Hiding the Truth

POV: Olivia

The motel room smelled like bleach and old smoke.

I locked the chain, shoved a chair under the handle, and sat on the edge of the bed until the tremor in my legs eased. A neon sign buzzed outside the thin curtains, red light stuttering across the carpet like a pulse. Somewhere down the hall, a couple argued through a wall I could have pushed my thumb through.

I told the clerk my name was Liv Wade. Paid cash. No ID. No questions.

The nausea hit the moment the door shut.

I barely made it to the bathroom—knees on cracked tile, hands gripping the rim like it was the only thing keeping me tethered to the world. When it passed, I rinsed my mouth, pressed my palm to my stomach, and waited for the spinning to stop.

It didn’t.

I slumped against the tub, counting breaths. Three in. Three out. Alone. No pack. No wolf. No one.

And not possibly—definitely—pregnant.

The thought pressed on my chest like a storm on the horizon. Too close to ignore. Too big to face head-on.

I crawled back to the bed. The springs groaned. The neon flickered red across the blanket. I stared at the ceiling until my eyes burned. When the shaking dulled, I opened the mini-fridge, forced down two dry crackers and half a bottle of water, and held them.

Small victories.

I needed a plan.

---

The city edge was a ten-minute walk: a gas station, a bus stop, a diner with coffee black as tar. Hood up, head down. If anyone stared too long, I turned away. I didn’t have a scent worth following, but old instincts lingered—avoid notice, avoid trouble, avoid the kind of men whose eyes weighed and priced.

At the diner, I slid into a corner booth, back to the wall, hands wrapped around coffee I couldn’t drink. I listened.

Humans. Truckers. A nurse half-asleep in scrubs. A man in a suit is arguing about custody with someone named Cheryl. None of them cared about wolves.

Two men at the counter did.

“…Red Moon, I’m telling you,” one muttered. Leather vest, road dirt on his boots. His friend’s eyes had that too-bright feral gleam that makes your skin crawl, wolf or not.

“Alpha rejected his mate,” the friend grinned. “The whole hall saw. She wore a Luna gown.”

Heat shot up my neck. I stared at my coffee, forcing myself to breathe like a human.

“Girl was a latent,” the first sneered. “Figures.”

“Figures,” the other echoed. “Bet she ran. They always run. Easy pickings for a certain kind of man.”

The waitress poured their refills with a steady hand and a hard jaw. She heard them. She chose not to.

My stomach twisted.

I left cash on the table, walked slowly out the door. Then ran.

Back in the room, I locked everything and slid to the floor, heart hammering against the wood. If rogues were already gossiping in a human diner this far out, word had spread. If wolves were talking, elders were listening.

Maybe not to find me. Maybe to make sure I stayed lost.

Or worse—to find me first.

To kill me.

Or take the child.

My hand flew to my stomach before I could stop it. The thought froze my blood to the bone.

I needed someone. Not a saviour. Just someone who could help me survive the next step.

Aria.

Her name rose from a part of me I hadn’t touched in years. Aria Cross—the girl who used to trade books with me in the packhouse laundry because neither of us was allowed at the big table. Moved to the human world with her aunt at thirteen. We wrote for a while. I’d kept one address card in the lining of an old boot because I couldn’t throw it away.

I dug through my bag until my fingers found the cracked leather. Peeled the sole. There it was: a water-warped scrap with a street and city scrawled in two different handwritings—hers and then mine, practising.

I stared at it until the letters steadied.

No phone. No data. The motel landline was too risky. But there was a payphone outside the gas station. A library two blocks past the bus stop.

Payphone first. Library if that failed.

I wrapped my coat tighter, tucked the card into my bra, and went.

---

The payphone reeked of nicotine and old sugar. My quarters shook in my hands as I fed them in and called directory assistance.

“A. Cross—Cross & Hale Legal,” the operator read back.

Lawyer. Of course. Aria always had a way of turning sharp truths into words that stuck.

I scribbled the number on my palm and dialled.

A receptionist answered. I hung up.

Coward.

I tried again. “Hi. Is Aria Cross available?”

“May I ask who’s calling?”

The truth stuck like a fishbone. If she’d left our world behind, maybe she didn’t want it calling her office.

