My Mate Replaced Our Stillborn Daughter

Felicity's car was parked two blocks from the packhouse, engine running, headlights off. I slid into the passenger seat and closed the door quietly. The interior smelled like leather and the faint chemical tang of her energy drinks.

She didn't greet me. Just handed me the tablet, screen dark.

"I already watched it," she said. Her voice was flat. "Took me twenty minutes in the parking lot before I could come get you."

I turned the tablet over in my hands. The case was warm. "How much footage?"

"Six months. Continuous loop from the den's security system. Kitchen, living room, front entrance." She stared straight ahead through the windshield. "I pulled the highlights. Ninety seconds. That's all you need to see first."

I pressed the power button. The screen lit up.

The first clip showed Ryder and Aria in the kitchen. Morning light. She was making coffee in a silk robe, barefoot. He came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist, buried his face in her neck. She leaned back into him with the ease of a thousand identical mornings. He said something I couldn't hear. She laughed.

The second clip: Emilia at the dinner table, homework spread in front of her. Aria sat beside her, patient and attentive, pointing at something on the page. Emilia nodded, erased something, rewrote it. When she finished, Aria kissed the top of her head. Emilia smiled up at her—unguarded, genuine—and said something that made Aria's face soften.

The third clip: All three of them on the couch. A movie playing on the television. Emilia curled between them, Ryder's arm around her shoulders, Aria's hand stroking her hair. Comfortable. Domestic. Real.

I watched all ninety seconds without blinking. Then I closed the screen.

"What else do we need?" I asked.

Felicity exhaled—long and slow, like she'd been holding her breath. "The pup. I need you to look at the pup."

I turned to face her. Her jaw was tight, her knuckles white on the steering wheel.

"What do you mean?"

"Lina." She finally looked at me. "When's the last time you really looked at Emilia? Not as your daughter. As a wolf."

My throat tightened. "I look at her every day."

"No. You love her every day. There's a difference." Felicity's voice was careful, measured. "She has Aria's eyes. The exact shape, the exact color. And her bone structure—the cheekbones, the jawline—that's not yours. That's not Ryder's either."

I pressed my fingertips against my wrist. My pulse hammered.

"She's nine years old," I said quietly. "Features change."

"And the scent?" Felicity's eyes didn't leave mine. "The one you've been trying to place since she was born?"

I didn't answer. Couldn't.

Because I knew. Had always known, in the part of my wolf I'd taught myself to silence. That synthetic-floral wrongness I smelled on Emilia wasn't baby powder or laundry detergent. It was Aria. Base scent, faint but unmistakable, woven into my daughter's skin.

"I need a blood-lineage test," Felicity said. "Hair sample from Emilia. Hair sample from you. Submitted through a healer outside Silvercrest jurisdiction."

"Why outside?"

"Because if Ryder bribed someone once, he can do it again." Her voice hardened. "We can't use anyone in your pack. Not for this."

I looked down at the dark tablet in my lap. At my own reflection in the black screen.

"Okay," I said. "I'll get the samples."

***

The next morning, I went through our routine like always.

I woke Emilia at seven. Made her favorite breakfast—blueberry pancakes with too much syrup. Packed her lunch while she got dressed. Reminded her about the math quiz she'd been studying for all week.

She came into the kitchen yawning, her dark hair tangled from sleep. I smoothed it back automatically, my fingers catching on a knot near her temple.

"Ow, Mom." She pulled away, frowning.

"Sorry, sweetheart." I reached for her hairbrush on the counter. "Let me fix it."

She stood still while I worked through the tangles, patient in the way she only was in the mornings. When I finished, I pressed a kiss to her forehead. She accepted it with careless entitlement, already reaching for her backpack.

"Love you," I said.

"Love you too." She was halfway to the door before she remembered to say it back.

I watched her leave. Listened to the sound of her footsteps fading down the hall. Then I looked down at the hairbrush in my hand.

Three strands of dark hair clung to the bristles. I pulled them free carefully, root bulbs intact, and sealed them in a small plastic bag I'd prepared the night before.

My own hair sample I'd taken earlier—pulled directly from my scalp to ensure the follicles were intact. It sat in a separate bag in my pocket.

I texted the healer Felicity had recommended. An hour later, I was across the border in neutral territory, handing both samples to a middle-aged wolf who asked no questions and promised results in seventy-two hours.

***

Felicity called me that afternoon.

"The clinic's stonewalling," she said without preamble. "I filed the subpoena this morning through Ironridge legal channels. They're claiming patient privacy protections."

"Can they do that?"

"Technically, yes. But not if there's evidence of procedural misconduct." I heard papers rustling. "I'm escalating. Threatening Lycan King oversight. That usually motivates cooperation."

"How long?"

"Two days. Maybe three." She paused. "Lina, if there's something in those records—"

"Then we'll deal with it," I said quietly.

Another pause. Then: "Yeah. We will."

I ended the call and sat alone in my office, staring at nothing.

Somewhere in the packhouse, Emilia was probably doing homework. Ryder was probably in a meeting. Aria was probably planning tomorrow's schedule, the way she did every afternoon.

Everything looked normal. Felt normal.

But I'd stopped believing in normal three days ago.

I pressed my fingertips against my wrist and counted my pulse. Steady. Calm.

I could wait seventy-two hours.

I'd been waiting a decade. What was three more days?