Chapter 2

Her name is Mireille Dawn.

It takes me four days and a considerable favor owed to a rogue tracker named Oswin Fray to learn this much.

Oswin works out of a cluttered safe house on the edge of Ashveil territory, the kind of wolf who has survived twenty years by selling information to every side and owing allegiance to none.

He slides a sealed envelope across the table between us without ceremony, the way a healer delivers a diagnosis she has delivered a hundred times before.

"She's twenty-four," he says, eyes on the wall behind me rather than my face, which is the closest thing to mercy he offers.

"Half-blood from the Dawnridge Pack, recruited into the Alpha's legal affairs unit eighteen months ago — officially a territorial records clerk."

Eighteen months.

I open the envelope.

The photographs inside are crisp and merciless.

Mireille Dawn is undeniably beautiful — dark-haired, fine-boned, with the kind of radiant youth that does not yet know it will someday end.

In one photo she is leaving Caius's secondary residence in the northern estate — the one he told me was used for "overflow during summit weeks."

In another she is laughing at something, head thrown back, and Caius's hand rests at the small of her back with the ease of long habit.

I recognize that hand.

I know the particular weight of it.

"How long has this been happening?" I ask, and my voice comes out steady, which is the most significant victory of my life thus far.

Oswin hesitates just slightly.

"Based on what I can document and verify — eight months," he says, "though there are earlier gaps I cannot fully account for."

Eight months.

Eight months of dinners alone.

Eight months of a muffled bond link I made excuses for.

Eight months of excuses I swallowed like bitter medicine.

"Is there anything else I should know?" I ask.

Oswin looks at me with something approaching pity, and I find I resent that more deeply than anything contained in the photographs.

"Luna—"

"Is there anything else?"

He slides a second document across the table — a medical report from the pack healer's private clinic, and I choose not to ask how he obtained it.

Patient: Mireille Dawn. Status: Confirmed pregnancy, eight weeks.

The number eight seems to be following me today like a curse.

I fold the paper.

I return it to the envelope.

I clasp my bag, stand, pay Oswin in untraceable silver coin, and walk out into the sharp night air.

For three full blocks I walk without any particular destination, the cold forest wind cutting through my coat like a blade.

The world moves around me — pack merchants closing stalls, a young mother carrying a sleeping pup, two juvenile wolves chasing each other through the lamplight.

I watch the mother for a long moment.

Then I turn north and keep walking.

By the time I reach the Ashveil ridge overlook, I have already made certain decisions.

I will not cry.

Crying is for she-wolves who have no options, and I have options — not the obvious ones, not the ones a sheltered Luna might reach for, but real options, because in five years of standing at Caius Voss's side I have paid very close attention to everything.

I know where the pack's financial flows are routed and why.

I know which Allied Alphas owe Caius favors and what those favors cost.

I know the location of four safehouses that do not appear on any official Voss record, and I know the access codes to Caius's secondary vault because I watched his hands the night he reset them and I have always had a precise memory.

I also know that if I confront Caius now — if I rage and weep and demand explanations the way a wounded mate is supposed to — I will lose everything.

He will apologize.

He may even mean it.

He will bury the affair, quiet the girl, and I will be returned to my cage with the locks changed and an enforcer stationed at every door.

No.

I will not give him the opportunity.

I sit on the cold ridge stone and stare at the moon and think about how a she-wolf disappears from a life without dying.

I am beginning to believe it might be possible.

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