The glowing eyes kept getting closer, bleeding out of the pitch-black fog.
One by one, feral silhouettes emerged from between the ancient pines, their crazed yellow stares shining like pieces of cursed gold trapped in the night.
Low, rumbling growls vibrated through the damp earth, sending a violent chill straight up my spine.
My heart hammered painfully against my ribs, suffocating me.
There were too many of them.
Far too many for a kitchen maid and a lone stranger to survive.
The broad-shouldered man stood a few feet in front of me, his massive frame tense as his amber eyes scanned the shifting shadows.
The easy, mocking amusement I had seen on his face earlier was completely wiped away.
His rugged features had hardened into something dangerously sharp and calculated.
“You really picked the worst possible night to run into rogue territory, little wolf,” he muttered, his hand resting tightly on the silver hilt of his large dagger.
A heavy branch snapped somewhere to our left, followed immediately by an answering crunch to our right.
The coordinated sounds made my stomach twist into sick knots.
They weren’t just random, mindless beasts; they were surrounding us with military precision.
Patiently.
Cruelly.
Like apex predators cornering wounded, helpless prey.
I swallowed the dry lump in my throat and tightened my white-knuckled grip on my ragged travel bag.
The stranger glanced briefly over his shoulder, his eyes locking onto mine.
“Can you fight?” he demanded.
For a second, the sheer absurdity of the question made me freeze.
“What?” His jaw tightened, a muscle jumping in his scarred cheek.
“This isn’t the time to look pretty and freeze, girl.
Answer me.” Hot heat rushed into my cold cheeks despite the terrifying panic clawing at my chest.
“I don’t know how!
I’ve spent my whole life in a kitchen!” I admitted, my voice cracking.
His expression darkened even further.
“Of course you have.
Bloody flawless timing.” Before either of us could utter another word, a massive, snarling rogue wolf burst from the thick brush, its teeth bared and dripping with thick saliva.
Everything happened in a chaotic fraction of a second.
The beast lunged straight toward my throat.
I barely managed to gasp before the stranger moved with inhuman speed.
He slammed into the massive wolf with brutal, crushing force, using his bare shoulders to send the creature crashing violently into a nearby oak tree.
The heavy impact shook the ground beneath my feet.
“Stay behind my back!” he ordered, his voice cracking through the air like a thunderclap.
For some reason, the raw authority in his command made my feet obey instantly.
I stepped directly into his shadow as more figures emerged from the suffocating darkness.
Three.
Five.
Seven.
A whole hunting party of rogue wolves, their collective growls blending into one deafening, terrifying roar of hunger.
The overwhelming fear threatened to lock my limbs in place, to make me curl up and wait for death.
But no.
Not again.
I was so tired of being completely helpless.
I was tired of crying in the dirt, tired of watching my life fall apart while I stood there doing absolutely nothing.
When a smaller rogue shifted into his human form and charged at me from the blind side, instinct—hot and wild—took over.
I snatched a thick, heavy broken branch from the mud and swung it with every ounce of desperate strength I possessed.
The solid wood cracked violently against the rogue’s temple.
He stumbled backward, cursing as blood leaked from his eyebrow.
A shockwave of pure adrenaline flashed through me.
I had actually hit him.
The stranger glanced toward me over his shoulder, a sudden spark of surprise widening his amber eyes.
“Not bad, little wolf.
You’ve got claws after all.” Turning back to the fray, he buried his silver dagger deep into another attacker’s chest with a sickening crunch.
The forest became absolute chaos.
Growls, vicious snarls, crashing bodies, and the sharp copper smell of fresh blood filled the night air.
For a brief, deluded moment, I actually thought we might make it out alive.
Then, a massive rogue slipped past his guard.
Heavy, scarred hands clamped around my bare arm, his claws digging deep into my skin.
Pain shot through my shoulder, and a loud scream ripped from my lungs as the wolf violently yanked me backward into the dark brush.
Before pure panic could swallow my mind, the stranger materialized beside us like a ghost.
His massive fist connected with the rogue’s jaw in a brutal arc.
A sickening bone-cracking echo bounced through the trees, and the wolf collapsed lifelessly into the mud.
“Move!
Now!” the stranger barked, grabbing my uninjured wrist.
This time, I didn’t hesitate for a single heartbeat.
We ran blindly through the dense maze of jagged rocks and towering cliffs, the freezing wind ripping at my lungs.
Behind us, the furious, bloodthirsty howls of the pack followed closely.
They weren’t giving up the hunt.
Finally, the stranger veered sharply to the left, pulling me through a narrow, hidden opening between two massive boulders.
A cave.
It was dark, smelling of ancient stone, damp earth, and old rain.
“Inside.
Deep,” he grunted, positioning himself at the narrow mouth of the cave, facing the black forest.
I collapsed onto the freezing stone floor, my chest heaving violently as I struggled to drag oxygen into my burning lungs.
Every muscle in my body was trembling from the adrenaline crash.
Outside, the distant growls of our pursuers echoed, searching the cliffs.
As I lay there shivering, my hand unconsciously drifted downward, resting over my lower stomach.
Instantly, that strange, unexplainable sensation returned.
It wasn’t pain.
It was a faint, rhythmic flutter—warm, vibrant, and undeniably alive.
It was so soft, so delicate, that I tried to convince myself it was just my racing pulse.
But this time, it lingered.
It thrummed against my palm long enough to send a new wave of fear curling deep inside my chest.
What on earth was happening to my body?
The mysterious feeling vanished as quickly as a shadow under the sun.
I forced my heavy eyelids open and realized the stranger had turned around.
He was staring down at me in the dim light of the cave.
His expression had completely shifted.
The lethal, hard edges of the warrior were still there, but beneath them lay something entirely different.
Deep confusion.
Burning curiosity.
And intense shock.
“You shouldn’t be out here alone,” he said, his voice dropping into a quiet, gravelly whisper that echoed off the cave walls.
I let out a breathless, bitter laugh, leaning my head against the cold stone.
“Neither should you.” One corner of his scarred mouth twitched, making him look almost human for a split second.
But before the silence could settle, a loud, unified howl shattered the night outside.
They were at the base of the cliffs.
Closer than ever.
The stranger immediately straightened his spine, his knuckles turning white around the hilt of his dagger.
The fleeting amusement vanished entirely from his face.
“They found our trail.” Ice flooded my veins, freezing the blood in my heart.
“What do we do now?” His glowing amber eyes locked onto mine, boring into my soul.
For a long, suffocating moment, he didn’t answer.
Then, slowly, his intense gaze dropped down, landing directly on my hand which was still resting over my stomach.
A look of profound, absolute shock washed over his rugged features.
His nostrils flared as he took a sharp inhale of the cave’s confined air, tasting my scent.
“You…” he whispered, his voice suddenly stripped of all its roughness.
My heart stopped beating entirely.
“What?” The stranger slowly looked back up into my eyes, his chest rising and falling heavily.
Outside, the rogue wolves continued to howl in the storm, but suddenly, those monsters were no longer the thing that terrified him the most.
“You are carrying a scent that shouldn’t exist anymore,” he breathed, stepping closer into my space.
“Who the hell are you, Aria?” The cave fell into a dead, terrifying silence.
And for the first time since leaving Blackfang, I realized the greatest danger to my life wasn’t the monsters hunting me from the outside.
It was the explosive secret growing inside my own womb.