My Alpha Stole Our Daughter’s Cure

Selah was sitting up when I came back with the tea.

She was pale, still thin around the mouth, but her eyes had color in them again — that soft brown I hadn't seen since before the raid. She was propped against the pillows in a room that was too big for her, sunlight pouring through the narrow window in a long gold bar across the furs.

Joaquin was crouched at the edge of her bed.

I stopped in the doorway.

He hadn't heard me. He was too focused on my daughter, one big hand held out toward her, palm up, offering something. A carved wooden wolf. Bigger than the one in Selah's fist — twice the size — with careful notches running down the spine that caught the light like little scales.

Selah stared at it. Then at him. Then at it again.

"You made this?" she whispered.

"I did."

"Are you the one who smells like silver?"

Joaquin's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. Something more careful than that. "I'm the one."

She took the wolf from his palm with both hands, like it was something holy. Held it up next to the little one Quinn had carved for her — the one she'd clutched through fever and flight and every bad hour in between — and pressed both against her chest.

"They match," she announced.

"They do."

She studied him. Long. Serious. The way children look at adults when they're deciding something the adults don't know is being decided.

"You can sit with us at dinner," she said finally.

Joaquin bowed his head. Actually bowed it. Like she'd knighted him. "Thank you, little one."

I pressed my palm flat against my sternum. Right over the place where Dalton's mark sat cold under my collar. The bond there was a scar now, hollow, refusing to conduct anything — but underneath it, deeper than the scar, something was moving. Warming. Turning over in the dark like an animal starting to wake.

I didn't have a name for it yet.

I backed out of the doorway before either of them saw me.

---

I didn't sleep.

At some point before dawn I pulled a cloak over my shoulders and climbed the stone steps to the rampart. The wind up there was sharp. The forest below was still black, mist pooling in the low places, the first thin gray of morning bleeding along the eastern ridge.

Joaquin was already there.

He didn't turn when I stepped up beside him. He just made a small space at the wall for me, angled his body a little, and went on watching the trees like he'd been watching them his whole life.

We stood there a long time. Long enough for the gray to turn pink. Long enough for my hands to stop being cold.

"How long did you know?" I said.

He didn't pretend to misunderstand.

"Since before your ceremony."

"How long before?"

"Your scent hit me the summer you turned sixteen." His voice was low. Steady. Like he'd rehearsed the answer for years and finally got to say it out loud. "Moonlit jasmine. I couldn't breathe for a week."

Something inside me folded quietly in half.

"Sixteen," I repeated.

"Sixteen."

"You never told me."

"No."

"Why?"

He turned then. Slow. His gold eyes found mine in the half-light, and the look in them was the same one I'd caught for one second in the doorway last night — unguarded, aching, a look no one had ever aimed at me in my life.

"Because you had to choose me," he said. "Not be told. Choosing is the only thing that matters, Quinn."

The wind moved my hair across my face.

I didn't push it back.

I didn't say anything.

But I didn't move away, either.

His hand was resting on the stone between us. Not reaching. Just there. Close enough that I could feel the heat of it against the cold rock.

My wolf pressed against my ribs. Not slamming. Not begging. Just leaning — the way a dog leans against a leg it trusts.

And then footsteps on the stairs behind us.

Fast footsteps. The kind that don't come with good news.

Joaquin's head turned before mine did. The soft look was gone in an instant, replaced by something sharper, something a Lycan Prince kept close to hand.

The same guard from yesterday appeared at the top of the stairs. He was breathing hard. He didn't bow this time — no time for it.

"My lord." His eyes flicked to me and away. "News from Shadowvale."

"Speak."

"The healer — Elias Grant — turned himself in to the surviving Beta an hour ago. He brought a written confession." The guard swallowed. "Lilia Salazar was never pregnant. She coerced Grant into faking the confirmation months ago. And the Gamma warriors who cornered the Luna in the ravine — they were dispatched under Alpha Hamilton's seal, but the Alpha never signed the order. Salazar used his authority without his knowledge. The private instructions were to silence the Luna. Permanently."

My hand went to the stone. Cold under my palm. I could feel my own pulse in it.

"Where is Salazar now?" Joaquin's voice was flat.

"She tried to run for the eastern border an hour before sunrise. Our people were already in position." The guard's jaw tightened. "She's in custody. En route to the stronghold as we speak. Alpha Hamilton has been informed of the confession and the arrest."

"And Hamilton?"

The guard looked at me.

"He left Shadowvale twenty minutes ago, my lord. Alone. On foot. The summons is three days out, but he is not waiting." A pause. "He is coming here. Now."