bChapter /bb75 /b

    Lifting it, I opened it and started to read.

    Alpha Julian,

    Please ept my resignation as Healer effective immediately.

    Healer Amanda/Amber.

    Such a short message. I read it, then read it again.

    It was handwritten and made me feel somewhat homesick, missing the way Amber used to write me

    notes here and there around the house.

    Please buy milk, taped to the fridge.

    Have a good day, on the inside of the door.

    Love you! On my pillow if I was workingte and she had fallen asleep before me.

    Always she had been so thoughtful and considerate of me, always making sure I felt her affection. Even

    though I had thought her lying at the time, finding notes in her hand still made me happy. Even when she

    was asking me to buy milk, it felt good to be domestic, knowing someone was depending on me when I

    came home.

    This note was in the same hand, but it was very different.

    This was Amber telling me she was leaving.

    Again.

    A sharp jolt of fear struck through me like a lightning bolt. Thest time Amber had left, she almost died.

    I thought she had died, and I lived with that for years.

    What if something like that happened again?

    What if she stayed gone this time?

    She’d had an affair with Roman, and was engaged to him. I had no right to interfere in any of this, yet…

    I pushed away from my desk and ran out of my office.

    “Alpha?” Beta asked as I rushed past, but there was no time to exin.

    The elevator was too slow, so I ran down the stairs instead, taking two at a time.

    In my car, I broke all the speed limits getting to her house.

    When I arrived, the ce was empty. I pounded on the door, but no one answered. A nce through the window told me most everything had been moved out.

    Still not wanting to believe what was happening, I returned to my car and then sped in the opposite direction, going to the hospital now. I rushed up to Amber’s office.

    Inside the lights were off. Amber’s desk was entirely packed away.

    I stood there for a long moment, watching the empty desk, as if hoping she might suddenly manifest.

    She was so thoroughly gone so quickly that I wondered if I had dreamed her into being. Perhaps she’d never truly been here at all.

    But that couldn’t be. There were traces. The note, for one. The faint scent of her still lingering in the room, for another.

    Inside, my wolf howled with mourning. He still wasn’t speaking to me, though we had made progress in our rtionship. Now, however, I felt us step backwards again.

    Her first time leaving had been my fault, and this time felt like my fault as well.

    If I had been more honest with my feelings…

    Would that even have mattered though?

    She had a child with someone else. Someone she was engaged to.

    Standing in that doorway, I had no idea what to do, where to go. What was I supposed to do now?

    A soft voice cleared her throat behind me. I turned to see a young woman in ab coat. She was holding a piece of paper tightly folded as small as it could go.

    “I’m sorry, Alpha,” she said.

    “For what?” I asked.

    She didn’t exin. She just shoved the folded paper at me and then ran away.

    Confused, I watched her go for a moment. Then, I unfolded the paper.

    It was documentation of test results.

    A paternity test between Alice and me.

    I had already seen this, hadn’t I?

    Yet… looking down…

    No. This one was very different.

    My heart stopped, then picked up speed all at once.

    Alice is my daughter.

    b+15 /bBONUS