Chapter 52

Esther’s POV

I’d barely closed the infirmary door when the vibration against my hip startled me. My phone pulsed with a message from the caretaker assigned to the twins in the guest wing:

Kids won’t nap. Acting restless. Asking for you.

I stared at the text until it blurred. They’d been restless for days, Carl especially. Ever since we’d arrived at the Blood Moon Pack, his questions had sharpened. Why did we have to stay, why was Mama always at the palace, why couldn’t they visit more often.

He was only a child but his eyes had started to look like mine in the mirror: haunted.

I thumbed a quick reassurance back—Be there soon—and headed down the hall anyway.

The palace air was thick with polish and the faint trace of incense from morning rituals. Beneath it, a current of gossip: the sour smoke of Amanda’s smear campaign still coiled through the corridors. Every echo of my heels on marble told me I was being watched.

Halfway to the guest wing, a sound froze me midstep. It was Sofia’s voice, small but determined, rising from the lower colonnade:

“…This way. Mama’s down here, I know it.”

My pulse stuttered.

I hurried to the balcony rail and leaned over. Two small figures at the far end of the garden path, the guest wing door swinging shut behind them. Carl’s shoulders hunched forward, Sofia skipping to keep up. No attendant in sight.

I bolted for the stairwell.

By the time my shoes hit gravel, the air had turned to lead in my lungs. Sofia had stopped to adjust her sandal strap but Carl was pushing on, his jaw tight, cheeks flushed. Even from a distance I saw the tremor in his hands.

“Carl!” My voice cracked the air. “Stop right now!”

Both children jerked to a halt. Carl whipped around, eyes wide, sweat slicking his forehead.

“Mama—” he started.

Then his knees buckled.

The sound of his body hitting the path ricocheted through me. I was running before it even reached my ears.

He’d crumpled on his side, hands clawing at his ribs, breathing shallow, lips pale.

“No, no, no. Carl?” My knees tore against the gravel as I dropped beside him. “Baby, talk to me.”

His skin burned under my palms, pulse fluttering like a trapped bird.

Sofia clutched my sleeve, eyes brimming. “He just wanted to see you. He said—he said—”

“Shhh.” My free hand cupped her cheek, trembling. “Go get help. Now. Tell anyone you see.”

Her lower lip quivered but she nodded and bolted back toward the palace.

I turned back to Carl. His eyelids fluttered like moth wings, his breath shallow and rapid.

“Stay with me,” I whispered. “Stay with me.”

Training clicked in like muscle memory. Tilt the head back. Check the airway. Listen for breath. Count the rise of his chest.

All too fast. All too shallow.

“Sharon,” I whispered into the silence of my own mind. “Please.”

For a flicker of an instant I felt it—my wolf’s distant stir, like a tremor beneath ice—but no real power. No healing surge, no golden warmth pooling into my palms. Only a flicker, then nothing.

Frustration ripped through me. I pressed harder, almost clawing at the invisible bond between us. Wake up wake up wake up.

Carl’s eyes opened a sliver. “Mom…”

“I’m here.” My throat constricted. “I’m here, baby.”

His eyelids drooped again, lashes dark against bloodless cheeks.

I bent over him, my own heart hammering, and that’s when a new scent cut through the garden: dark cedar and ozone, rolling toward me like a storm front.

Nicholas was approaching. Of all the times…

I lifted my head, clutching Carl close, bracing for whatever came next.

Nicholas’s POV

They were small shapes on the gravel at first. I saw a woman crouched low, hair spilling like black ink, and a boy limp in her arms.

The scent of his blood hit me like a fist.

Norman lunged under my skin, hackles up. Mate. Pup.

I crossed the courtyard in a heartbeat, boots biting into gravel. “What happened?”

Esther’s head snapped up, hazel eyes blazing even through the fear. “He collapsed. He’s—he’s burning up.”

I dropped to one knee beside them. The boy’s face was gray and blotchy, sweat streaking his temples, chest hitching with each breath.

“Move,” I ordered, already reaching.

She hesitated but shifted enough for me to slide my arms under him. Heat radiated off his body, weight frighteningly light.

As soon as I lifted him, a low growl started in his throat. His eyelids fluttered open, pupils blown wide.

