Chapter 43
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Andrea
I smelled coffee before I hit the bottom step, which was normal. Finneas had been making it every morning since I moved in, a habit he picked up in Whitebrook that stuck. What wasn’t normal was the second voice in the kitchen, low, urgent, cut off the second my foot hit the creaky stair.
I came around the corner. Finneas was at the counter with a mug he wasn’t drinking. Luca was across from him, jacket still on, car keys in his hand like he’d walked in two minutes ago and hadn’t bothered to set anything down.
They both looked at me and the conversation they’d been having died so fast I could almost hear it hit the floor.
“Morning,” I said carefully.
“Morning,” Finneas said. His voice was off. Controlled in the way it got when he was holding something behind his teeth.
I looked at Luca. Luca looked at his keys.
“What’s going on?”
Finneas set his mug down. Opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
“I was issued a formal challenge by Lorraine’s older brother George this morning.”
I waited for the rest of the sentence. The context, the explanation, the part where he told me what that meant in practical terms because I was still learning this world and formal challenge could mean anything from a legal dispute to a vote of no confidence.
“What does that mean?”
Luca answered. “George challenged Finneas for the crown. By pack law, it’s a fight. Both wolves shift. In front of the pack.”
“A fight,” I repeated. “Like... a physical fight.”
“Yes.”
“Between wolves.”
“Yes.”
“In front of everyone.”
“The whole pack.”
I stood in the kitchen doorway processing this. A fight. Not a debate, not a vote, not a legal proceeding. A fight. Two wolves, teeth and claws, in front of hundreds of people, over who gets to be King. This was how they decided leadership disputes. Not with ballots. With blood.
“That’s barbaric,” I said.
Nobody argued with me.
“That’s actually, genuinely barbaric. You’re telling me that in this century, in this country, the way you settle a political disagreement is two men turning into wolves and trying to kill each other?”
“It’s pack law,” Luca said carefully. “It’s been the tradition for...”
“I don’t care how long it’s been the tradition.
It’s barbaric.” My voice was rising and I couldn’t stop it.
“He’s going to be a father in five weeks.
I’m thirty-four weeks pregnant. And some asshole who’s been sulking because his sister didn’t get to marry the King gets to walk into a hall and demand a fight to the death? ”
“Andrea...” Finneas started.
“Don’t ‘Andrea’ me right now.” I pulled out a chair and sat down because my legs were shaking, the baby pressing against my ribs, the kitchen tilting at the edges. I put both hands flat on the table. Breathed. “Okay. Okay. Tell me everything.”
Luca glanced at Finneas. Finneas nodded.
“Seventy-two hours,” Luca said. “Finneas has to accept or forfeit the crown.”
“Forfeit is not happening.”
“No,” Finneas said. His jaw was locked. “It’s not.”
“So in three days you’re going to shift into a wolf and fight George Ashtor.”
“Yes.”
“And what happens when it’s over? What happens to the loser?”
“He submits. Rolls onto his back, exposes his throat.”
“And if he doesn’t submit?”
The silence in the kitchen was the loudest thing I’d ever heard.
“Oh God.” My hand went to my mouth. “Finneas, you could get killed.”
“I’m not going to get killed.”
“But you could. That’s what you’re not saying.” I could see it in his face, in the way his eyes went flat. “What if he hurts you? What if he’s faster than you think? What if something goes wrong and you’re lying on the ground and I’m standing there watching?”
The images came whether I wanted them or not. Finneas on the ground, bleeding, not moving. Finneas broken open in front of hundreds of people while I stood there eight months pregnant unable to do a single thing about it. My throat closed.
“Hey.” He came around the table and crouched in front of me. His hands on my knees, warm, solid. “Look at me.”
I looked at him.
“I am the strongest Alpha in this pack. George is not my equal. This fight is going to be short and I am going to win.”
“You don’t know that. You can’t promise that.”
“I can. I am.”
“People get hurt in fights, Finneas. Even when they’re stronger.” My voice shook as I was saying it. “You’re not invincible. What if he gets a lucky hit? What if he goes for your throat and you don’t move fast enough?”
“Andrea.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down.”
“I wasn’t going to. I was going to say that Luca will have the full report on George’s fighting patterns, his training, his weaknesses, and I will be prepared for every possible scenario.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“What would be comforting?”
“You not having to fight at all.” I pressed my hands over my eyes.
The images wouldn’t stop. His wolf pinned, teeth at his throat.
Blood on the ground. Him not getting up.
“What if he gets a bite in the wrong place? What if you’re bleeding and you can’t shift back?
What if I’m standing there watching and you. ..”
I couldn’t finish. My throat closed.
Luca left quietly. I heard the back door click shut. Good. I didn’t want an audience for this.
Finneas came around the table and pulled a chair next to mine. He took my hands away from my face and held them.
“Tell me everything,” I said. “All the Ashtor stuff. The full picture.”
He laid it out. Conrad’s private meetings with old families, weeks of political maneuvering. George recruiting young Alphas at the pack hall. Lorraine coordinating from outside. Three fronts, one goal.
I sat with it. Fifteen Alphas behind George. A handful of sympathetic families. The rest of the pack loyal, the council behind Finneas.
“And the fight itself. How long?”
“Minutes.”
“You’re going to get hurt.”
“Cuts. Bites. Nothing that won’t heal. Shifter healing is fast.”
“How fast?”
“Days. A week at most.”
I couldn’t shake the worry. I kept seeing it, Finneas in wolf form, teeth tearing into his shoulder, his side. The coffee Finneas put in front of me was going cold and I couldn’t drink it because my stomach was in knots.
