Chapter 6

He thought of what Eleanor had told him. Ren had been beaten continuously. Mara had been starved. A six-year-old boy's body had barely left enough ash to fill a box. The cause of death was internal bleeding from untreated injuries.

Cade grabbed his own hair and pulled.

He'd given orders when he sent Ren away. He'd said the boy was to be cared for. He'd said it.

He thought of what Mara had said about Vivienne.

And he hadn't believed her. He'd told her Vivienne wouldn't do that. He'd said she was imagining things.

Cade got to his feet.

He walked down the hall to Vivienne's room and stopped outside the door.

He heard her voice.

"I told you not to contact me unless it's urgent." A pause. A light laugh. "Relax. Mara is dead. That little brat is dead. The only heir in this Pack now is the one I'm carrying. As long as you keep quiet about who the father actually is — no one will ever know."

Cade stood in the doorway and could not move.

Vivienne kept talking, relaxed, unhurried.

"You have no idea how dumb she was. She spent three years in that dungeon thinking she'd done something wrong. I had the guards hit her every single day — she just kept wondering what she could have done better."

A laugh.

"And the kid — they beat him once a day, didn't feed him enough. That little thing lasted three years before he finally gave out. Had to give him credit for that."

Her voice got warmer with satisfaction.

"I timed the checkup on purpose. I knew Mara would try to take him to the Healing Center. I just didn't expect Cade to actually lock the whole place down." Another laugh. "But he did."

The words hadn't finished when the door slammed open.

Vivienne turned.

The smile on her face hadn't moved yet when she saw Cade's eyes.

The phone dropped.

She stepped back.

"You — you're home early—"

Cade said nothing. He walked toward her.

"Tell me again," he said. "What you just said. Say it again."

Vivienne's mouth moved. She pulled up a smile.

"Cade, you misheard me. I was joking around with a friend, I—"

"The baby isn't mine."

He was in front of her now.

"That was a joke too?"

She went white. But she kept standing.

"That's insane. You know who I am. I would never—"

She didn't finish the sentence. His hand was around her throat.

He leaned close.

"You're not his widow anymore. You know that?"

He pulled her toward the nursery by her hair, her screaming the whole way, and handed the baby to his assistant.

"Take him to Eleanor. Have her check whether he carries the Thorne bloodline marker."

He turned back.

Vivienne lunged at him.

"That is your son! You can't—"

He shoved her away.

Three days in the dungeon. She went from screaming to cursing to begging to barely making sounds at all. But she said nothing that confirmed anything.

On the fourth day the assistant came back.

"Alpha. The Former Luna says every Thorne child carries a faint birthmark on the inner thigh — it fades with age but is always there at birth." A pause. "The baby doesn't have it."

Cade stood. He grabbed her throat.

"Still nothing?"

Vivienne was in pieces on the floor. The fight had gone out of her.

She started crying.

"Fine," she said. "I'll tell you everything."

She sat against the wall and talked. She said she'd hated Mara from the beginning. She couldn't understand how an orphan with no bloodline could become the Luna of a Pack like this, become the mother of its only heir.

"I wanted her to suffer," she said. "That's all."

Cade leaned against the wall. He thought about the fact that he'd helped.

He'd been the one to put Mara in the dungeon. He'd been the one to send Ren away. He'd handed Vivienne everything she needed.

Then Vivienne laughed. A broken, hollow sound.

"You don't even know." She looked up at him. "You have a condition. Your fertility is nearly zero. Ren was a miracle. He was probably the only child you'll ever have."

Mara woke up in a small fishing village. She didn't know how many days had passed.

"You're awake, dear. What happened to you? My husband and I found you when we were out on the water—"

An older woman in work clothes was watching her from the doorway, eyes warm and worried.

A man leaned in from behind her, holding a bowl.

"Come on, drink this. Get yourself warm."

Mara took the bowl. Her face was blank.

"Who am I? Where am I?"

The couple went quiet.

A spike of pain went through her head. She pressed both hands to her temples. Her pulse throbbed behind her eyes.

"Are you okay?"

Two small warm hands landed on hers. She looked down at the child crouching next to the bed — a little boy, looking up at her with curious eyes.

Mara started crying. She didn't know why. She pulled the boy close and cried for an hour.

She stayed.

She didn't talk much, but she worked hard. She helped Agnes Colton cook and wash and clean the yard. Some evenings she went out on the water with Agnes's husband to mend nets.

Sometimes she'd look at their grandson and just start crying.

"What's wrong?" Agnes asked once.

Mara looked at the tears on her own hands.

"I don't know. Something hurts."

Agnes didn't push.

The days went by.

Then one evening, the front gate was kicked open.