Chapter 2

"Wakey, wakey, my Luna."

Kade's voice pulled me out of a shallow, bitter sleep. He stood by the bed, freshly showered, holding a bigger bouquet than yesterday's. The bigger the guilt, the bigger the flowers.

"Sorry about last night," he said. "I made you breakfast."

He sat beside me, and my body moved away before my mind decided anything. My arm curled over my stomach. Protecting what he didn't know existed.

His brows pulled together. "You look pale. Are you sick?"

"Kade." My voice came out steady. I was proud of that. "Last night. Was it really the border?"

There. A flicker. Barely a blink. Guilt crossing his face and vanishing.

Then the smile came back. The perfect one. "Of course, babe. What else would it be?"

Something in me went cold and stayed cold.

"Skip the pack office today," he said, kissing my hair. "I'll send the healer."

"No healer." The healer would smell the pregnancy in a heartbeat. "I just need rest."

The moment his car pulled away, I was dragging suitcases out of the closet.

My phone rang. Elias, the pack treasurer, one of the few wolves who'd been loyal to my father.

"Luna. Your mother's moonstone. The Silver Tear. It's surfaced at the Blood Moon Auction tonight."

I stopped breathing.

When my mother died, the Silver family collapsed. Debts appeared from nowhere. We sold everything, including her jewelry. For six years I had hunted every piece. The Silver Tear mattered most. It passed from my grandmother to my mother, meant to be given to the one she loved most.

Me.

"There's more," Elias said. "The Alpha is already there. I think he's buying it for you."

For one weak, stupid second, my heart softened. He remembered. Maybe—

No. Not after what I'd felt through that bond.

"Thank you, Elias. I'll handle it."

The auction house was full of Alphas and their Lunas, silk and power and old money. I saw Kade immediately.

Sienna stood beside him. Close enough that their shoulders touched.

High on her neck, under a delicate silk scarf, I caught the edge of a fresh bite.

I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood.

Kade spotted me and strode over, worry carved perfectly into his face. "Aria? You should be in bed."

"I could say the same about you."

Sienna glided up behind him, eyes wide and sweet. "Luna! Must be nice, being the Alpha's wife. The rest of us actually have to work for our days off."

I smiled at her. Slowly. "Funny. I thought an assistant's job was at the pack office. Not at an auction, wearing a scarf in June."

Her hand flew to her neck. Kade went stiff.

"Bidding begins," the auctioneer called.

Kade wrapped an arm around my waist and steered me to a seat, chasing off the wolf beside me so he could sit there himself. Possessive. Devoted. A beautiful performance.

Sienna sat directly behind us. A minute later, I watched her bare foot slide forward under the chair and up the back of Kade's calf.

He didn't move away.

Item after item passed. Then the lights dimmed over a glass case.

"The Silver Tear. A fifteenth-century moonstone pendant. We'll start at ten thousand."

"Ten thousand five hundred," I said instantly.

"Eleven," someone called.

"Twelve."

"Fifteen."

"Twenty thousand." Sienna's voice. Bright and careless.

I didn't even turn. "Twenty-five."

"Thirty," she sang.

It was a pendant that had never sold for more than eight. This wasn't bidding. It was a message.

"Forty thousand," I said.

Silence. I let out a breath. She couldn't afford more than that. No assistant could.

Then a paddle rose beside me.

"Fifty thousand."

The voice was deep. Familiar. The voice that had whispered I love you to me every night for four years.

I turned my head slowly.

Kade wasn't looking at me.

He was bidding against his own wife.

For her.