Chapter 3

Months had blurred into a stretch of survival. I was no longer the girl who once dreamed of just wolf and pack movies and the simple life on the edge of the Silver Sword Pack’s territory. I was now a shadow. thin, rough, and hollow.

The woods were hitting me daily.

My feet were bleeding. My stomach was hitting me from the berries I was feeding on every day and foreign roots. The cold was sinking deep into my bones and sometimes, I even forgot what warmth was like.

The only thing that kept me from completely breaking up was Nyx—my inner wolf. Her voice grew louder every day with lonely nights, a sure presence that remained with me.

I tried to run farther from the Silver Sword pack many more times than I could count, but fear always dragged me back. Even facing Damon and his Betas was scaring me more than hunger was. .

That evening, fatigue finally won. I collapsed on a patch of dry grass near a rushing waterfall, too tired to even gather wood for a fire.

I gnashed my teeth violently.

“The cave is a little farther behind the falls,” Nyx whispered to me, her voice cool but firm as it rang in my head. “You will be cold in it, but it can keep you.”

“I’m just too tired to move,” I snapped, curling into a ball. “Just… let me rest.”

“Rest, then. Believe you can be safe,” Nyx replied, her tone now softer than mine had been in weeks.

I slipped into a restless sleep, dreaming of running with a pack that actually wanted me, of our bodies pressed close, of the mating bond that didn’t end in rejection.

I was having nightmares and the new warmth pulled me awake.

The weak morning light flashing through the cave mouth, solid and hot, was pressing against my back. A heavy arm pressed over my hip. My eyes snapped open.

A man lay beside me. It was completely naked.

His skin was very thick, every muscle were strong and sharp, like something formed by the wild itself. His scent overwhelmed me instantly. The fresh rain fell on wind, rain and the raw, commanding power.

Suddenly, Nyx stirred hard in my chest, letting out a low sound I had never heard from her before.

I was almost terrified.

Instead, my body leaned toward him, starving for the touch of so many months of nothing but the growl, his strict face and silence.

His deep blue eyes—nothing like the shining eyes of the Silver Sword Pack, fixed on mine. They reminded me of the old glaciers, clear and dangerous.

“Who… who are you?” My voice came out rough and cracked.

He smiled, slow and sure, as if he had been waiting for this moment his entire life. One large hand was tracing the curve of my hip with full calm.

“I’ve found you, little one,” he murmured, his voice a deep rumble that was beating hard on my chest. “You’ve been so cold and lonely. Even your scent was covering towards me—a wolf abandoned… but not broken.”

Before I could have another question, he leaned in and kissed me.

It wasn’t reluctance that kept my lips gummed with his, waiting.

It was deep, demanding, and consuming. His lips touched mine with a kind of hunger that could combat the empty belly I had carried for months. My mind turned with confusion and the pain from Damon’s rejection, but my body was really starving and aching—betrayed me completely.

Nyx howled inside me, urging me closer.

It was indeed nothing like the sweet and tight touches I had once shared with Damon. It was raw and sweet. A desperate affirmation that I was still alive, a woman, capable of feeling something different from pain and cold.

He pulled back just enough to growl against my lips, his voice full of need and desire.. “Tell me you want this.”

I didn’t think so. I only felt it inside of me. “Yes,” I gasped. “Please… I need…”

He was walking with certainty, absorbing all of my body, dipping his c*ck into my p*ssy. Every thrust was driving away the cold and cravings and the crushing loneliness in the woods. I embraced him with despair, my nails digging into his broad shoulders, soft moans echoing off the cave walls as pleasure was brewing inside me like a storm.

When the c*m finally formed on us, I fell on his arms, the warmth flooding my veins like real fire.

For the first time in months, the cold inside me stopped.

This man was sweet. Maybe he was my mate and he would change everything about me.

Afterward, I lay shaking against his chest, trying to catch my breath. His fingers went through my rough, unkempt hair.

“I enjoyed you, mate,” he whispered, his deep blue eyes soft yet really possessive. “You are stronger than you realize, Annie. Sleep now and regain your strength.”

His words cut through the warmth I was feeling in my body. I tried to push myself up, but my limbs were hard as stone. “Wait… what is your name? What pack do you belong to?”

He snickered, the sound of his voice low and hitting deep on my chest. “Not yet, little wolf. When the time is right, I’ll take what’s mine.” He pasted another soft kiss on my forehead. “Be safe. Your life is about to change now.”

I wanted to argue, to ask for what he meant, but the fatigue and the strange, suiting warmth of his body pulled me under.

I slept.

When I woke up again, the cave was empty.

The spot beside me had gone cold, but his scent was still on my skin. It smelt rain, and the power of the woods.

I sat up slowly and froze.

A dark blue mark, shaped like a wolf’s print, stained the skin of my inner thigh. It was pulsed with faint warmth.

Then the nausea hit me hard afterwards.

I couldn’t walk to the part of the cave before my stomach was empty of food. When the heaviness finally stopped, I tapped my hand over my belly, and my eyes were full of fear and shock.

I was shocked.

I was pregnant.

I was alone and banished in the woods. With nothing, but the rags and the woods around me.

And yet… something inside me felt different and it meant another form of strength was coming from me.