Chapter 7: Run

Lyra POV

A few days before…

My eyes darted to the rogues now closing in around me. Their eyes were red and filled with bloodlust. They snarled as they circled round me, forcing me to take several steps backward. 

“Please,” a sob broke out from the back of my throat as they snarled, coming closer. “I beg you in the name of the moon,” I called out, shouting at the top of my voice as I stared at the forest behind the rogues. I’d heard voices there, the voice that had said Asher wanted me back alive and with the baby. “Let me go, I promise, I won’t cause any trouble.”

One of the rogues snarled closer, baring its teeth at me. I squinted at the darkness, catching a glimpse of human forms lurking in the shadow. Were they Asher’s men? What else did Asher want with me? Was rejecting and leaving him not enough? Was it now a crime to leave? 

“For the sake of the unborn baby in my womb,” I cried, pressing my hand closer to my stomach. “Just let me go. If Asher has sent you to kill me, I will stay dead. I promise, please.”

Still no response; instead, the rogues came even closer. 

This won’t do. These people were determined to take me back to Asher, who had figured out I was pregnant. He would force me to carry the baby to term, birth it, and then chase me out of the pack. I couldn’t allow him to do that to my baby. No. 

I have to look for a way. 

My eyes scanned the darkened forest, looking for an escape route. The rogues had surrounded me in a semi-circle, making it impossible to dart to either my left or right hand side. But then I remembered the man had said Asher wanted me alive, which meant one thing: they weren’t going to kill me. 

I counted about seven rogues. They were about eight feet away from me. If I turn now and make a quick dash for it, I could easily evade them. If my memory serves me correctly, there was a river in the forest. 

If I could reach it on time, I could mask my scent until they pass. 

Taking another deep breath, I turned and ran. 

My only strategy was to reach the river. I allowed the terror of being caught to drive me forward through the darkening forest. Branches whipped across my arms and face. The ground was uneven, slick with moisture, and every misstep sent a jolt of pain through my ankles, but I didn't slow down. I couldn't.

The Alpha said to bring her back. Especially the child she's carrying.

The words echoed in my skull like a drumbeat. Asher knew. He knew about the baby, and he hadn't come himself; he had sent men. This was not a rescue mission; he’d to collect what he believed was his property.

My hand pressed against my stomach as I ran. The baby. I had to protect my baby.

Behind me, the rogues were closing in. I could hear them. Their heavy footfalls crashing through the undergrowth, the snap of branches under bodies far larger than mine. They weren't running at full speed. They didn't need to. I was an unmarked, pregnant Omega with a bond so weak it was barely a thread. They could afford to let me tire myself out.

And I was tiring fast.

The mate bond — or what was left of it — pulsed weakly in my chest like a dying heartbeat. Each step cost more energy than the last. My lungs burned. My vision blurred at the edges. The baby was drawing from me, pulling strength I didn't have to give, and the rogues behind me knew it. They could probably smell the exhaustion rolling off me in waves.

I ducked beneath a low-hanging branch and veered left, following the slope of the ground downhill. If I could reach water — a river, a stream, anything — it might mask my scent long enough to buy me time.

I didn't make it.

A figure stepped out from behind a tree directly in my path. He was tall and broad, with yellow eyes glinting in the fading light. He didn't lunge at me; he just stood there, blocking the way. He knew I was cornered. 

I skidded to a stop and spun around to use another path, but two more were behind me. Then a fourth emerged from the shadows to my right. The circle tightened. The forest, which had felt vast and open moments ago, shrank to the size of a cage.

"Easy now," the one in front said. His voice was low, almost conversational. "Nobody wants to hurt you. Just come quietly, and this ends clean."

"Stay away from me." My voice came out harder than I expected. As though some part of me had already decided that if this was where it ended, I would not go quietly. "I'm not going back."

"That's not your call." He took a step closer. "The Alpha wants—"

"I don't care what the Alpha wants."

As the words left my lips, something surged inside me. Heat rose from the base of my spine and flooded through my chest. Not strength, exactly. Something older than that. Something instinctive and fierce and connected to the life growing inside me. My wolf, half-starved from months of a weakened bond, snarled to the surface with a fury that surprised even me.

The first rogue lunged. I dodged — barely — and caught him across the jaw with an elbow that cracked against bone. He stumbled sideways, more shocked than hurt. The second grabbed my arm from behind. I twisted, driving my heel into his knee, and felt it buckle beneath the impact. He went down with a grunt.

But the effort cost me. I was beginning to feel dizzy. My vision greyed at the edges, and for a terrifying second, I couldn't feel my legs. The baby was pulling harder now, draining energy faster than my body could produce it.

The third rogue slammed into me from the side.

I hit the ground hard. The impact drove the air from my lungs and sent white-hot pain shooting through my ribs. I curled instinctively around my stomach, arms locked across my abdomen, protecting the only thing that mattered.

"Careful," the leader snapped. "He wants her alive. Both of them."

I tried to get up, but my arms shook, and my knees buckled. The bond in my chest was barely a whisper now, and the energy drain from the pregnancy had made my muscles useless. I made it to my hands and knees before the leader's boot pressed down on my shoulder, pushing me flat.

"Stay down. It's over."

I clawed at the dirt and fought to rise. Everything in me screamed to keep going. I wanted to run, to fight, to do anything but lie here and let them take me back, but my body had nothing left to give. The darkness at the edges of my vision was spreading.

I'm sorry, I thought, my hand pressed flat against my stomach. I'm sorry. I tried.

A tear rolled down my cheek, and I closed my eyes, giving in to the darkness, then I heard a loud howl.

It didn’t come from the rogues. It came from somewhere to the north. It was deep, powerful, and laced with an authority that made the ground beneath me seem to vibrate. The rogues froze. The leader's boot lifted from my shoulder, and his head snapped toward the treeline.

A second howl answered the first, closer now. Then a third.

Suddenly, the forest exploded.

Wolves — at least six of them — burst through the undergrowth in a coordinated strike. They hit the rogues like a wall. The leader was thrown backward before he could shift, and the others scattered as the newcomers tore through their formation. 

The sounds that followed were violent snarls, the crack of bone, and bodies hitting trees. But it was over fast. The rogues who could still move fled into the darkness, and the ones who couldn't were pinned to the ground.

A wolf — massive, dark-furred, with a grey streak running from muzzle to tail — shifted into human form and dropped to one knee beside me. He was young, maybe mid-twenties, with sharp features and eyes the color of storm clouds. He wore the markings of a patrol captain.

"Can you hear me?" His voice was firm but not unkind. "You're safe. They're gone."

I tried to answer. My mouth moved, but no sound came out. The darkness was everywhere now, pressing in from all sides, heavy and warm.

The last thing I felt was his arms lifting me from the ground.

The last thing I heard was his voice, urgent and far away, shouting to someone I couldn't see.

"Get the doctor. Now. She's pregnant, and she's fading."

Then the darkness took me, and I let it, because I had nothing left to fight it with.

My hand stayed on my stomach the whole way down.