"Congratulations, Isla. The treatment worked. You're pregnant."
Isla pressed the phone closer to her ear, afraid she had misheard.
"Really?"
"Your blood results look good. We'll book your first scan, and given your recent surgery, I'd like you to take things easy."
She thanked the doctor twice before hanging up, then sat on the edge of her bed with tears slipping down her cheeks.
After the injections, the failed attempts, and all those appointments she had attended alone, there was finally a baby.
She called Coel, smiling as she waited for him to answer.
When it rang out, she reminded herself that he was still recovering. He had only been awake for three weeks, and the nurses were always saying he needed rest.
She could tell him in person.
Isla washed her face, tucked the printed results into her bag, and headed for the pack house. By the time she reached his bedroom, she had almost decided how to tell him.
Then she heard a woman moan.
"Coel... oh, right there."
Isla stopped with her hand inches from the door.
She knew that voice.
Hilda, her stepsister, had spent years making sure Isla never felt welcome in her own home. She had ruined her clothes, spread rumors, and cried whenever their father caught her, knowing Isla would take the blame.
Now she was in her mate's bedroom.
The headboard knocked against the wall, followed by Coel's low laugh.
"Quiet. Do you want someone to hear?"
"Afraid your little Omega will find out?"
"Don't bring her up."
"Why not? She follows you around like a stray. You'd think she'd managed to give you something by now."
Isla's fingers tightened around her bag.
"She's had enough chances," Coel said. "How difficult can it be to get pregnant?"
Hilda laughed, and Isla pushed open the door.
Her stepsister was on his lap, her skirt bunched around her waist. Coel's hand was beneath her blouse, and neither of them moved until Isla spoke.
"What are you doing?"
Hilda slid off him, looking irritated rather than ashamed. Coel pulled up his trousers before reaching for the champagne on his bedside table.
"Close the door."
Isla stared at the man she had sat beside for weeks, begging him to wake up.
"I called you."
"My phone's on silent."
"I can see why."
Hilda smoothed her skirt, her mouth curving into the same smile she used whenever she knew their father would take her side.
"You really should knock."
Isla ignored her.
"How long has this been happening?"
Coel poured himself a drink. "You're making a scene over nothing."
"You're sleeping with my sister."
"Stepsister," Hilda corrected.
The pull of the mate bond was still there, urging Isla toward him even as her stomach turned. Serena, her wolf, paced beneath her skin, distressed by the scent of another woman on him.
"Was it happening before the attack?" Isla asked.
Coel set down his glass.
"What difference does it make?"
She had thought there would at least be an apology, something to suggest he understood what he had done.
"You could have told me you didn't want me."
"Don't put words in my mouth. You're my mate."
"Then why is she here?"
"Because she knows how to be pleasant company."
Hilda folded her arms, watching Isla as though this were a show put on for her benefit.
Coel leaned against the bed.
"Every time you come in here, it's another appointment, another treatment, another reason something hasn't worked. I nearly died, Isla. I don't need more disappointment."
Her hand closed around the strap of her bag, keeping the report hidden inside.
"I went through those treatments for you."
"And what have we got to show for them?"
She felt the words she had come to say pressing against her throat.
She swallowed them.
"Perhaps if you spent less time complaining," Hilda said, "he'd actually want you around."
Isla looked at Coel, waiting for him to tell her to stop.
He took a drink instead.
"I gave you part of my liver."
His glass paused halfway to the table.
"When the doctors said you wouldn't survive without a donor, I volunteered. I was still healing when your family asked me to start fertility treatment."
"I remember."
"Do you? Because you're standing there telling me how much I've disappointed you."
Color rose in his face.
"You're my mate, and I'm your Alpha. Being able to help me should be an honor, not something you hold over my head."
Isla stared at him.
Then she crossed the room, picked up the champagne bottle, and struck him across the side of the head.
The impact jarred her arm. Coel crashed into the bedside table, sending his glass to the floor, while Hilda's scream filled the room.
Isla put the bottle down before her trembling fingers lost their grip.
Blood ran from a cut near Coel's temple.
"You fucking hit me."
Her voice shook, but she made herself answer.
"Yes."
Hilda crouched beside him, shrieking for a healer.
Coel shoved her hand away and straightened, his eyes flashing gold.
"I could have you locked up for attacking your Alpha. Do you understand that?"
Isla's chest tightened beneath the weight of his command, but Serena pushed forward, furious now.
"You think being my mate protects you?" he demanded.
"No," Isla said. "I don't."
She set her bag down and braced herself against the dresser.
"I, Isla Spencer, reject you, Coel Reese, as my mate."
The bond tore through her chest.
Her knees buckled, and she caught the dresser hard enough to bruise her palm. Across the room, Coel doubled over with a choked curse.
For one terrible moment, she wanted to go to him.
She gripped the wood until the urge passed.
"You can't..." He dragged in a breath. "Take it back."
Isla picked up her bag.
"Walk out that door, and don't expect me to take you back when you come crawling."
She left without looking at him.
*
At the hospital, Isla sat with her phone in her lap and nowhere to go.
Her mother had been dead for twelve years. Her father had remarried before Isla had stopped setting an extra place at dinner, and he had spent the years since telling her not to upset his new family.
There would be no help waiting there.
She had little money of her own, no steady income, and a body still recovering from the surgery that had saved Coel. Without him, she could barely support herself.
She opened her bag and looked at the report.
An hour ago, she had imagined buying tiny clothes and arguing with Coel over names.
Now she was trying to work out where she could afford to sleep.
"Miss Spencer?"
Isla followed the nurse into a consultation room, where a doctor asked what had brought her in.
She pressed her hands together.
"I need to discuss ending a pregnancy."
The doctor reviewed her history, asked about her recovery, and explained that they needed an assessment before deciding on a suitable procedure.
When she stepped out to arrange an examination, Isla remained at the desk with a consent form in front of her.
Her hand drifted to her stomach.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
Voices rose in the corridor before she could pick up the pen.
"Sir, this is a private consultation..."
The door struck the wall.
A tall man in a dark suit stood in the doorway, with a flustered administrator behind him. His gaze found Isla, dropped to the form, then returned to her face.
"Alpha Logan," the administrator began. "You cannot simply..."
"Leave us the room."
Isla reached for her bag.
"If Coel sent you, tell him I'm done taking orders."
"Whoever Coel is, he didn't send me."
"Then you have no business here."
Logan stepped inside.
"The hell I don't. You're carrying my child, Isla Spencer."
Her hand went still against her stomach.
His eyes held hers.
"And you don't get to make this decision without me."
