Rejected as Barren, Pregnant with the Alpha King's Twins

At eight the next morning, I placed the lab photographs on the Silvercrest clinic counter.

"Page Dr. Voss."

The triage nurse glanced down at the black-green reagent strip and then at the supplier code. Her fingers tightened around her pen.

"The doctor is on rounds."

"Then interrupt him. My fertility medication contains a controlled suppressant, and the bottle carries this clinic's inventory seal."

"Mia, lower your voice."

"No."

Two patients in the waiting area turned toward us.

The nurse pushed the photograph back. "Your chart is under Alpha restriction."

"I am not asking to alter my chart. I am asking who ordered Batch 409."

"Take a seat."

I did, because leaving would give them exactly what they wanted.

Nine minutes later, the clinic doors burst open.

Sophia hurried in with Oliver by the hand. "He has stomach pain. He vomited after breakfast."

Dr. Voss appeared from the restricted hall so quickly he could not possibly have been on rounds.

"Exam Room One," he said.

He did not ask Oliver's temperature. He did not request a chart. He simply ushered Sophia inside.

The door remained open a few inches.

From my chair, I saw Voss pull an amber bottle from his coat and hand it to a junior nurse.

The silver leaf stamped on the bottom flashed beneath the fluorescent light.

I stood.

The receptionist moved to block me. "You cannot enter a treatment room."

"I am going to the restroom."

She knew I was lying, but she could not physically detain me without making a scene.

I walked down the corridor and turned the corner just as the junior nurse stepped away from Exam Room One. She carried the amber bottle on a tray.

"What is that?" I asked.

She startled so badly the tray tipped.

The bottle hit the floor and rolled beneath a supply cart.

"Nothing," she said too quickly.

I crouched and reached for it.

She grabbed my wrist. "Do not touch clinic medication."

The label faced me.

Batch 409.

Before I could read the patient line, Sophia's voice rose behind us.

"Mia? What are you doing here?"

Oliver wriggled free of her hand and ran toward a wooden toy truck abandoned beside the wall. His shoe caught the axle.

He fell hard onto his knees.

He cried immediately.

I took one instinctive step toward him.

Sophia screamed.

"Get away from my son!"

She rushed past me, scooped Oliver up, and backed into the open doorway. "You pushed him!"

I stared at her. "I never touched him."

Voss appeared at her shoulder. "I saw Mia move toward the child."

"After he fell."

Sophia pressed Oliver's face against her neck. "She has been threatening us since yesterday. She said she would never let him take her place."

"I said no such thing."

Two clinic guards rounded the corner.

I pointed at the ceiling camera. "Pull the footage. It covers the entire hall."

The guards exchanged a glance.

"Do it," I repeated.

Voss's face tightened. "Security will review it."

"We will review it now."

For the first time, fear moved openly across his expression.

I understood why ten minutes later.

The security technician played the clip in a small office. It began with me already moving toward Oliver. The part where he ran, tripped over the truck, and fell was missing.

"Where are the previous five seconds?" I asked.

The technician rubbed his jaw. "The file is corrupted."

"Only those five seconds?"

"That is what the system retained."

"Show me the raw archive."

"Restricted."

Everything in Silvercrest had become restricted the moment I started asking the right questions.

I asked for the access log instead. He hesitated long enough to confirm another suspicion. Someone had entered the archive at 6:14 that morning using an inner-estate master credential. He refused to print the user name, but only four people held that level of clearance: Ethan, Elias, Voss, and whoever Ethan had given my old key ring to.

I photographed the timestamp before he could close the screen.

Ethan arrived before noon.

He watched the clipped footage once.

"You went near him after I told you not to involve the child," he said.

I almost could not believe him. "He fell. I tried to help."

"Sophia says you threatened her."

"Sophia lies. Your doctor lies. Your clinic dispensed a drug designed to make me infertile."

I put the photographs on the desk between us.

Ethan did not pick them up.

"This is an anonymous shop test," he said.

"Then order an independent one."

"Not while you are under investigation for threatening my heir."

There it was again. Not son. Heir.

"You have already decided what happened."

"I am trying to keep the Pack from tearing itself apart."

"You are letting them tear me apart instead."

His face closed.

A Council officer entered the security room and handed Ethan a sealed notice. He read it, then placed it on the desk.

I reached for it.

EMERGENCY DISCIPLINARY HEARING. DAWN TOMORROW.

Charges: aggression toward the recognized heir, disruption of succession proceedings, refusal of voluntary rejection terms.

The recommended sanction was printed beneath the charges.

Immediate severance of mate bond and exile through Blackpine boundary.

My Pack transport privileges would be suspended the moment the rejection took effect. It was a bureaucratic sentence with a lethal consequence: they intended to remove my protection before I ever reached neutral ground. If I vanished in Blackpine, Silvercrest could call it an unfortunate rogue attack and close the file.

I looked up slowly.

"Blackpine is rogue territory in winter."

Ethan's jaw tightened. "The Council chooses the route."

"And you choose whether to sign."

He said nothing.

Through the glass wall behind him, I saw Sophia speaking quietly to Voss. She passed him the broken Batch 409 bottle in a folded towel.

Voss carried it toward the medical disposal incinerator.

They were burning the evidence in front of me.

I folded the hearing notice and slipped it into my coat beside the one bottle they had failed to find.

By dawn, Ethan would put me on trial in front of the Pack.

If the elders got the vote they wanted, the man who once promised to protect me would sever our bond and send me alone into Blackpine with the only proof that could expose them.