Chapter 68

Elara

The dinner table was too quiet. A little too quiet, if I was being honest. I had become so used to Ella and Zoe’s incessant chatter that I never tired of it, and so when they were suddenly silent, it felt eerie.

Ella was sitting to my left, swinging her legs underneath her chair. She was picking at her stew as best she could, but I could tell she didn’t like it. As for Zoe, she had staunchly opposed eating hers at all despite my pleading, and was pouting on my right with her arms folded and her face set in a scowl.

Sarah was sitting directly across from me, stabbing forcefully at the chunks of meat in her bowl. She was clearly furious over Zoe’s refusal to eat, and had made more than one comment earlier but seemed to have given up now.

She didn’t need to say anything, though, for me to know what she was thinking: that Zoe, her biological daughter, had been ruined by an Omega mother. That Zoe’s picky eating was entirely my fault, a shortcoming in my own parenting skills, and that if she had been around to raise Zoe herself, she would be the most perfect little girl in the entire world.

None of that was true, of course. Zoe was already perfect in my eyes. She was a normal, healthy girl who was just going through a picky eating phase, just like any other kid. And not even Sarah could have prevented that from happening.

But I kept my thoughts to myself, at least for now. Alaric wasn’t home yet, and I just wanted to keep the peace until I could speak to him in private later. He was bound to listen to my point of view, even more so with the baby in my belly. Even though Sarah was the wife he’d been missing for years, he wasn’t going to stand for her verbally assaulting me or my daughters.

And so, in the spirit of keeping everyone calm, I pushed a piece of food around my bowl but barely touched it.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the front door opened.

Alaric’s footsteps came down the hall, and it sounded like salvation. But when he appeared at the dining room doorway, the exhaustion was written all over him—frustration creasing his forehead, his jaw locked tight. His hair looked tousled from running his hands through it, and there was a faint shadow under his eyes.

When his gaze landed on us, something softened.

“Hello, everyone.” His voice alone was enough to ease the ache sitting in my chest.

I offered a small smile, standing up instinctively. “You’re home.”

“Long day,” he said with a sigh, stepping into the room. He leaned close and pecked me on the cheek, causing Sarah to audibly suck in a breath of air in the background.

“Daddy!” Ella’s chair scraped as she leapt up and ran to him, Zoe trailing quietly behind. Alaric’s expression shifted as he crouched to catch them both, pressing kisses into their hair and holding them close.

Sarah didn’t move. She only watched from across the table, her lips barely twitching at the corners.

“How was school?” he asked, glancing between them as they started rambling about their day. But when he noticed that neither of the girls seemed to be eating their dinner, his face fell slightly.

Before Alaric could say anything, Sarah smiled and gestured toward the empty seat beside her. “Come sit down, Alaric. I made dinner tonight.”

I wondered if he noticed how I stiffened at that.

Alaric stood, loosening his tie as he took his seat at the head of the table, and the girls scurried back into their chairs.

“It smells good,” he said, although it didn’t sound entirely truthful.

“I hope it’s to your liking this time,” Sarah replied smoothly, leaning forward just enough so that her arm nearly brushed his. “You used to love this dish. Maybe if you eat it with gusto, the girls will see how delicious it is.”

Alaric’s eyes flicked to mine for the briefest of moments, but he said nothing and began eating in silence. For a while, the only sound at the table was the faint clinking of silverware. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Anything new with the investigation?” I asked.

Alaric exhaled softly and leaned back against his chair. “Not much. We thought we had a lead on the Moonwolf powder shipments coming through the southern borders, but…” His hand brushed through his hair, a faint trace of frustration in the movement. “It was a dead end. Yet again.”

Sarah set down her spoon with a clatter and reached for her glass of wine. “Moonwolves have been extinct for centuries,” she said idly, swirling her wine around in her glass.

“So we thought,” Alaric cut in. “But the powder has been tested thoroughly, and it does contain Moonwolf blood. Which means that there are Moonwolves out there somewhere, and whoever is manufacturing the powder is somehow harvesting their blood.”

A faint chill swept over the table, save for the sound of the girls talking to each other about tea parties. Thankfully, with Alaric here, they had returned to their usual whispering and banter, too caught up in their own little world to care about our boring ‘adult talk’. I wouldn’t have wanted them to hear about this sort of thing at their age.

Shifting my gaze, I watched Sarah carefully. Her hand had stilled around the stem of her glass, her fist tightening so that her knuckles went pale for just a moment.

Why did she look so worried?

Unbidden, my mind wandered back to the night that Ella had found that earring. She’d claimed that it was her mother’s earring, that she’d caught her scent. Alaric had immediately shot the idea down, of course.

What if Ella was right? What if Sarah knew something that she wasn’t letting on?

But then she set the glass down lightly and leaned back in her chair, the picture of calm once more.

“How awful, if that’s the case,” she murmured.

I narrowed my eyes but said nothing.

The rest of dinner passed quietly after that, with only the girls’ laughter to cut through the silence. But Sarah’s brief hesitation sat heavily in the back of my mind, and I couldn’t shake it no matter how much I tried.

Later that evening, after Ella and Zoe had gone to bed, I found myself lingering outside Alaric’s study, the faint glow of firelight spilling from beneath the door.

I hadn’t told him yet. About the pregnancy. About Sarah’s comments that morning. I had kept it all in, thinking I would find the right moment—but Sarah had lingered around us all night, insisting on inserting herself into the girls’ bedtime routine. Thankfully, she just slipped off to bed a few minutes ago.

Now. I had to do it now.

I pushed open the door carefully, stepping inside, but felt my stomach sink a little. Alaric was lying on the couch, his arm draped over his eyes, chest rising and falling softly. He was asleep.

I hesitated in the doorway, my hand tightening against the pregnancy test in my pocket. I hated to wake him up when he was clearly so exhausted, but I knew I had to—otherwise we might not have another chance to talk about everything.

“Alaric,” I whispered, crouching beside the couch to touch his shoulder lightly.

But my hand stilled just as I went to touch him.

Clutched in his other hand was a photograph—the edges worn and soft, like it had been handled more than once.

I didn’t have to see it up close to recognize it.

It was Sarah. Him and Sarah, standing together in the garden with Ella bundled between them. A picture from years ago.

The ache that bloomed in my chest was immediate, and suddenly, I felt as if I couldn’t breathe.

I straightened, stepping away before I could think twice. I didn’t know what I had expected to find when I came here tonight—but it certainly wasn’t this. Clapping my hand over my mouth, I turned too quickly, nearly stumbling out into the hall.

And that was when I collided with Sarah.

She looked down at me like I was a rat scurrying into her path, her eyes narrowing just slightly, and for a moment, neither of us spoke. Finally, when she broke the silence, her voice was low and full of venom.

“Elara.”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I just brushed past her and hurried toward my room, desperate to get away before she could see me cry.

When I reached my room, I quickly shut and locked the door. My chest was heaving by now, the first warning signs of a panic attack. Needing to feel grounded, I slipped my hand into my pocket to look at the pregnancy test—only to find it empty.