SCENT OF MINE

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*Chapter 2: Scent of Mine*

Six months, two weeks, and three days since Alpha Kieran Dragos carved the words _I reject you_ into my soul.

I counted every day.

Not because I missed him. Because I needed to know how long I had before my belly got too big to hide, before the baby’s heartbeat got too loud for even humans to ignore, before Kieran’s wolf caught the scent of his pup on the wind and came hunting.

The bell above _Marty’s Diner_ chimed.

“Table four needs coffee, Aria!” Marty barked from the grill, his spatula dripping grease.

I plastered on the fake smile I’d perfected. “On it, boss.”

My apron was two sizes too big. Baggy. Black. It hid the small but undeniable curve that had started at four months. My jeans were maternity, stolen from a Goodwill bin. My hair was dyed muddy brown, cut to my chin. Nothing like the long, matted black hair the pack had known.

Aria of No Pack was dead.

Aria Jones was a human waitress in Nevada who didn’t talk about her past and flinched at loud noises.

I poured coffee with hands that still shook sometimes. The rejection had left scar tissue on my soul. Phantoms of pain hit at random — when I was tired, when the baby kicked, when I smelled pine.

The baby kicked now, like it knew I was thinking about its father.

“Easy, little wolf,” I whispered, rubbing my stomach under the apron. _Little wolf_ was a lie. The clinic doctor said there was no heartbeat on the ultrasound. No wolf, just like me. But I felt it. A flutter. A warmth. Mine.

Table four was two truckers. Harmless. I refilled their mugs, dropped the check, and turned—

The bell chimed again.

The air changed.

It was like someone opened a freezer door in the middle of the Mojave. The hairs on my arms stood up. The diner went quiet. Forks paused mid-air.

Predator.

My wolfless body didn’t have enhanced senses, but it remembered them. It remembered _him_.

Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t—

I looked.

And my blood turned to ice.

Alpha Kieran Dragos ducked through the doorway of Marty’s Diner.

He was bigger than I remembered. Or maybe I’d just been smaller, kneeling in the dirt. Black henley stretched over his chest, tactical pants, combat boots. His ice-blue eyes scanned the diner, cataloguing exits, threats, weaknesses. Six months hadn’t softened him. If anything, the scar through his eyebrow looked newer. Fresher.

Behind him came Beta Darius and two warriors I recognized: Jace and Rourke. All of them in human clothes, but they wore them like costumes. They were too still. Too lethal.

Rogues. They were hunting rogues. Blood Moon territory ended 200 miles east. This was human territory. Neutral ground.

Which meant the rogue was bad enough to chase.

Which meant they wouldn’t leave without blood.

My feet moved before my brain caught up. Back. Toward the kitchen. Toward the employee bathroom. Toward anywhere but here.

“Aria!” Marty snapped. “Table by the door! Take their order!”

No. God, no.

Kieran’s head turned at my name. His eyes swept the diner, landing on me for half a second before moving on.

He didn’t recognize me.

Of course he didn’t. I was brown hair, not black. Fifteen pounds heavier from diner food and pregnancy. No pack scent. No wolf. I was human to him. Prey, not even worth a second glance.

I could do this.

I grabbed a notepad with fingers that felt like ice. My apron suddenly felt paper-thin. I walked.

Don’t limp. Don’t shake. Don’t breathe.

“Welcome to Marty’s,” I said, and my voice came out human. Dull. Perfect. “What can I get you?”

Kieran wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at a map on the table, at the red circle drawn around Elko, Nevada. Right where we were.

“Coffee,” Darius said. “Black. Four.”

I wrote it down. My handwriting was steady. Years of surviving on nothing teaches you how to lie with your whole body.

“Anything to eat?” I asked the table.

Now Kieran looked up.

It was like getting hit by a truck. Those ice-blue eyes, the same ones that had watched me bleed in the dirt, dragged over my face. No recognition. Just blank, Alpha assessment.

“Nothing,” he said. His voice was the same. Gravel and winter. It used to give me nightmares. Now it gave the baby hiccups.

I felt a flutter. Hard.

_No._

I stepped back. “Four coffees. Got it.”

I turned. Made it three steps before his voice stopped me.

“Wait.”

My spine locked.

Slowly, I turned.

Kieran’s nostrils flared. Subtle. No human would notice. But I’d grown up in a pack. I knew that look.

He was scenting.

Panic climbed my throat. I’d been dousing myself in lavender oil for months. Humans loved it. Wolves hated it. It masked everything. I smelled like soap and grease and diner coffee. Not wolf. Not pregnant. Not his.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

It wasn’t a pickup line. It was an interrogation. Kieran Dragos didn’t forget faces. If he thought he knew me, he’d dig until he did.

I forced a laugh. “Unless you’ve been to Vegas, probably not. I have one of those faces.”

His eyes narrowed. He was scenting again. Deeper this time.

Darius frowned. “Alpha?”

“Something’s…” Kieran stood.

The chair scraped. The sound was a gunshot in the quiet diner.

He was coming around the table. Toward me.

The baby kicked again. Hard. Like it knew its father.

_Please, please, please._

“Marty!” I called, voice too high. “Coffee’s up!”

I bolted for the counter. Grabbed the pot. My hands shook and hot coffee sloshed over my wrist. I didn’t feel it.

Kieran was behind me.

I felt him like a shadow. Heat. Power. The Alpha aura that had made me kneel six months ago. It pressed on my shoulders, demanding submission.

My wolfless body didn’t have a wolf to submit. So it gave him the next best thing.

My knees buckled.

Strong fingers caught my elbow before I hit the tile.

