Presley picked up her coffee. The one Fritz made her.
"I've outlined the schedule for the next month. If the conception was successful, we need to discuss medical oversight. I want a specialist brought in from London to monitor her levels. Weekly blood work, ultrasounds at six and eight weeks, a nutritionist to ensure proper—"
He was talking about her like she was a vintage car he’d just insured. Like her womb was just another piece of real estate to be managed. My alpha didn't want a specialist; he wanted to wrap her in a blanket and growl at anyone who came within ten feet.
"Does she get a say in any of this?" I asked, my voice cutting through his monologue.
He didn't mean it that way. He was hiding his awe behind business-speak because Henry Hastings didn't know how to process emotions. I could tell he was terrified. He was holding onto her so tight because he couldn't believe his luck.
But it didn't change how it sounded.
Hastings paused. "Of course she does. These are recommendations, not demands."
"They sound like demands."
"Etienne—"
"No." I pushed my chair back. The screech of wood on marble sounded like a scream. "I can't do this."
I looked at them. Presley sat there with the mark on her neck, angry and red and impossibly visible. She'd tried to cover it with her hair, but it peeked through, a constant reminder that she belonged to him first.
Fritz sat beside her, his hand still resting on her arm, protective and gentle.
And Hastings sat at the head of the table like a king surveying his kingdom.
"I'm heading to the cottage in Wales for a few days."
The words came out flat, final.
"Etienne, wait—" Presley started, her eyes wide and full of a hurt I couldn't handle.
She stood, her chair scraping back. She reached for me, her hand extended, her fingers trembled.
"I need to breathe air that doesn't smell like a betrayal, Princesse."
The words came out wrong. Too harsh.
Her hand dropped.
"You don't mean that," she whispered.
"Don't I?"
I turned away before I saw her face crumple. Before I saw Fritz stand to comfort her or Hastings calculate the exact percentage of damage I’d done.
The pack was supposed to be my sanctuary. My home. The place where I belonged. But as I walked out, grabbing my kit bag, it felt more like a cage.
And I was the one who'd locked myself inside it.
26
Presley
The Kensington house felttoo large today. The ceilings stretched looking impossibly high, the marble floors clicked cold under my bare feet, and every room echoed with the absence of voices that should have filled it.
Without Etienne's terrible puns or the way he hummed off-key while he made coffee.
It was a beautiful place, and full of expensive things. But things that belonged to someone else's life. I didn’t know why I was feeling off-balance, or perhaps I did…
