Chapter 1

I pushed open the door to our bathroom and caught another woman’s scent before I saw he.

The frosted screen beside the tub was half open. Through the gap, I could see two pairs of legs tangled underwater. My mate was leaning back with his eyes shut. The woman still hadn’t come up for air.

I laid a form on the vanity and uncapped a pen.

“The pack healer needs your signature before my appointment tomorrow.”

I held the signature page out where he could reach it. Water dripped from his wrist as he took the pen and signed without looking at the heading.

Only then did he look at me. His eyes were red.

“I thought you were staying with your family for a few days. Why are you back?”

“I needed a change of clothes.”

He waited for me to say something else. There’d been a time when I would have raised my voice loud enough for the whole house to hear. He knew that. I could see him waiting for the first crack in my voice.

I put the pen down and picked up the form. The corner was damp, but the signature was clear.

At the door, I glanced back. A shadow shifted beneath the surface.

“Let her come up for air.”

He went still. His fingers tightened on the rim of the tub.

“Even wolves need to breathe,” I said, and pulled the bathroom door shut.

Water sloshed onto the tile. Then I heard him scramble to his feet.

“What did you really come back for?”

I stepped out into the hall and locked the bedroom door behind me.

He thought he’d signed off on another routine checkup. He hadn’t asked what it was for, and I hadn’t told him.

The form in my hand was for an induction.

By this time tomorrow, I wouldn’t be pregnant.

……

Joel hit the bedroom door hard enough to rattle the frame.

“Pauline! Have you lost your mind? Open the door.”

I folded the form once the ink had dried and slipped it into my bag. Dr. Finch needed the signed original in the morning.

Through the frosted panel beside the bedroom door, I saw a second shadow come up behind him.

“Joel, I think Pauline got the wrong idea,” she said. “I was only showing you how long I could hold my breath.”

He didn’t answer her at first.

“The water’s freezing,” she added. “What if it hurts the baby?”

“Lily, don’t be scared.” His voice softened. “I’ll get somebody up here. We’ll break the door down if we have to.”

Then he struck the door again.

“Lily’s pregnant, Pauline. If anything happens to her or the baby, I swear you’ll answer for it.”

Lillian had been back in pack territory for less than three months. She’d been his sweetheart since they were children. Now she was carrying his child, and a bath that had gone cold was enough to make him threaten his mate.

I was six months along. At my last appointment, Joel had asked the healer how many more visits he was expected to attend.

I went into the dressing room through its door off the hall and pulled my black suitcase down from the shelf. I threw in the clothes I reached for most often. A sweater caught in the zipper. I tugged it loose and shut the case.

By then, the housekeeper had come upstairs with the spare key. I heard her apologize as she opened the bedroom door.

Joel came in through the connecting door in a bathrobe, dripping onto the carpet. He stopped in front of me and raised his hand.

I looked straight at him. I didn’t move.

His hand hung there for a beat. Then he brought it down against the closet door beside my head.

“You sneak back without a word and lock us in? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Lillian followed him in, barefoot and wrapped in my silk robe. Joel had brought it back from Paris the month before. He’d made me look at the initials stitched inside the cuff and told me it had been made for me alone.

She had the sleeves rolled up past her wrists.

“Pauline, please don’t be angry with Joel. This was all my fault.”

She stopped at the vanity and picked up the glass bottle I’d set out for my next dose. It was the most expensive prescription Dr. Finch had written me.

Lillian looked right at me as she opened her fingers.

The bottle cracked against the tile. White tablets rolled under the stool and scattered around her feet.

“Oops.” She put a hand over her mouth. “Slippery fingers.”

She stepped past the broken glass and planted her bare foot on a cluster of tablets. Then she leaned her weight onto it and twisted, slowly, until they crumbled beneath her heel.