“An old friend,” I managed.

“Miss Cross is in meetings until two. I can take a message.”

“No.” The word snapped out. “No message. I’ll… call back.”

I hung up, forehead against greasy metal, fighting the urge to run into traffic.

The library, then.

Inside, it smelled like paper and quiet mercy. I logged onto a public computer under a false name and typed Aria Cross.

She wasn’t a ghost. She was everywhere—articles, a firm bio, a fundraiser photo with her arm around a woman in a lab coat. Caption: Dr. Hana Hale (ER) & Attorney Aria Cross (Family Law).

Relief hit so sharply it stung my eyes. Family law. Someone who fought for people who had already lost.

I tried her old email. Dead.

I copied down addresses. Bus routes. Anything that could get me to her.

Back at the motel, I packed: two shirts, one sweater, and a toothbrush. I wrapped the torn edge of my Luna gown in plastic and buried it at the bottom. A reminder. A warning. A debt.

At the bus stop, I bought a prepaid phone and SIM. No names. No numbers saved. Not yet.

Two men in leather leaned under the gas station awning. One looked too long. His nostrils flared. My stomach iced over.

The bus arrived. I got on.

---

The city wasn’t kind, but it was loud enough to hide me. People looked through me, not at me.

I walked eight blocks to the hospital. Inside, the lights burned too bright.

“I need to find Dr. Hana Hale,” I told the volunteer desk, smiling like I belonged. “I’m a friend of Attorney Cross.”

Ten minutes later, a woman with a pen behind her ear and soot on her cheek appeared.

“Olivia?” she asked briskly. “I’m Hana. Aria’s at court, but she said to bring you straight in if you came. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“I’m fine,” I lied.

“Sure,” she said dryly, pressing juice into my hand. “Sip.”

Mercy in sugar.

She didn’t ask questions. Just flagged a cab and slid in beside me, rattling off the law firm’s address.

“You’re safe,” she said simply. “At least while you’re with us.”

The back of my throat burned. I nodded.

At Cross & Hale Legal, Hana took the stairs two at a time. I followed because there was nothing else to do.

Aria was in a glass-walled conference room, papers spread like a battle map. She turned when the door opened, irritation flashing—then gone, melting into something raw and unguarded.

“Liv?” she breathed, like a prayer.

My knees gave out. I didn’t remember crossing the room, only her arms around me—warm, steady, human.

“You should’ve called sooner,” she murmured.

“I didn’t know if—” My voice broke. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” she said fiercely, eyes wet. “You don’t apologise for needing help. You ask.”

Hana slipped out without a word.

Aria sat me down, poured water, and set out crackers like magic. “Tell me everything.”

I tried. Motel. Bus. Rogues. The words tangled, but she sorted them gently, like pulling knots from a string.

When I finally ran dry, she was quiet. Her jaw tightened.

“He rejected you. Publicly.”

“Yes.”

“And you left. Alone.”

“Yes.”

The silence stretched until I dropped the words that had burned holes in me for days.

“I’m pregnant.”

For a beat, I waited for recoil. For calculation.

Instead, Aria’s hand closed over mine. Warm. Steady.

“Okay,” she said softly. “First, we make sure you and the baby are healthy.”

The word baby cracked something in me. A sound tore out of my throat. She didn’t let go.

“And second,” she continued, fierce now, “we make sure no one can touch you. Not a pack. Not an elder. Not an Alpha. We put walls around your life so high they bleed looking up at them.”

“I don’t have money,” I whispered. “I don’t have anything.”

“You have me. And Hana. And this world. You’re going to learn to love paperwork.” A faint smile. “I’ll hate you for it later.”

I laughed, broken but real.

“Liv,” she said gently. “You’re scared. That’s allowed. We’ll take it step by step.”

“I asked him to reject me,” I confessed. “I thought if it was fast, it wouldn’t hurt. But he dragged it out. He humiliated me.”

Aria’s eyes went cold—but this time the cold was on my side. “Then we’ll build something he can’t take from you.”

She squeezed my hand and stood. “Come on. Hana’s two floors down. We’ll run tests. Then we make a plan.”

I stood on shaking legs and followed.

For the first time since the forest, I wasn’t walking into darkness alone.