My heart had leaped into my throat at the sound of the opening door, and the busy courtyard in front of me had disappeared beneath my nerve endings throwing up memories of our one night together. Yes, it was him. It had to be—I turned away from the window as my body shivered in delighted recognition and I was suddenly raring to tear his clothes off and fuck his brains out right on the table here. Let Oscar listen in on that, the prick.

“Why in all the Barrenlands,” I said, instead of begging him to come over here and kiss me, “did you bring yourself and your fucking alpha sperm into my house during my heat? I know it was on purpose, Oscar told me you have to take some sort of drug for that to work. Did it amuse you, thinking of the chaos you’d cause here when the omega you fucked turned up pregnant? Did you never think of what it might mean to me?”

He stared at me like something had sucked his brains out. Though given the bruises on his face and the cuts on his hands, maybe it had. “It wasn’t that,” he finally said, and his voice sent a thrill through my body. “Anytime I have to work around shifters, I have to disguise my scent. I didn’t even stop to think about it—I’ve been playing the human for so long it’s not even a question. I’m dead, you see. A ghost wolf.”

I sat back in my chair, puzzled. “What does that mean?” My brain went into overdrive, trying to figure out if it was some sort of mythological reference, or even a television show?

Damian looked down at his hands and began picking at a loose strip of skin that was peeling off one of his knuckles. “I was in the army, and they offered me this job. It was good money, for me, and for my family. They promised to make sure my family got my military pension, the full pension, not just the five years I’d been in. And we’d already lost Dad, and Val, because we were just too damn poor. But I had to give it all up—my pack, my family. They couldn’t afford me having any ties. So they faked my death.” He looked up at the window and, despite all my efforts to harden my heart against him, I could have wept for the sorrow and loneliness in his expression. “I do get to keep tabs on my family. They seem to be doing well.”

“But you’re still all alone.” The anger I wanted to scorch him with evaporated, or perhaps found another target. I glared at the door and yelled, “Fuck off and get a coffee, you damn prick. You don’t need to listen to this.” That Oscar guy laughed and if I borrowed from my wolf, I could hear when they’d all moved away from the door. Good, because this wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have with prying ears. Bad enough the pup was going to hear it, but it wasn’t like I could just send him or her off to play yet.

My conversation with Oscar through the night had made me angry. Not for myself—I’d recovered pretty well. But for the absolute and total advantage that they’d taken of Damian. And what the humans wanted me to do? Throw myself at him to save Damian from getting his throat slit.

Once I was sure the humans were out of earshot, I crossed my arms over my chest and frowned at Damian. “The gist of it is, this pup is already half an orphan, right? I can’t bring you home and yell, ‘Look, I found him!’”

For the first time, I saw the alpha in him. “I made the agreement, I can’t back out of it without my family back in Montana Border losing out.”

Yeah, I could see that, and all the things he was very carefully not mentioning. Like, I was pretty sure that if Damian decided he wanted to go back to civilian life, no matter how much that Oscar said he liked him, that civilian life would be pretty short. Why did alphas always seem to get themselves into these situations? Because they think they’re the only ones who can fix anything. The complete stupidity of it all made me angry, or maybe that was the backache from sitting in this unbelievably uncomfortable chair. So I got mad about the only thing I could: Montana Border.

“You’re from Montana Border? I’m surprised you could get yourself to cross into Nevada Ashes when I think about what your pack has said about mine.” He winced and I regretted it almost immediately. “I’m sorry,” I apologized after a moment. “That was uncalled for.” I needed to remember he was as much a victim as I was here.

He shrugged. “I can’t say I didn’t have my fantasies when I was a teenager, or believe what the elders said. You probably wouldn’t have liked me too much when I was younger. Even six months ago. But you do what you need to in order to survive, right? I shouldn’t make judgments based on that. Nothing you do kills people. I wish I could say the same.”

I nodded, seeing now where Oscar had been coming from. “So, what do you want to do right now? To survive.”

Damian shook his head. “There isn’t anything. I’ve made myself untrustworthy—they’re not going to let me live. It’s almost a relief, in a way.” He raised his eyes to mine, the alpha shining in them. Damn him, trying to fix this, even as he was watching his own death bearing down on him. “I’m trying to make arrangements—there’s a bank account with some human money in it that I want them to give to you, for the pup. And I’m trying to make them promise to pay out a death benefit to you. It would have been easier if we’d been mated, but you can’t mate a dead wolf.” The grin he gave me was a valiant attempt, but the power leaking off him was sickly with anger and despair.

And that made my decision, perhaps not easier, but not as hard as I’d been expecting.

Well, that, and the omega bond, telling me to comfort the sire of my pup.

I got out of the stupid chair and limped my way around the table to lean against it at his side. “I think pups generally do better with both parents in their lives.” I smoothed out the hair at his temple, careful around the now clotted cut that would probably leave him with a scar and a streak of white in his hair once it had healed. The pup woke up right about then and I reached for Damian's hand. "Here. He or she is saying hi."

I had to pull a bit right at the beginning, almost force him to put his hand on me—his reluctance was obvious. I didn't think it was not wanting the pup—since he'd walked in, if he hadn't been staring at me, he was sneaking peeks at my belly.

I thought, maybe, it was not wanting to feel. Or to want things. But if I let him get away with that, I might as well sign his death sentence myself. "Feel that." I pressed his palm to the place I was getting kicked the most and waited.

The room was dead quiet, not even the sound of his breath, and then he gave a little gasp as our son or daughter thumped him, good and hard. Yeah, I'm annoyed with him too. Don't think I'm going to let you get away with this kind of behavior for the rest of your life, though.

A few more kicks and stretches later, and I reached out to tip Damian’s face up to mine and made him meet my eyes. “I can’t give you Montana Border, but what about Nevada Ashes? Could you lower yourself to becoming one of the whoremongers?”

For the first time, I saw hope in his eyes and caught a glimpse of the man I’d met when he’d still been David to me. Then it died, and he shook his head. “I can’t. The pension stops if I quit."

Damn all alphas and their overdeveloped morals. And damn Oscar for knowing what Damian would say. "Fine." I pushed myself away from the table and limped my sore back over to the door.

"Where are you going?" he demanded, and I heard his chair scrape over the floor behind me.

"Relax, I'm going to go talk to your boss."

"Lysoon," he said in the tone of a man who knew he was screwed.

Yeah, well, you don't mess with Nevada Ashes.