When Damon exited the examination room, he kept his expression carefully blank as he thanked Abby and walked outside with Jun plastered to his heels like an anxious puppy. Jun didn't ask Damon anything – worried, perhaps, that he had bad news – but he remained Damon's faithful shadow. Damon let him cling for another ten steps before stopping abruptly. He felt the air shift at his back, telling him that Jun had likely almost run straight into him.

Damon turned his gaze on Jun, whose eyes were enormous with worry and curiosity. Still with no expression, he whipped a set of ultrasound pictures out of his hoodie pocket.

"Behold our bean."

Jun paused, confused, taking the pictures hesitantly. Damon watched as his gaze lit up in realization and a warm feeling spread through his chest.

"Abby gave me extra copies to give to family and friends. I think it would be very funny to send one to Mark every few months and watch him slowly lose his mind. What do you think?"

Jun didn't say anything in response at the time except to sweep Damon up into a bone-crushing hug. And then, later at home, he ate Damon out quite enthusiastically, so Damon assumed he was on board.

***

Two days later, at three in the morning, Damon got a call from Ava. Normally, because Damon sleeps like a rock, he would have slept through it. But Damon had been suffering from terrible morning sickness recently that was apparently only going to get worse (so yay for that). Thankfully, by chance, his upset stomach was keeping him awake when the call came in. Even so, when he answered, he was still groggy, and the weirdness of Ava calling him – at this time, and in general – didn't immediately register.

"Elizabeth's missing," is the first thing she said, and Damon blinked slowly, processing.

"What?" he mumbled, sitting up fully in bed and dragging the covers with him. This in turn woke Jun, who turned over and wrapped his arms around Damon's waist, burying his face in Damon's hip.

Damon dragged a hand down his face, trying to get his brain functioning as Ava repeated herself.

"Elizabeth's missing. I haven't seen her in two days, and she isn't answering her phone. Please tell me she's in Venus pack or something and just forgot to tell me she was leaving."

This time it sank in, and Damon's eyes widened. Ava sounded positively panicked, which set off alarms in Damon's head. Ava never panicked. Back when they were teenagers, Ava had gotten a phone call at school to tell her that her brother had been in a car accident, and even then, though she was worried, she was outwardly cool as a cucumber. Definitely the type of person to have by your side in a crisis.

But this? This was serious shit if Ava was freaking out.

"Okay, okay," Damon said. "What exactly happened? Did she just disappear without warning?"

"Yes. No – I don't know. She's been staying with me, remember? So I'm with her all the time, but she occasionally likes to go out for runs and stuff by herself. Well, she went out in the morning two days ago and hasn't been back since. I went out to look for her and even got some of my friends to help, but no one's seen her and she won't answer her phone. I don't know what to do, Damon. I can't declare her missing and get the whole pack looking without revealing her identity. The only thing I could think to do is call you and ask for help or ask Peter to get some of his guards looking, but I don't trust him."

Peter, of course, already knew who Elizabeth was and why she was in Ganymede pack. Or whatever excuse she had given for being in Ganymede pack, so theoretically, getting him to help wouldn't be that big a deal. But of course, he and his son were two faced little bitches, so telling them might do more harm than good.

"Plus..." Ava trailed off, suddenly hesitant.

"What?"

Ava sighed, causing the line to crackle. "Don't take this too seriously, but... I worry that Malachi has something to do with it."

"...You think Malachi kidnapped Elizabeth?" Damon said, which caused Jun to suddenly sit up next to Damon, fully awake. He'd been listening to their conversation since it began, waiting politely for Damon to finish talking, but now he looked as concerned as Damon felt.

"Maybe. Probably not himself, but he might have ordered someone to do it. Remember how I said Malachi was always hanging around trying to find her? Well...what if he did?"

"I remember. I just don't understand what he could possible want with her. Then again, nothing Malachi has done recently has seemed to have a specific purpose other than to be an asshole, so I guess it's possible."

In a regular kidnapping case, creepy guys hanging around the victim would always be the first, most obvious suspect, and yet, Damon had grown up with Malachi. He didn't think Malachi would be capable of that kind of thing.

...Would he? Did Damon actually know Malachi at all?

A year ago, he would have said that he knew Malachi as much as any other friend would, if not as much as a lover would. But after everything he'd done...Damon wasn't so sure.

Malachi had some kind of goal, something unfathomable to Damon but apparently worth harassing Damon's boyfriend over. He wanted something, and it was making him desperate enough to go to those lengths.

But what? What could he possibly want that he didn't already have? He was an alpha, the pack leader's son. He was good looking and capable of having anyone and anything he wanted. He didn't want for money or friends, bought as they may be.

The only thing he couldn't have was Damon, and Damon was certain Malachi didn't actually want him.

But Elizabeth? Why kidnap her, if he did at all? The only reason Damon could think of is that she's technically still Jun's fiancé, which gives her a relationship with Jun and therefore, a way to hurt Jun and Damon.

But then, if Malachi was involved, he would be committing a crime heinous enough to warrant exile from the pack – any pack, actually. Far from just beating someone up, crimes like murder, rape, and kidnapping were guaranteed exile from every pack in existence at the best and execution at the worst – though usually, unless you were a verified serial killer, that was unlikely. Still, being involved in a kidnapping was quite the risk to take, especially for someone like Malachi, who was expected to lead the pack in the future.

Damon took a deep breath. "What do you need me to do? Should I alert the Venus pack's Alpha and have him set up a search?"

Ava was quiet for a moment. "...What if that makes things worse? Elizabeth was part of Venus pack. What if he takes her disappearance as an attack and starts a pack war or something?"

Damon remembered Jun's father pouting because Ian had given Damon his chair and thought it unlikely that Silas would go that far.

"He won't. I'll explain what's going on and I'm sure he'll help. I'll call you after I talk to him."

"Okay," Ava said. "I'll keep looking in the meantime. And Damon?"

"Hm?"

"I don't know what's going on. But I do know that Elizabeth was hiding something from me. Something really important. I don't know if what she was hiding has anything to do with her disappearance, but if it does, then it's probably something way over our heads. Be careful."

Damon felt the heat of Jun's arm over his abdomen and was acutely reminded of what was now at stake.

"I will."