Chapter 2
By the time Derek finally came out of the bedroom, it was already dawn.
He smelled like two different people mixed, and it was so strong that my stomach seized up.
I'd sat on the couch the whole night, and with every breath I'd taken, I could feel the raw spot where our mating bond had torn, aching like a bone that had been broken and never set properly.
Derek sat down across from me, and the exhaustion on his face was too heavy to hide.
"Lena's poison is under control for now," he said, "but the healer says I have to keep giving her my scent for at least another month."
He called Selena Lena.
I turned that name over on my tongue, and it tasted bitter.
"The climate-controlled villa has the right temperature and humidity for her to recover," Derek continued.
He paused and clenched his fingers against his knees.
Then, he told me, "I need you to move out to the watchtower for a few days."
Derek had the climate-controlled villa built for me.
I was an Omega, physically weaker than most wolves, and I couldn't handle cold or dampness very well.
After we mated, he spent a million dollars redoing the whole villa's heating system so that every room stayed at 75 degrees.
The watchtower was out on the edge of pack territory. In the winter, the wind blew right through the cracks in the metal walls, and hot water came and went.
"Okay," I said.
My voice came out so steady that I barely recognized it as my own.
Derek looked up at me and opened his mouth again.
"Allie..." he murmured.
"Is there something else?" I asked.
He didn't say anything for a long time, then got up and started walking toward the bedroom.
When he got to the door, he stopped.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
The door closed again.
I looked down at my hands, and my fingertips were white from the cold and trembling a little.
So this was what it looked like when love died.
*****
When I moved to the watchtower, I only brought one suitcase.
Derek stayed with Selena, and the only people who came to help me move were a few of his Betas.
Tyler shoved my clothes into the suitcase without any care, and when some of them fell onto the floor, he stepped right over them with mud on his boots.
Jack leaned against the doorframe, scrolling through his phone without looking up. "Alicia, you don't have a lot of stuff. I figured the Luna would need a whole truck to move."
Luke Carter swept all the books off the shelf and dumped them into a cardboard box.
"Be careful with those," I said.
Luke turned his head and grinned. "You're still worried about that kind of thing, Alicia? You think the watchtower has room for all these books?"
I didn't say anything else.
The watchtower was about 130 square feet, with a narrow bed, a rusty radiator, and a window that wouldn't close all the way, so cold air kept seeping in through the gaps.
I put the suitcase next to the bed and rested my palm on my belly.
I was six weeks along.
The pack healer had told me that the first three months were the most critical, meaning no getting cold, no getting scared, and no letting the wolf inside me get too worked up.
But my mating bond had been ripped open by my fated mate, and now, I was being put up in a tin shed where winter nights dropped to fourteen degrees.
Just then, my phone rang.
It was Derek.
"Allie, I know the watchtower isn't great, so I'm going to have Tyler bring you an electric space heater," he said.
"Okay," I said.
"Once Selena's poison is cleared up, you can come back home."
"Okay."
There was a pause on the line.
"Please don't be mad at me, alright?" he asked.
I opened my mouth, ready to tell him I was pregnant, but someone called out to him in the background.
It was Selena, crying out in pain.
Derek said, "I'll call you back later," and hung up.
The space heater never showed up.
By eleven o'clock at night, I was curled up in the corner of the bed under a blanket, and my teeth wouldn't stop chattering.
My phone lit up with a text from a number I didn't recognize.
On it was: [Alicia, this is Selena. Thanks for giving up the villa for me. It's so warm in here. Derek is heating some milk for me right now.
[He said you don't like milk, so all the milk in the fridge must have been for me. You're so sweet.]
There was a smiley face at the end.
I stared at that message for a few seconds, and then the words on the screen got blurry from my tears.
That tenderness used to be something that was mine.
And now, someone else was holding it up in front of me like a trophy.
At first light, I went to the witch's clinic outside pack territory.
Lorna Bates, the witch, was in her eighties, with her reading glasses sitting low on her nose. After she checked my pulse, her eyebrows pinched together tightly.
"An Omega carrying an Alpha's pup is already a hard thing," she said. "But now, your mating bond has a tear in it, your soul is unstable, and that little one is suffering right along with you."
"Can I keep the pup?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
She pulled her hand back and dug out a packet of medicine to help stabilize the pregnancy.
"You need to get as far away as you can from the one who tore the mating bond," she said. "If you stay close to him, that tear is only going to get bigger and bigger."
I sat there for a long time with my hand on my belly.
"Lorna, do you have anything that can hide my scent?" I asked.
Lorna looked at me over the top of her glasses, didn't ask any questions, and turned to take a black porcelain bottle off the shelf.
"Veilwater," she said. "After you put this on, it will seal away every trace of your scent. Even your fated mate won't be able to pick you up."
She put the bottle in my palm. "Once you use it, the mating bond between you and that Alpha will go completely silent.
"He won't be able to sense where you are, what you're feeling, or even whether you're alive or dead."
"He doesn't care anymore," I replied.
I tucked the bottle into my pocket.
Lorna let out a sigh and pressed the pregnancy medicine into my hands.
"Your pup doesn't do anything wrong," she said. "Take care of yourself."