“Put… me… down,” he rasped.

His voice was weak but the hostility in it shocked me.

“I’m taking you inside,” I said quietly.

“No!” His small hands twitched like claws against my chest.

“Carl, stop.” Esther’s voice cracked. “He’s helping.”

The boy’s eyes darted to hers, then back to me. His lip curled.

Norman tilted his head inside me. He hates us.

I adjusted my grip and started walking.

“He needs a physician,” I said over my shoulder.

“I am a physician,” she shot back, scrambling to keep up.

“Not today.”

The palace guard at the archway startled as we approached. Sofia appeared behind him, dragging his hand. When she saw me carrying Carl, her eyes went huge.

“That’s the Alpha King,” she whispered to the guard, then to me: “Is he gonna be okay?”

“I’ll see to it,” I said.

She trotted closer, peering up at me. “You’re really tall.”

I blinked down at her, thrown off balance by such an ordinary observation.

Norman huffed. She likes us.

I looked away and kept moving, Carl’s breathing shallow against my chest.

Inside the palace I barked at Dan, who’d appeared from a side hall. “Clear a room. Medical wing. Now.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

Esther hovered at my elbow, wringing her hands. “Please be careful—he’s—”

“I’ve got him.”

We reached the infirmary suite and I laid the boy on a padded bed. Even then he tried to jerk away, teeth gritted, but weakness won out.

Esther dropped to her knees beside him instantly, checking vitals, murmuring comfort. Her hands shook but her movements were precise.

I stood back, arms folded, trying to parse the strange tangle inside my chest. The boy’s hostility, the girl’s curiosity, the way Esther’s voice softened over their names.

Norman paced. This is not Kevin’s boy. It can’t be.

I ignored him and caught Dan’s eye. A silent order passed between us.

“Collect a sample,” I murmured under my breath.

Dan’s brows twitched but he nodded. “Yes, Alpha.”

While Esther bent over Carl, whispering to him, Sofia clambered onto the stool beside the bed, small hand stroking her brother’s damp hair.

“Breathe slow, Carl,” she urged. “Mama’s here. I’m here too.”

I watched them together, two halves of a mystery I hadn’t dared solve.

Esther looked up once, catching my gaze. For a heartbeat our eyes locked—hers suspicious, mine calculating—but then she looked back down at Carl, shielding him with her body.

Norman stirred. Pup. Ours.

I felt it too. But until the tests came back, I wouldn’t let myself believe.

I turned sharply and left the room, leaving Dan to collect the samples in secret.

Behind me, the faint sound of Sofia’s voice carried down the hall. “Mama, is he our friend?”

No answer. Only the soft murmur of Esther’s lullaby and Carl’s ragged breaths.

In my chest, Norman rumbled low. We need to know. We need to claim.

I stepped outside, allowing Esther and her children to have the room.

“Soon,” I muttered. “One way or another.”

Through the cracked door I caught Esther’s voice, low and fierce: “You’re safe, Carl. Just breathe. Mama’s got you.”

“I… wanted to find you…” Carl’s whisper broke.

“I know, baby. I’m sorry. I’m right here.”

Sofia’s smaller voice: “He didn’t like the medicine today.”

Esther stroked his hair, then spoke to the nurse. “Cool cloth, please. We need to bring his temperature down slowly.”

Even without seeing her face I could imagine the tightness around her eyes, the pale set of her lips.

Norman murmured, She fights for him like she fights for us.

I stayed another minute then forced myself to walk away, boots ringing on the tiles. My fingers curled against my palms until the knuckles ached.

Later that night, I sat in my private office staring at the tiny vial Dan had slipped into my palm: a few strands of Carl’s hair, a smudge from Sofia’s water glass, enough for answers.

“She doesn’t have to know,” Dan said carefully.

“She won’t,” I replied.

Outside the window the moonlight carved silver patterns across the courtyard gravel where they had fallen. The image of Esther kneeling, hair spilling over her son, was burned behind my eyelids.

Norman prowled. You already know. You felt it.

“Feelings aren’t proof,” I muttered. “Proof comes in numbers and reports.”

But my hands shook slightly as I set the vial into the evidence box.

“Soon,” I said again, and shut the lid.