Rejected While Carrying His Pup

Cameron was looking for me.

I heard it from Zara first, who heard it from a rogue passing through Moonhaven's southern border. Then from Cillian's scouts, who reported Ironveil patrols sweeping territories they had no business being in. Then from Maren, who called Zara late one night and said Cameron had burned through every alliance he'd spent a decade building, demanding information no one would give him.

He was hemorrhaging dignity. Resources. Time.

I felt nothing when Zara told me. Just a distant acknowledgment that the man who had walked away while I bled on the ceremonial ground was now tearing the northeast territories apart trying to find me.

It didn't matter. Moonhaven's perimeter was guarded by wolves who answered to a Lycan Prince. Cameron could search for years and never breach the cliffs.

I went back to annotating maps.

But some nights, when the wind came in off the sea and the cottage felt too quiet, I wondered if he could feel me the way I'd felt the pup die—through the phantom echo of a bond that shouldn't exist anymore.

I wondered if it hurt.

I told Cillian about the miscarriage on a night when the stars were so bright they looked like they'd been hammered into the sky.

We were on the cottage porch. Buster was curled between us, his head on my knee. The sea below was black and endless. I'd been holding the knowledge alone for so long that it had started to feel like a stone in my chest—smooth and cold and impossibly heavy.

I didn't plan to tell him. It just came out.

"The miscarriage destroyed my ability to carry pups," I said quietly. "The healer told me the morning after. Internal damage. Irreversible."

Cillian didn't move. He didn't turn toward me or reach for my hand. He just sat beside me, his shoulder a few inches from mine, and listened.

"Cameron's bloodline ends with his cruelty," I continued. My voice was flat. I'd practiced this tone for weeks—stripped of emotion, stripped of need. "He'll never have an heir. The pack will fracture when he dies. And he did it to himself."

The wind picked up. Buster shifted against my leg.

"I'm sorry," Cillian said.

I looked at him. His face was turned toward the water, his profile sharp against the starlight. His tone was quiet. Steady. And it was the first apology I'd received that didn't ask for anything in return.

No justification. No plea for forgiveness on someone else's behalf. Just sorrow that I had been hurt, and acknowledgment that the hurt was real.

Something in my chest loosened.

My wolf stirred. Not a flicker this time—a warmth. A presence. Like something that had been holding its breath was finally exhaling.

I pressed my hand to my sternum. Cillian's eyes flicked toward the movement, but he didn't comment.

"Thank you," I said quietly.

He inclined his head. We sat in silence until the cold drove us inside.

That night, I dreamed of silver fur for the first time in months.

Cameron found the cottage three days later.

I was inside when Buster started growling—a low, continuous sound that raised every hair on the back of my neck. I set down the book I'd been reading and moved to the window.

A figure stood at the end of the stone path. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Soaked through from the rain that had started an hour ago and showed no signs of stopping.

Cameron.

My breath caught. My hand went to my mother's pendant without thinking.

He wasn't standing anymore. As I watched, he dropped to his knees on the wet stone. His head bowed. His hands fell to his sides.

He knelt in the rain and waited.

Buster's growl deepened. I put my hand on his head to quiet him, but my eyes stayed on the figure outside.

Cameron didn't move. Didn't call out. Didn't use his Alpha tone to summon me. He just knelt there as the rain pounded down and the sky darkened and the sea roared below the cliffs.

I stood at the window and watched him.

I thought about the ceremonial platform. The formal rejection vow. The way he'd wrapped his arm around Livia while Maren announced I was losing the pup.

I thought about seven years of invisible devotion. Seven years of healing his warriors and managing his pack and carrying a bond he'd never once tended.

I thought about the ultrasound image on the tablet, dated to the exact night he'd severed us.

And I thought about the warmth in my chest—the stirring of a wolf who had been silent for months, who had finally started to wake in the presence of a Lycan Prince who had never once asked me to be smaller.

Cameron stayed on his knees.

The rain didn't stop.

And I turned away from the window without opening the door.