The Alpha's Forgotten Twins

"Stop breathing so loud. I can't hear a thing."

Grandma Maeve's ear was cold against Elara's bare stomach. The edge of the kitchen table dug into her shoulder blades.

"I'm barely breathing at all."

"Then stop thinking so loud."

Elara bit down on a laugh. Outside, someone was testing the ceremony drums. Two slow beats, then silence.

Maeve's fingers pressed flat beside her navel. Her whole body went still.

"Gran?"

"Hush."

Five seconds. Ten. The kettle ticked on the stove.

Then Maeve lifted her head, and her mouth was hanging open.

"What? Is something wrong? Is it-"

"Two."

Elara stared at her.

"Two heartbeats, child." Maeve's voice cracked down the middle. "One fast. One faster. Fighting each other already."

Elara's hand flew to her stomach. The skin was still warm where Maeve's cheek had been.

Twins.

She sat up so fast the table scraped across the floorboards. Her eyes stung. She laughed, and it came out wet.

"Twins," she said out loud, testing it. "Gran. Twins."

"I heard me the first time." But Maeve's hands shook as she tugged Elara's shirt back down. Then she caught Elara's chin and held it hard.

"Does he know?"

The laugh died in Elara's throat.

"Not yet."

"Elara."

"Tonight. He's claiming me tonight, in front of everyone. I'll tell him right after." She swallowed. "I slipped a note under his door this morning. So he knows something's coming."

Maeve's grip didn't loosen. Her thumb pressed into the hinge of Elara's jaw, the way she checked a patient's pulse.

"Six weeks of sneaking out to the falls is not a promise."

"He promised."

"The council wants the Vale girl. Dorian's been pushing Crimson Ridge since spring. You know that."

"Kaelen doesn't want her." Elara pulled her chin free. "He wants me. He felt it, Gran. The second he touched my hand, he felt it."

She turned her right palm up without thinking. The thin silver scar across it caught the lamplight.

Maeve looked at that scar for a long moment. Then at the door.

The drums started again. Not testing this time. Steady. Calling.

"You're late," Maeve said.

"I know-"

"Dress. Now."

The dress had been Maeve's. Pale green, let out at the seams twice, smelling of cedar from forty years in a chest.

Elara was still fumbling with the last hook when Maeve caught her wrist at the door.

"Listen to me."

"Gran, the drums-"

"Listen." Maeve's nails bit into her skin. "If anything goes wrong tonight-anything-you come straight back here. You don't stop. You don't talk to anyone. You come home."

Elara's pulse thudded against Maeve's fingers.

"Nothing's going to go wrong."

Maeve didn't let go.

"Promise me."

"I promise." Elara kissed her papery cheek. "Stop looking at me like that. I'm getting mated, not buried."

She ran.

The clearing was packed. Three hundred wolves, maybe more, shoulder to shoulder under a moon so swollen and red it looked bruised.

Elara slipped in at the back. Heads turned anyway.

"Is that the healer?"

"In that?"

"Did someone die and leave her their curtains?"

A cluster of she-wolves stood by the torches. Bree Hollis, all glossy hair and borrowed pearls, didn't bother lowering her voice.

Heat crawled up Elara's neck. She kept walking.

A hand shot out of the crowd and grabbed hers.

"You're late," Mira hissed. She was in her warrior blacks, braid pinned tight to her skull. "And you're glowing. Why are you glowing?"

"I'm not."

"You look like you swallowed a lantern."

"Later. I'll tell you later." Elara squeezed her fingers. Her own were ice cold. "Where is he?"

Mira jerked her chin toward the altar.

Kaelen Draven stood on the black stone at the head of the clearing, bare-armed in the cold, the Ironfang sigil inked dark over his heart. He wasn't talking to anyone. He didn't have to.

The pack had left a full arm's length of empty air around him.

Then his head turned.

Straight to her. Through two hundred bodies, like he'd known exactly where she would be standing.

The bond pulled tight under her ribs. Her breath snagged.

His storm-grey eyes held hers. Slowly, he touched two fingers to the scar through his left eyebrow.

Their signal. I see you. Wait for me.

Elara pressed her palm flat against her stomach and didn't care who saw.

"Brothers. Sisters."

Dorian Draven stepped up beside his nephew. Silver at his temples, warm smile, arms spread like he wanted to hug the whole pack.

The drums cut off.

"Under the Blood Moon, our Alpha names his Luna. As his father did. As his father's father did." He let it hang. "And tonight, we are honored by guests."

He gestured to the left of the altar. Elara rose on her toes.

A delegation in deep red. Alpha Lucius Vale of Crimson Ridge, broad and grey-bearded. And beside him, his daughter.

