GORDON

Gordon didn't expect a warm welcome home from his heavily pregnant wife.

He certainly found it strange that as he turned onto his street, the Blood Moon Alpha walked out the front door, rare moonlight silvering the pale man's ashen whiskers.

And when Gordon shouldered his way inside, he definitely didn't expect to find Mysandra's lips sealed to the neck of a bottle, cheeks hollowed out as she sucked the last dregs dry.

"What are you doing?" Gordon shouted, knocking the bottle from her hand. It shattered on the stone hearth, shards flashing as they dispersed.

"How dare you?" she gasped, climbing to her swollen feet. One arm cradled the baby bump as if she hadn't just been guzzling poison that could stunt the child's development. Their child. "That was a gift!"

A million retorts came to mind, but all of them stalled as Gordon registered her attire — or rather, her lack of it. It was the shift of silky black netting she reserved for special occasions, like their anniversary. Raven hair spilled down her back, unbound and brushed to a careful shine, and there was even a touch of kohl around her cornflower eyes.

She'd been expecting her visitor. There were even two goblets on the table, but one was still full to the brim; Rogan hadn't stayed for long. Seeing him staring, Mysandra snatched at it, only for Gordon to backhand the goblet and send it sailing from her fingers. Wine raced through the air, splattering the wall like fresh blood.

For an instant Gordon lurched between memory and the present, a scream curdling in his ears. He yanked his elbow up and pulled the dagger against the resistance of another woman's throat, sagging with relief as the sound gave way to a wet gurgle and the judgment in their eyes went dark.

Yet another he'd killed for his lady wife. To help her climb the social ladder. To give the child growing in her womb the life it deserved, the capacity to choose its own fate, as Mysandra had reminded him time and time again. You either lead or you are led, she used to say, when she still deigned to talk to him.

And now she was killing their child slowly because she couldn't withstand the discomfort of six measly months without her vices. After all Gordon had sacrificed — all that life, his own humanity — she still shut him out and sought solace in the bottom of a bottle instead of his arms.

Gordon didn't know what that said about him.

A glimmer of residue on the wall caught his eye: mushy white flakes, like bits of desiccated parsnip collecting at the bottom of a soup bowl. "A gift from who?" he growled, dragging his finger through the garish muck. Whatever it was, it was gritty. Pulpy.  "Answer me, woman."

Mysandra's knuckles were white on the back of the chair, a stark contrast to the green tinge in her face. "The Voice of Nya," she said, jutting out her chin. It didn't hide the slight wobble in her voice, though.

Rage blinded him for an instant. "And what, pray tell, was the Blood Moon Alpha doing in our home?"

"Looking for you?" she suggested, playing dumb. It didn't hide the panic in her eyes, though.

"Like the other night, when glowberry wine stained your lips?"

She was a right shade of algae, now. "If you're implying that I'm having an affair, Gordon, then —"

"Goddess," he whispered, feeling as though the star beneath his feet came to a complete standstill. Of course.

Everything suddenly made sense. The cold shoulder at home but the fawning over him in public. Not just in public; but in the presence of their fabled leader, as if to make him jealous. Gordon recalled the moment he'd introduced Rogan to his bride, when the Alpha had made a curious comment with an almost wistful look in his eye: "She looks just like Nya."

Nya, the Blood Moon Alpha's lover of old, if the stories were to be believed. Nya, who'd forsaken Her consort as the years wore on and time waged its war on Rogan's flesh, diminishing the strength and youth that had so attracted Her gaze in the first place. Of course Rogan would seek comfort in this echo of Her divinity. Of course Mysandra would forsake her mate-bond in hopes of bettering her station by marrying the widowed Alpha.

Only Rogan had sworn against taking another wife after Caryn's death, claiming only the Night Goddess herself could ever console him. Which meant that the only way to entrap him in marriage was...

"Is it even mine?" Gordon asked hoarsely. Something in his chest was splintering, wrenching him apart.

"I don't think so," she whispered.

Her hands flew up to her throat, and suddenly Mysandra was choking in earnest, foam collecting at the corners of her mouth. "No no no," he blurted out, hurrying over to her side, catching her as she toppled and lowering her seizing form to the ground.

Poison. Rogan had used it before, on his own mate, no less. What was to stop him from using it on Gordon's?

"Don't you dare bite me," he snarled, yanking her mouth open and shoving two fingers inside, prodding at the dangling bit of flesh that guarded the ribbed walls of her throat. Mysandra gagged around the intrusion, and he shoved again, until her stomach turned and its contents sloshed onto the ground at their feet. Mostly wine, with more of those strange, pale floaters.

