I need to know."
The transformation was subtle but complete. His scattered demeanor fell away, revealing the brilliant healer that decades of servitude had hidden but never destroyed.
His hands, when they rose to examine me, carried steady confidence despite their aged trembling.
"Lie back," he instructed, clearing a space on the worn leather sofa that had likely hosted more books than bodies. "This will require precision that Marcus, for all his competence, lacks."
The magic that flowed from his hands was different from Marcus's clinical blue—this was silver-white, shot through with threads of gold, the healing light of Silvermoon that I hadn't seen in twenty years.
It moved through me with gentle thoroughness, reading truths that cruder magic would miss.
I watched his face as he worked, seeing his expression shift from concentration to surprise to something that looked terrifyingly like fear.
When the color drained from his already pale features with such suddenness that I instinctively reached to steady him, I knew the truth before he spoke it.
"Tavric, what is it? What's wrong?"
"Not wrong," he said carefully, sinking into the chair beside the sofa as if his legs could no longer support him. "But... unexpected. Unprecedented in your current circumstances."
"Tell me."
"You carry a girl, Lyanna. Not the son everyone expects—a daughter."
"You must be mistaken." The words emerged automatically, desperate denial against implications too vast to immediately grasp. "Check again. Your magic might be misreading…"
"My gift for determining such truths was legendary even before tragedy reduced me to this shadow existence," he said with quiet certainty.
"I do not mistake these things. The child you carry is female, healthy, and approximately four weeks developed, not three. There is no error in this assessment."
The ceiling's carved patterns blurred as I stared upward, my mind racing through implications while my palm pressed protectively against the life that had just become infinitely more precarious.
The contraceptive potion had saved me from bearing Rheakar's child only to create a more complex crisis.
"Lyanna, a girl can't become the heir... That goes against Grimhowl Pack policy," Tavric's voice barely rose above a whisper, as if speaking the truth too loudly might manifest its consequences.
"I know," I breathed, the full weight of disaster settling upon my shoulders like a shroud.
"If Rheakar finds out..." Tavric's words trailed into shared understanding.
"Rheakar's wrath will wipe us all from the face of the earth," I completed, the truth hanging between us with the weight of prophecy.
A daughter could not inherit, could not fight for dominance, could not serve the purpose for which Rheakar had demanded my return.
This child represented not just failure but mockery of his ambitions—a girl where he demanded sons, Korin's gentle heritage where he expected his own brutal legacy.
"He cannot know," I said, sitting up with sudden urgency. "No matter what happens, Rheakar must believe he's getting his heir. That the male child in my womb will carry forward his bloody traditions."
"Marcus will determine the gender eventually," Tavric warned. "His magic is crude but functional. By the fifth month…"
"Then we have three months to escape," I interrupted, my mind already calculating impossibilities. "Three months before this secret destroys us all."