Xander POV

    I don’t move at first. Blood pools around the body and runs in thin lines along the floorboards, hunting the cracks like it wants to live somewhere. My heartbeat is still up in my throat, my wolf a hot weight under my skin, but the rage has already begun to cool into something heavier. I look at April. She’s curled around her belly on the rug, trembling so hard her teeth click. Every sound she makes is small and broken. I reach toward her.

    She screams.

    It rips through me worse than any de. I lift my hands and stop where I am, the copper stench of blood crowding my lungs. “April,” I say softly, my voice catching. “I won’t touch you. I won’te closer.”

    Her eyes are wild, red–rimmed, and swollen from crying. She stares past me at the body, then back at me like she can’t decide which thing is worse. She scoots until her shoulders hit the wall, one hand clutching her stomach, the other braced

    on the floor like she expects the ground to tilt and throw her.

    Footsteps pound the hall. The door bangs wide. Serafine rushes in, hair loose, eyes searching, and her hands already full

    of light like she’s ready for battle.. She stops dead. Her gaze snaps from me to the headless corpsei, /ito April on the floor. I

    watch her swallow the gasp that wants toe out. She looks at me, and her voice is a whip.

    “What did you do?”

    “Made him pay,” I growl, the sound low, too close to a rumble. I force my hands down, fingers open. I make my voice hold. “He lied. He made her believe Eryx said to leave her to the rogues. He told her Eryx wanted the baby gone. He fed her poison. He said it to her face. He said he twisted it to make her forget our son.”

    Serafine doesn’t answer me. She shoulders me hard enough that I have to step back, then drops to her knees in front of April. Her hands are steady even though I can isee /ithe tremor in her entire body “April. April, look at me.” She keeps her voice soft, like she is talking to a child on a ledge. “You’re safe. Breathe, little wolf. We’ve got you. Don’t look over there.

    Look at me.”

    April shakes her head, unable to focus. Her breathing is fast and shallow. Tears keeping. She tries to speak, but no wordse out, only a rasp. She turns her face away as if she can hide inside the angle of her arm.

    “I’m here,” Serafine whispers. She takes April’s shaking hand and eases it lower on the curve of her belly, thenys her own palm over it. The glow that lives in her skin slides out like a warm tide. It hums low. The air shifts, just a fraction. April’s breath begins to hitch less. “With me. That’s it. With me, listen to the babys heartbeat.”

    I can’t stand the mess behind us. I can’t stand that April is sitting in this ce. I pull myself together long enough to drag the throw from the back of the couch, I step wide around the blood and lower the nket, not toward April, not too close, just near enough that Serafine can tug it up. She bdoes/bb, /btucking it carefully over April’s knees. April flinches but doesn’t pull iaway /ifrom Serafine’s hand at her belly/

    “We need to move,” I sayi, /ipitched low, careful. The floor feels like a target now. Noise in the hall wouldn’t surprise me.

    “Serafine.”

    “Not yet,” she says without looking up. “Her heart is racing. If she stands, she’ll faint.”

    Sat, 30 Aug

    “I can carry her.”

    55%

    April’s eyes cut to me and fill with fresh panic. She squeezes Serafine’s hand hard enough to whiten the knuckles. “Don’t let him touch me,” she whispers, hoarse. “Please. Please don’t let him.”

    Serafine shoots me a look that says enough. Then she moves slowly, easing her arm around April’s shoulders, bracing the weight, making her a promise with nothing but presence. “We are leaving,” she tells April, close to her ear. “Right now. No one is going to hurt you. Not me. Not him. Not anyone.”

    April nods once, tiny, reluctant. Her throat works. She lets Serafine pull her to her feet inch by inch, everything done as if sudden force might break more than it fixes. I step back, still keeping my hands visible, still not pushing us faster even though every old instinct I have is yelling to get her out, get her away, get her into the car before anyone smells this.

    We move like a slow tide across the room. Serafine bears most of April’s weight. I follow, clearing whatever is in their path with my boot or my hand so April never has to look down. When we reach the door, April hesitates, her gaze snagging on the hall like it might hold another wolf. Serafine murmurs to her again, the words too soft for me to hear, and April allows herself to be guided out.

    The corridor is empty. My guards did their job. They’ve cleared anyone who I didn’t want near. One waits at the far turn, eyes sharp, hands sped tight to keep them from shaking. He sees the nket, the way April clings to Serafine, the way I keep my distance. He nods once and takes point without asking questions that have no good answers.

    The night air hits like a p, it’s cool, damp and clean. It tastes like the world above ground. April pulls it greedily into her lungs, and it steadies her better than any light. The cars are ready, engines quiet, and the doors already open. Serafine helps her into the back seat and slides in beside her. I watch as April curls toward the door and lies on her side, still shaking, one hand locked to her stomach as if someone might try to take it from her.

    I take the front seat. The guard at the wheel looks at me, looks into the rearview at April, and decides on silence. Wise choice. He pulls us away without a word. The other cars fall in behind, I watch the house shrink and the dark trees close in and think about how quickly an alliance dies when the wrong blood hits the wrong floor.

    In the back seat, Serafine hums something old and low. It is not a song with words. It is the kind of sound you make when you are trying to teach a heart how to slow down. April’s breathing begins to soften. Hershes rest against her cheeks. The heat of panic breaks in her skin and leaves a damp chill behind. She shivers and Serafine draws her closer, rubbing small circles on her shoulder, not with magic this time, just with herself to ease the panic,

    She falls asleep like a thread cut. One moment she is awake and hurting then the next she is gone to that thin ce where grief is quiet because the body can’t hold it all. Serafine keeps her palm over the curve of April’s belly and stares out the window, her reflection a pale ghost beside the moving trees.

    When she speaks, she doesn’t look at me. “Killing someone for lying isn’t the way to go.”

    “I didn’t kill him for lying,” I bsay/b.

    Her head snaps, her eyes fierce over the bseats/b. “Then what did you kill him for, Xander? For breathing too loud? For touching her? For making you feel something you didn’t want to feel?”

    “He told her our son wanted her dead,” bI /bbsay/b, keeping my voice even so I don’t wake April. “He told her our son said to

    throw her to the rogues. He told her Eryx wanted to burn his child. He isted her. He told her we didn’t care. He kept her from us, and he did it to make her his. He admitted it. He lied to us.”

    09:32 Satb, /b30 Aug u u

    Serafine’s jaw tightens. “So you took his head for it.”

    55%

    “He confessed while he was trying to climb into her mouth,” I say. “He smirked about it. If he had lived another minute, I would’ve killed him again for the next lie he nned. He turned our son into a monster in her mind. He made sure she’d never ask for help. He made sure if she heard our names, she’d run. That’s not a lie. That’s an act of war on the inside of a

    person.”

    She presses her lips together until they go white. She wouldn’t understand, how can she? To her it’s ck and white, she ignores the grey spots.

    AD