Seraphina Vale wore white. Head to toe. Her platinum hair was pinned up off a neck so pale it looked carved.

"Oh, she did not," Mira muttered. "White? At someone else's ceremony?"

Elara couldn't answer. Her mouth had gone dry.

Because Sera was looking at her.

Not at the altar. Not at Kaelen. Across the whole clearing, those ice-blue eyes had found Elara and stopped.

Sera's nostrils flared, once. Her gaze dropped.

To Elara's stomach. To the hand still resting there.

Elara snatched it away. Too late.

Sera's lips curved. Slow. Pleased.

"Elara." Mira's grip tightened. "Why is Vale's daughter staring at you like you're dinner?"

"I don't know."

"You're lying. Your ears go red when you lie."

"Mira."

"A gift," Dorian called, "from Crimson Ridge. In friendship."

Sera glided forward with a silver cup in both hands. The ceremonial moonwine. The cup only the Alpha drinks from before he names his mate.

A murmur rippled through the crowd. That cup was always carried by the head of the council.

Always.

"That's not right," Elara whispered.

"Since when does a guest-"

"It's not right, Mira."

Sera reached the altar. She stood close. Too close. She raised the cup to Kaelen with her head bowed, the picture of respect.

Kaelen's jaw shifted. For one heartbeat, Elara thought he would refuse.

Dorian laid a hand on his shoulder and murmured something.

Kaelen took the cup.

The wind turned. It swept down off the altar stone, carrying torch smoke and pitch and spiced wine.

And under the wine, something else.

Bitter. Green. Like nightshade stems left to rot in a closed jar.

Elara's head snapped up. Her stomach clenched. She had smelled that rot once before, in the jar on Maeve's top shelf marked DO NOT OPEN.

"Kaelen-"

It came out as a croak. Nobody heard it.

He tipped the cup back and drank it dry.

Elara lurched forward. Mira caught her arm and yanked her back.

"Are you insane? You can't interrupt the rite-"

"Something's in it. Mira, I smelled something-"

"It's wine. It's just wine." But Mira's voice had dropped. Her eyes darted to the altar.

Kaelen lowered the cup.

He swayed. Barely. One hand landed on the altar stone, like he'd missed a step in the dark.

Sera caught his elbow. She rose onto her toes, her lips almost touching his ear. Her mouth moved.

Elara couldn't hear the words. She could only watch Kaelen's shoulders go loose.

"He's fine," Mira said. "Look. He's fine."

He didn't look fine.

He looked empty.

"Alpha." Dorian's voice rang over the silent clearing. "The pack awaits your choice."

Kaelen lifted his head.

"Elara Quinn."

Her name hit the crowd like a dropped tray. Gasps. Someone laughed, high and disbelieving.

"The healer?"

"He's joking."

"Step forward," Kaelen said.

Mira let go. Elara's knees almost buckled.

She walked.

The crowd parted for her, slow and grudging. Faces slid past. Bree Hollis with her mouth hanging open. Old Tobias the blacksmith, frowning. A pup on his father's shoulders, pointing.

Her heels sank into the soft earth. She could hear her own heartbeat. And under it, so faint she had to be imagining it, two more.

I'm coming. I'm right here.

She climbed the altar steps and stopped an arm's length from him.

This close, she could smell him. Pine and cold air and Kaelen.

And that bitter, rotten green on his breath.

"Kaelen," she whispered. "Look at me."

He did.

Her fingers went numb around the hem of her dress.

His eyes were grey. Just grey. Flat as creek stone. No storm in them, no gold rising, no flicker of the man who had kissed her scarred palm at the falls six nights ago and called her his.

He looked at her like a stranger who had wandered up the wrong steps.

"Kaelen?" Her voice shook. "It's me."

Behind him, Sera folded her hands. Waiting.

Dorian's smile didn't move.

Kaelen's hand came up. For one wild second, Elara thought he would cup her face the way he always did.

Instead his fingers closed around her chin. Cold. Impersonal. He tilted her face up toward the red moon so the whole pack could see it.

His dead eyes never left hers.

"I, Kaelen Draven, Alpha of Ironfang," he said, "reject you."

The words hit. Then the bond tore.

It ripped up from under her ribs like a fishhook dragged through meat. Her knees cracked against the altar stone. White sparks crowded the edges of her vision.

Somewhere far away, three hundred wolves were laughing.

Kaelen's fingers were still locked on her chin. He bent down, close enough that his breath brushed her cheek, bitter and green.

For one second, his eyes flashed gold.

His lips barely moved. One word, scraped out of him so low only she could hear it.

"Run."