"Ashwood," he realised aloud, eyes widening.

Mysandra started to cry then, bawling so hard  her eyes bulged red. Snot dribbled over her top lip and he wiped his fingers on her shift in disgust, rising to his feet.

"He said it was blessed," she wailed. "He said it would be good for our baby. That Nya would make him strong."

Him. Gordon's throat constricted at the word. "How long has this been going on?"

Mysandra glanced furtively at the door, as if she was planning to try and outrun him. "Since he started sending you out on long-distance missions."

It was shortly after he'd killed the old Beta, at Mysandra's urging, and usurped their place. "They weren't just missions," he choked out. "They were homes. Families. Slaughtered and razed to the ground, and for what?"

He used to think it was all for her.

"A distraction," she said, her wobbly voice gaining traction, righting itself. "To keep you busy so that I could earn the life I deserve, that you failed to provide. I look like the fucking Night Goddess, Gordon. Nya literally made me in Her image. Did you really think I would be content as the meek bride of a foot soldier? That I'd be satisfied living as a second-rate Luna with all the responsibility but none of the respect?"

Gordon's mouth fell open. "I gave up everything for you."

"Boo hoo," she snapped, rising to her full height. Looking down her nose at him in that way that made him feel small, despite towering over her. "You made something of your life at my urging. Don't pretend you haven't enjoyed the luxuries that come with being Rogan's right hand."

He hadn't. He was never really present to enjoy anything anymore. And his mate, the woman who was supposed to share his soul, to understand him more deeply than anyone else, had missed the point entirely.

It explained why they hadn't shared thoughts in so long. She'd been choking the life out of the bridge between their minds like an umbilical cord, as if he was the one who'd been leaching off her status and strength. For the first time in years, since he first saw Mysandra selling jam at the market, clarity shot through him like a bolt of lightning. It erased the fingerprints she'd left all over him, just another object for the taking. It ignited the frayed wick of their bond with no wax to lend it substance.

Gordon held still as it quietly fall apart. The truth roared in his brain with the quiet assurance of the hearth.

When he came back to himself, he saw none of her beauty and all of the cruelty. Gordon turned his back and strode calmly out the front door, shaking her off when she clawed at his arm.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"For a walk," he said calmly.

"Are you coming back?" Her confidence wavered on the last word.

"Of course," he said, spreading his calm like butter on freshly baked bread. "I'll always come back."

To the babe. For it was not safe with its mother. And Gordon was not done loving it; a dream was not so easily sundered when it was years in the making.

His feet carried him to the healer's hut, a shabby little cottage on the outskirts of the village. Contrary to the name, it was placed thus to vent its poisonous smoke away from the residential area; it also served as a deterrent for the winged monsters tempted to swoop the village in search of fresh meat. Gordon held his breath as he approached, every hair on his body standing on end when he found the front door ajar.

Silence leaked from the crack, punctuated by an occasional drip, drip, drip. No hitching breath or whistling snore, the byproduct of the healer's time spent amongst the poisonous fumes Nya had done nothing to protect him from, in spite of Rogan's promises. And yet Harry was not the kind to leave his property; like Brollo, the old healer was housebound, crippled by an impossible fear of the outdoors. Only his apprentices ever went forth to gather the requisite herbs to replenish his stores.

A knife found its way into Gordon's hand, glinting in the dark. He pushed the door open with the flat of his palm, eyes darting from shadow to shadow before landing on the fleshy form slumped over the desk. Harry's head rested in a sticky pool of letters, the quill lodged upright between his fingers.

The shadow by the door sprang for him, a pale, golden blade darting up for his throat. Gordon's own ashwood-tempered blade leapt for the assassin's ribs, ready to puncture clean through the man's heart.

A flash of light reflected by the blade made him pause. Namely the way it caught in the shadow's eyes, lending the smoky grey a burning intensity.

"You did this," Gordon growled. His mind raced a million miles an hour as he realised what had just fallen into his lap. Leverage.

"I did," Hunter said, sounding curiously calm considering the situation.

"Why?"

Gordon only asked to stall, as he turned the situation over in his head. Hunter had murdered one of Rogan's inner circle, and if Gordon brought him to justice...

He might be able to bargain for Mysandra's life. At least until the babe is born, he thought, relishing the slicing pain of the ashwood blade digging into this throat. At least until I know it isn't mine.

"Because he helped kill my mother," Hunter said, hatred burning in his eyes. "And I won't stop until everyone involved has paid for that crime with their life."

Gordon let out a shaky laugh. "Well, that settles it."

He was going to have to bring the boy in.