Chapter 14

Liam

The healer’s words echoed in my mind like a war drum muffled in snow.

“Luna Claire is pregnant, Alpha.”

I’d heard her voice clearly. Had watched the moment Claire’s lashes fluttered and her eyes opened, wide, glassy, fragile. The way that she seemed to tense up and the way her heart raced, I didn’t even miss her holding her breath for a few seconds.

The way I held her hand and let myself believe, for a moment, that things were finally coming together. That maybe… just maybe… something in this storm would anchor me again. Something was going to hold the two of us together.

She was pregnant. My Luna. My mate, at least by name, by choice. And we were going to have a child.

I should have felt nothing but joy.

I should have felt a warmth that I couldn’t explain.

And at first, I did.

There was a strange warmth in my chest, foreign and full, like the sun rising over dead winter fields. It filled the hollowness I’d carried si