Search the Ashes, Alpha

My mate's Luna couldn't have pups. So I had them for her.

Twice.

The second time, the healer cut the cord, wrapped my daughter in a blanket, and carried her straight across the room to Delphine, the Luna, who was waiting by the door with her arms already out.

I didn't get to hold her. I didn't even get to see her face.

Nine months earlier, my mate, Gideon, had come to my room and asked me for another baby. Not for us. For his Luna.

"Delphine wants another one," he'd said. "You did fine with the first. You can do it again."

Everyone in the Stonehollow Pack knew the story. Years ago, during the war with the rogues, Delphine took a silver bullet meant for Gideon. She saved his life, and it cost her any chance of ever carrying a pup.

If she'd never been shot, there would never have been another woman in the Alpha's bed. There definitely would never have been me.

The Moon Goddess made me Gideon's fated mate. That never made me his Luna. To the pack, I was good blood and a body that could give the Alpha heirs.

Three years ago, I had his son. Gideon took the baby out of the healer's hands himself and told me, "As of tonight, Delphine is his mother. Don't fight me on this."

Now they'd taken my daughter too.

The blood soaking into the sheets and dripping onto the floor was all mine. Delphine walked out with my baby, and I could hear her crying all the way down the hall. Then a door shut, and I couldn't hear her anymore.

Three days later, Delphine called me to the pack hall.

Under pack law, nobody turns down a formal summons from the Luna. So I dragged myself out of bed before moonrise. The tear from the birth hadn't healed. Every step sent pain shooting through me, and by the time I walked into the hall, the bandages under my dress were soaked red.

Delphine was sitting at the head of the council table with a cushion on her lap.

My daughter was asleep on it.

Delphine ran a fingertip along the baby's tiny ear. She looked up when I came in, but she didn't bother to stand.

"You look terrible. Something wrong?"

I kept my eyes on the floor. "No."

"Good."

She lifted my daughter onto her shoulder.

"Then let's get one thing straight. Stonehollow needs heirs nobody can argue with. Your family has the strongest blood in the valley. You were the obvious pick."

Pick.

Like anyone had ever asked me.

Delphine tucked the blanket around my daughter and nodded at the door to the storeroom under the kitchens.

"If you can stand, you can work. That storeroom needs clearing out. Get it done before you go back to bed."

The storeroom was damp, with no air at all. It reeked of mold, spoiled grease, and old hides. Broken traps, split crates, rusted cage doors, and chewed-up bones had been piling up down there for years.

Every breath left dust on my tongue.

I bent down and started hauling it out, one piece at a time.

Footsteps crossed the floor above me. Then Delphine started to hum.

She was walking my daughter to sleep.

I kept going until I couldn't feel my hands. When the edges of my vision started to go dark, I heard boots on the stairs.

A guard's voice came through the fog.

"The Alpha's here."

Up in the hall, Delphine's voice went soft and shaky.

"All I asked was for her to move a few boxes. Then she just dropped, like I'd hit her or something. You know I'd never do that."

Gideon said something back. I couldn't catch the words.

Then the floor came up to meet me.

When I opened my eyes, it was dark out.

Gideon was sitting on the edge of my bed, elbows on his knees. I couldn't read his face.

"The healer says you're still weak from the birth," he said. "Delphine didn't know it was that bad. She wasn't trying to hurt you, so don't make this into something it isn't."

When I was eighteen, I stood under the full moon with my heart pounding so loud I could hear it. The Moon Goddess named Gideon Lowe as my fated mate. The heir to Stonehollow. The warrior I'd been in love with from across every room for years.

I thought it was the best night of my life.

Now he was sitting in front of me, sticking up for the woman who'd sent me to that storeroom three days after I gave birth. He sounded like he was talking from very far away.

"I get it," I said. "Delphine's your Luna. I'll respect that."

Gideon studied my face.

He remembered how I'd been three years ago. After our son was born, I'd crawled out of bed with blood running down my legs and caught him at the door. I'd hung on to his sleeve and begged him to let me see my baby.

He'd pulled his arm free and walked out. The healers dragged me back to the bed and held me down while I screamed for him to bring my baby back.

For months after that, every time he came near me, I begged again.

Please, just let me see him.

Please don't let her have all of him.

I begged until I couldn't stand the sound of my own voice.

This time, my eyes were dry.

"Once the baby's officially registered as Delphine's," Gideon said, "no elder can touch her place in the line. That keeps her safe. It keeps the pack safe."

"Of course."

It came out too easily.

He waited, like he was bracing for me to yell or cry. I didn't do either.

A servant knocked outside. The moon was up. Delphine's dinner was on the table, and the baby wouldn't settle without him.

Gideon stood.

At the door, he looked back.

"Delphine can't have kids because she saved my life. I'll never be able to pay that back." His jaw went tight. "You're pack, Tamsin. I need you to understand what's at stake here."

He hesitated.

"Get some rest. If there's another baby, that one's yours to keep."

Another baby.

Like the two he'd already taken didn't count.

I didn't answer.

I listened to his steps fade down the hall. Then I turned to Hattie, the only maid who'd stuck by me.

"The rogues on the north border," I said. "Are they gone?"

"They scattered after the fighting last winter. Nobody's crossed since."

"And the elders who were after my father's council seat?"

"Gideon sent the worst of them to the far outpost. The rest backed off."

For the first time in days, I smiled.

There was nothing warm about it.

"Good."

My father was safe. His enemies were gone. The pack didn't need me holding its alliances together anymore.

"Then I can go too."