“What do you need from me?” I asked.
He looked at me. Something in his face shifted. Recognition.
“I need you there. At the challenge. With Luca, somewhere safe, but visible. I need the pack to see you.”
“Then I’ll be there. I’m not hiding in this house while you fight for us.”
He reached across the table and took my hand. I let him. His thumb ran across my knuckles and neither of us said anything for a minute, just sat in the kitchen with cold coffee and a countdown ticking in the background.
The rest of the day was an exercise in pretending I was fine.
I went to the animal wing because the animals didn’t know about pack challenges and didn’t care and that was exactly the energy I needed.
Buddy followed me from room to room, pressing against my legs, and I sat on the floor with him even though getting down there at thirty-four weeks was a production and getting back up would require divine intervention.
I scratched behind his ears. “Your dad is going to be fine,” I told him. Buddy looked at me with big brown eyes that said nothing and everything. “He’s the strongest Alpha in the pack. Luca said so. By a wide margin.”
Buddy put his chin on my knee.
“A wide margin, Buddy. That’s a lot of margin.”
I was trying to convince myself and the dog knew it.
I called Grandma in the afternoon because I needed to hear her voice.
I didn’t tell her about the challenge because she’d drive down here with a shotgun and try to shoot a wolf, which wouldn’t help anyone.
We talked about the baby instead. She’d been knitting a blanket, yellow because she agreed with me about the blue-pink thing, and she wanted to know if I’d packed my hospital bag yet.
“Not yet,” I said.
“Andrea Marie Grey. You are thirty-four weeks pregnant. Pack the bag.”
“I will.”
“Tonight.”
“Okay, Grandma.”
“And put comfortable socks in it. Your feet are going to be cold. Trust me.”
I laughed and it came out watery but she didn’t comment on it because Grandma knew when to push and when to leave it alone. We said goodbye. I sat in the reading nook with the phone in my lap, Buddy at my feet, the worry lodged in my chest like a stone I couldn’t cough up.
The whole day felt wrong. The house was the same, the animals were the same, the light through the windows was the same.
But everything had a thin layer of dread over it, like looking at the world through dirty glass.
I’d catch myself staring at nothing, replaying the conversation in the kitchen, hearing Luca say desperate wolves are unpredictable on a loop in my head.
I’d picture Finneas in wolf form, massive, black, and then I’d picture another wolf lunging at his throat and my whole body would go cold.
Finneas spent the day on the phone with Luca. I could hear him in the study, voice low, strategic, the King voice that meant he was planning. I wanted to go in there and listen but I also didn’t because every detail I learned was another image I’d have to carry.
He came to find me in the animal wing around four.
Stood in the doorway watching me read to Buddy, which I’d been doing for an hour because I needed something normal to do with my hands and my voice.
He didn’t say anything. Just looked at me like I was the most important thing in any room he’d ever walked into.
“Stop looking at me like you’re memorizing my face,” I said. “You’re coming back. You promised.”
“I wasn’t memorizing. I was appreciating.”
“Appreciate quieter. You’re interrupting chapter twelve.”
He almost smiled. Almost.
That night I went to the nursery because it was the quietest room in the estate and the quiet was the only thing holding me together.
I sat in the rocking chair Grandma shipped from Whitebrook.
It arrived last week with a note in her handwriting: Your mother rocked you in this chair.
Now you rock your son in it. I’d cried for twenty minutes when I opened the box, pressing my face against the worn wood that still smelled faintly of Grandma’s house.
I rocked slowly now, a tiny yellow onesie in my hands, folding it and refolding it because the repetition kept my fingers from shaking. The nursery was dim, the yellow walls soft in the lamplight, the crib ready, the stuffed wolf from Luca on the dresser.
Seven weeks. Alex was seven weeks away. I was supposed to be thinking about birth plans and hospital bags and whether we had enough diapers. Instead I was sitting in my mother’s rocking chair trying not to think about what a wolf’s teeth could do to the man sleeping down the hall.
Finneas appeared in the doorway. He watched me for a minute, the folding, the rocking, the way I wasn’t looking at him because if I looked at him I’d start crying and I’d promised myself I wouldn’t cry about this.
“I can’t stop thinking that you’re going to get hurt,” I told the onesie in my hands. “Really hurt.”
He came in, crouched in front of the chair, and took my face in both hands. His palms were warm. His amber eyes were close.
“I’m not going to get hurt.”
“You said challenges aren’t clean.”
“Cuts and bites. Nothing serious. I won’t let it.”
“And if it is serious? What happens to me and Alex?”
“Luca knows. If anything goes wrong, he gets you both out. Takes you to Whitebrook, to your grandmother.”
“Stop.” My voice cracked. “I don’t want a backup plan. I want you to come home in one piece.”
“I’m going to come home.”
“Promise me.”
“Andrea...”
“Finneas. Promise me.”
He looked at me. His hands on my face, his thumbs on my cheekbones, his eyes sure in the low light.
“I promise.”
I put my hand over his. Held it against my cheek. Alex kicked hard, pressing into my ribs like he was trying to make space for himself, and I took a breath that filled me all the way down.
“Okay,” I said.
He kissed my forehead before he left.
I sat in the rocking chair with the onesie in my lap, listening to his footsteps fade. The nursery was quiet. The yellow walls were soft. My son was kicking under my hand, alive, present, five weeks from being here.
“Your dad’s got this,” I whispered. “He will be safe.”