Chapter 83

Hannah

“Thanks for meeting me,” I said, shrugging off my jacket and sliding into the leather booth. “I didn’t want to do this over the phone.”

Viona arched an eyebrow, but she didn’t press me for details immediately. Instead, she simply signaled the waiter for drinks as I withdrew the crumpled sheet of paper from my pocket.

It was a Friday night, and the restaurant I had asked Viona to meet me in was as crowded as ever. I appreciated that—the noise afforded us some privacy. And right now, Viona felt like the only person I could truly trust.

“What’s that?” she finally asked once our drinks arrived.

“I had one of my diet pills analyzed by the apothecary,” I explained, carefully unfolding the paper and sliding it across to her, face down. “Look at the ingredients.”

Carefully picking up the paper, Viona’s eyes scanned the list of compounds before her gaze flickered up to meet mine. “Mifepristone,” she said softly. “Isn’t that what they use in…”

I nodded grimly. “Someone has been slipping me abortion medication, masking it as a weight-loss supplement. The words felt like ash in my mouth. For who knows how long.”

Viona blinked at me, a combination of worry and rage flickering in her eyes—I knew I could trust her from that look alone.

“I’ll kill whoever’s doing this,” she growled. “You don’t think it could be…”

Shaking my head, I raked my fingers through my hair. “No, I don’t think Noah would do something like this. But my maid seemed to suspect something was amiss with those pills from the start. She warned me…” My voice trailed off as guilt and pain coiled together in my chest. How could I have been so blind?

“Then you need to tell Noah,” Viona said firmly. “If someone is targeting you like this, poisoning you to keep you from getting pregnant, it counts as treason. Whoever is doing this needs to be punished.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but Viona held up her hand to stop me. “Look, I know things between you two have been…strained lately.” She grimaced faintly. “But this is serious, Hannah. Someone is trying to sabotage you, strip you of your ability to conceive an heir. Noah would want to help protect you—and your future child.”

A hollow laugh slipped past my lips as I leaned back in the booth, folding my arms across my chest. If only Viona knew that I was already pregnant, that I had died, and so had my baby, and we had both been given another chance by the Moon Goddess. But I couldn’t tell her. Not quite yet.

“Would he, though?” I asked with a wry laugh. “Or would he just accuse me of being naive and irresponsible for taking those damn pills in the first place?”

Viona pursed her lips. “You won’t know unless you tell him the truth.”

I sighed, passing a hand over my face. As much as I hated to admit it, she was right; Noah did deserve to know what was going on. This affected him just as much as it did me, considering it was his heir someone seemed hellbent on preventing.

“I’ll think about it,” I finally conceded, offering Viona a halfhearted shrug.

She studied me for a moment longer, then seemed to accept my response with a short nod.

“Fair enough. Just don’t wait too—”

A sudden commotion from the other side of the bar cut Viona off, both of us turning in unison toward the sound.

My eyes widened as I spotted James, my bodyguard who had accompanied me to the restaurant, standing face-to-face with another man I didn’t recognize—although, judging from his thick black tattoos and distinctive white-blond hair, he was from one of the Northern packs and not Nightcrest.

“What’s going on over there?” I muttered.

Before Viona could respond, I was already sliding out of the booth and striding across the crowded bar floor, dodging servers carrying trays of drinks. The closer I got, the clearer the raised voices became, the stranger’s words slurring.

“…think you can just hit on my wife like that?” he was growling, jabbing an accusing finger at James’s chest. “Show some respect!”

James simply held up his palms in a placating gesture. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize the lady was spoken for,” he said evenly. “Allow me to send over some drinks to make amends—”

“Don’t patronize me,” the irate man snarled, giving James’s shoulder a forceful shove that nearly knocked him off balance.

That was enough for me. “Hey!” I snapped, my temper flaring as I hurried forward and planted myself between the two bristling men. “What’s your problem?”