Chapter 1

I tucked the Pack Healer's pregnancy report into my bag and turned to leave. Then the door swung open and a familiar figure stepped out.

We made eye contact. Serena Voss stiffened, just slightly, the smile still on her face. Then she looped her arm through Ethan's and said, "Nora, it's been forever. Are you here for a checkup too?" She pressed her hand against the small swell of her belly as she said it.

I stepped back, kept my face blank, gave a polite answer, and turned to go.

Serena's soft voice followed me. "Nora, let me take you to lunch. We can catch up."

My steps slowed for a second. Then I kept walking.

Once upon a time, Serena Voss could ask me to lunch without any shame at all. She'd earned that, hadn't she? The sponsored She-Wolf from the borderlands was now a celebrated Pack attorney, and her mate ran three of the top legal offices in the territory. When Ethan decided to lift someone, even the weakest wolf could become something.

Ethan caught up to me just as I reached the clinic entrance, waiting for a cab.

He held out his hand. "Get in. I'll drive you."

I stepped back a few paces and kept my voice even. "Ethan, don't bother. I don't want your mate getting the wrong idea."

His expression went tight. "Nora, do you have to be this stubborn?"

"If you'd just been a little more flexible back then, you wouldn't be in this position today."

"All I wanted was a pup. Why couldn't you just—"

He let his gaze drop to my joggers and canvas sneakers. He didn't finish the sentence. I knew what he meant. He meant I should have let Serena carry his child, should have accepted the three of them living together, trading my dignity for a comfortable life so I wouldn't have to stand in front of a Pack clinic in workout clothes.

The boy I had once pulled out of death. The boy who had sworn that if he ever betrayed me he'd die in agony. He had not survived the world he'd built.

While I stood there in silence, a cab pulled up. Serena had followed us out.

She dug out a card and shoved it toward my hand. "Nora, take this. Use it for whatever you need. Call me anytime, Ethan's so busy these days—"

The cab stopped at the curb. I pushed the card back into her hand. It slipped and fell to the ground. I got in and the car pulled away. Through the mirror, I watched Ethan draw Serena close and comfort her. She leaned against his shoulder just the way she always had, tears in her eyes, crying softly.

When I got back to the manor, Mrs. Ward met me at the door and told me Cain wouldn't be home for dinner and asked what I wanted to eat. I pressed my hand to my stomach and swallowed down the nausea, told her to make me some herbal pregnancy broth.

Back in the bedroom, I started to put away the Pack Healer's report. As I searched for a place to keep it, I found the forged fertility document instead.

That was six years ago. I'd paid six hundred dollars and called in a favor from a classmate of a classmate to get that fake assessment.

Six years ago, Ethan and I were still the kind of people who had nothing but each other.

We didn't have to be so poor. My parents had a small shop. I was their only child. Ethan's parents had done well for themselves too. Then the accident happened when Ethan was ten. A car crash took both his parents. His uncle moved fast and got control of everything, then sold Ethan to rogues who took him deep into the borderlands.

And the family that bought him was my neighbor.

The neighbor had their own pup not long after. Ethan became an extra. He worked all day, and his body was always covered in bruises.

I snuck him bread from our shop and brought him blankets to sleep on in the outbuilding.

Then one day the neighbor lost money gambling and took a belt to Ethan, knocking him around the floor. I ran in and bit down hard on the man's arm. He flung me off and I hit the stone wall in the yard, bleeding badly.

Ethan snapped. He grabbed a brush cutter from the yard and swung it at the neighbor's throat. The man dropped without a word.

I looked at Ethan, shaking in the corner, and knelt in front of my father.

"Dad, please. Save Ethan. He did it to save me."

I was crying as I begged him.

"Dad, we can't just abandon him. If Ethan goes to Pack detention, his whole life is over."

My father walked into the enforcement office with red eyes. He died in custody less than a year later.