Chapter 3: Forbidden Territory

Verena's POV

I'd been staying at the pack's guest cottage since leaving the main house, trying to figure out what came next. The space felt hollow and impersonal after three years in the packhouse, but it was better than nothing. At least until the rejection ceremony tomorrow night.

Sleep had been impossible. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Joshua's satisfied expression or heard Elijah's cold voice saying he wanted a divorce. So instead, I wandered the cottage, unpacking and repacking my things, trying to keep my hands busy so my mind wouldn't spiral.

Around midnight, I realized I'd left my reading glasses in the packhouse. I needed them to review the legal documents Elijah's lawyer had sent over—something about dividing our shared assets. The cottage felt too small suddenly, too suffocating. A quick trip to retrieve them would give me something to do besides sit and think about how dramatically my life had changed.

The packhouse was dark except for a few security lights along the paths. I used my key—they probably hadn't thought to change the locks yet—and slipped inside through the back door. My footsteps echoed too loudly in the empty corridors.

I knew exactly where my glasses would be: on Elijah's nightstand, where I'd left them after reading in bed two nights ago. Back when I still shared that bed, when I still had the right to call it ours.

The thought stung, but I pushed it away. Get in, get the glasses, get out. Simple.

Elijah's bedroom door was closed, but no light showed underneath. He was probably asleep, exhausted from pack duties and the emotional upheaval of the last day. I turned the handle carefully, trying not to make any noise.

The door opened to reveal a scene that stopped my heart.

Elijah was very much awake. And he wasn't alone.

Nixie was curled against his chest, both of them naked under the sheets that had covered Elijah and me just three nights ago. She was laughing at something he'd whispered, her blonde hair spilling across his shoulder.

For a moment, I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't process what I was seeing.

This was my bed. My room. My husband.

Former husband, I corrected myself bitterly.

The jealousy that hit me was like a physical force, so strong it made my knees weak. I gripped the doorframe to keep from falling, but the movement must have caught Elijah's attention.

His head snapped up, and his eyes met mine across the room. For a heartbeat, I saw surprise there. Maybe even a flash of guilt. Then his expression hardened into the cold mask he'd worn since yesterday.

"What are you doing here?" His voice was sharp, authoritative. Alpha to subordinate.

"I—my glasses—I left them..." I gestured weakly toward the nightstand.

"You don't have permission to be in my room." He sat up, the sheet falling to his waist, completely unbothered by his nudity. "You should have asked."

Permission. To enter the bedroom I'd shared with him for three years, to retrieve my own belongings.

"Since when do I need permission?" The words came out before I could stop them, hurt and anger making me reckless.

"Since you're no longer my mate." His eyes were ice-cold. "Since you're no longer welcome in my private spaces."

Nixie stretched like a satisfied cat, making sure I got a good look at her naked form pressed against my husband's side. "Maybe she was hoping to join us," she said with mock innocence.

The comment was clearly designed to humiliate me, and it worked. Heat flooded my cheeks, and my hands started shaking.

"Just get your glasses and leave," Elijah said, his tone dismissive.

I wanted to run. Every instinct screamed at me to flee this scene, to preserve what little dignity I had left. But something stubborn in me refused to give Nixie the satisfaction. I walked to the nightstand with as much composure as I could manage, grabbed my glasses, and headed for the door.

"Verena."

I paused in the doorway, hope flaring stupidly in my chest. Maybe he'd realized how cruel this was. Maybe he'd remember what we'd meant to each other.

"Next time, ask permission before entering Alpha territory."

The hope died as quickly as it had sparked. Alpha territory. Not his room, not the space we'd shared as mates. Territory that I, as a non-pack-member, had no right to access.

I nodded curtly and left, pulling the door closed behind me with more force than necessary. The sound echoed through the hallway.

I made it halfway to the main staircase before the dizziness hit. The hallway tilted sickeningly, and black spots danced at the edges of my vision. I reached for the wall, but my legs gave out before I could steady myself.

The last thing I remember was the cold marble floor rushing up to meet me, and a strange ringing in my ears that sounded almost like voices calling my name from very far away.

When I woke up, I was staring at white ceiling tiles and breathing in the antiseptic smell of the pack's medical facility. Someone had covered me with a thin blanket, and there was an IV in my arm.

Dr. Williams, the pack physician, was standing at the foot of the bed reviewing a chart. He looked up when he saw I was awake.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Confused," I admitted. "What happened?"

"You fainted in the packhouse. Hit your head pretty hard when you fell." He gestured to my forehead, and I realized there was a bandage there. "Elijah found you and brought you in."

Elijah. Had he seen me collapse? Had he been worried, or just annoyed at the inconvenience?

"The good news is, there's no concussion," Dr. Williams continued. "But I ran some tests while you were unconscious, and there's something we need to discuss."

Something in his tone made my stomach clench with anxiety. "What kind of something?"

He pulled up a chair beside the bed, his expression serious but not unkind. "Verena, you're pregnant."

The words didn't make sense at first. I stared at him, waiting for my brain to process the information.

Pregnant.

"That's not possible," I said automatically. "I don't have a wolf. I can't reproduce with a werewolf."

"That's what we've always believed," Dr. Williams agreed. "But the blood test is conclusive. You're about six weeks along."

Six weeks. I counted backward in my mind. That would put conception right around... our third anniversary. The night Elijah and I had made love with a passion that had surprised us both, as if some part of us knew it would be the last time.

"How?" I whispered.

"There are theories," he said carefully. "Some humans carry recessive werewolf genes. It's possible you're what we call a 'late bloomer'—someone whose wolf manifests later in life, usually triggered by major life events. Pregnancy could be that trigger."

A late bloomer. It sounded like something from a fairy tale.

"Are you certain about the test results?"

"I ran it twice," he confirmed. "You're definitely pregnant, Verena. The question now is what you want to do about it."

What I wanted to do was run back to the packhouse and tell Elijah that we were having a baby. That maybe this was the Moon Goddess's way of saying we belonged together after all. That maybe this changed everything.

"I need to tell Elijah," I said, already trying to sit up.

Dr. Williams gently pressed me back down. "That's your choice, of course. But given the circumstances of your divorce..."

"He has a right to know," I said firmly. "This is his child."

"Is it?"

The question stopped me cold. I stared at him in shock. "Of course it is. I've never been with anyone else."

"I'm not questioning your fidelity," he said quickly. "But Verena, if you're not a werewolf yourself, this pregnancy shouldn't be possible. The fact that it is suggests there might be more to your genetics than we know."

"You think the baby isn't Elijah's?"

"I think this situation is unprecedented, and we need to be very careful about how we handle it."

But I wasn't listening anymore. All I could think about was the tiny life growing inside me—Elijah's baby, the family we'd always talked about having someday. This had to mean something. This had to change everything.

It had to, because the alternative—that I was carrying a miracle baby while my mate was upstairs in bed with another woman—was too cruel to contemplate.

The nausea that had been plaguing me for days suddenly made sense. So did the fatigue, the dizziness, the emotional upheaval. My body had been trying to tell me something all along.

"I'm going to tell him," I said again, more determined this time. "Right now."

Dr. Williams sighed but didn't try to stop me as I pulled the IV from my arm and swung my legs over the side of the bed. "Just... be prepared for all possible reactions, Verena. This is going to be a shock for everyone."

I nodded, barely hearing him. All I could think about was the look on Elijah's face when I told him we were having a baby. The joy, the wonder, the realization that maybe the Moon Goddess hadn't given up on us after all.

If Elijah knows, would he happy?