Touch.

His skin on mine.

The bond was dead. Rejected. Ash.

But the _body_ remembered.

Electricity shot from his fingers straight to my core, then lower, to the secret I was carrying. The baby went still. Then fluttered, like it was reaching for him.

Kieran’s breath hitched.

I knew that sound. I’d heard it in the pack circle, right before he rejected me. When the bond first snapped into place.

His grip tightened. “You…”

“Let go of my waitress.”

Marty. Sixty years old, belly like a beer keg, wielding a spatula like a sword. He stepped between me and Kieran, and I could have kissed him.

Kieran didn’t let go. His eyes were on my face, then dropped. To my apron. To the spot where my hand had flown to cover my stomach.

No.

“Problem?” Darius was there now, flanking his Alpha. Jace and Rourke stood, hands near their belts. Where they hid blades.

The diner was dead silent. Truckers watching. Forks frozen.

“Yeah,” Marty said, fearless or stupid. “You’re scaring her. She’s pregnant. Now order or get out.”

The word hit the air like a bomb.

_Pregnant._

Kieran’s face went blank. Totally, utterly blank. The way it had gone in the pack circle right before he put the knife to my throat.

His nostrils flared again. This time, he wasn’t smelling lavender.

He was smelling _through_ it.

Wolves could scent pregnancy. Could scent bloodlines. Could scent _theirs_.

His eyes dropped to my stomach. His hand on my elbow turned to iron.

“No,” he whispered.

It wasn’t denial. It was confirmation.

Darius sucked in a breath. “Alpha… that scent…”

Kieran moved faster than human eyes could track. One second he was holding my elbow. The next, his hand was splayed across my stomach, over the apron, over the hoodie, over the life we’d made the night he rejected me.

The baby kicked. Hard. Against his palm.

The diner disappeared.

There was only his hand, my stomach, and the look on his face.

For a second, the ice cracked.

And I saw him. Not Alpha Kieran Dragos, killer of weaknesses. Just Kieran. A man, twenty-six, feeling his child move for the first time.

His eyes came up to mine. And he _saw_ me. Not Aria Jones. Not the waitress.

Aria. His rejected mate. The lone wolf he left to die.

“You,” he breathed.

The ice came back. Worse than before. A glacier.

“Mine,” he growled.

It wasn’t a question. It was a claim.

Marty swung the spatula. “I said—”

Darius caught his wrist, stopping him cold. “Human,” Darius said quietly. “You don’t want to do that.”

Kieran’s other hand came up to my chin, forcing my face up. His thumb brushed my lower lip, and I hated that my body still reacted. Still _wanted_.

“Six months,” he said, voice deadly soft. “You’ve been carrying my pup for six months. In the human world. Alone.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Seven,” I whispered before I could stop myself. “Seven months.”

Something broke in his expression. Rage? Pain?

Then it was gone.

He leaned in, his lips at my ear. The whole diner could hear him, but he spoke only to me.

“You ran from me, Aria.” His breath was hot. “You stole my heir. You lied to me.”

He pulled back. His smile was all teeth. No humor.

“Now I’m going to take you home.”

Panic finally broke through the shock. “I’m not going anywhere with you!”

He cocked his head. “You think you have a choice?”

The baby chose that moment to kick again. Kieran’s eyes flickered down, then back to me.

“You’re right,” he said. “You don’t. But _it_ does.”

He straightened, his hand leaving my stomach like it hurt him. He turned to Darius.

“Burn the diner down.”

“What?” Marty yelled. “You can’t—”

“With everyone in it,” Kieran continued, “or she comes with me. Now.”

The truckers stood, chairs scraping. One reached for a shotgun under the counter.

Jace and Rourke had knives out before he touched it.

This was happening. He would actually kill them all. Because Kieran Dragos didn’t make threats. He made promises.

And I was the weakness he hated most.

Except now, that weakness was carrying his strength.

“Okay!” I shouted. My voice cracked. “Okay, I’ll go. Don’t— don’t hurt them.”

Kieran’s eyes softened for a fraction of a second. Then hardened.

“Smart girl,” he murmured. “You’re learning.”

He shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders. It smelled like him. Pine and snow and Alpha. It dwarfed me.

“Boss,” I said to Marty, tears burning. “I’m sorry. Keep the tips.”

Marty’s face was white. “Aria, who the hell are these guys?”

“Monsters,” I said.

Kieran heard me. His lips twitched.

He took my hand. His palm was calloused, warm, and I hated that I remembered exactly how it felt.

Darius opened the diner door. The Nevada sun was blinding after the dark diner.

A black SUV idled at the curb. Illegal tint. Bulletproof, probably.

Kieran stopped on the sidewalk. He turned me to face him, his hands on my shoulders. For a second, I thought he was going to kiss me.

Instead, he pressed his forehead to mine. The mate thing. The one I’d dreamed about before I knew mates could reject you.

His voice was a rasp. “You should have told me.”

“You would have killed me,” I said, and it was true. Six months ago, he would have.

“Yeah,” he admitted.

He pulled back. The ice was back. Alpha was back.

“But now you’re carrying my son.”

“You don’t know it’s a boy.”

“I know.” He opened the SUV door. “Because I can feel him. He’s strong, like me. And I don’t let strength go to waste.”

He looked me over, from my dyed hair to my baggy hoodie to my worn sneakers.

“You’re mine, Aria. You always were. Rejected or not.” His eyes went to my stomach. “And so is he.”

He waited.

There was no choice. There never was with him.

I climbed into the SUV.

Kieran slid in beside me. Not touching, but his thigh pressed against mine. Claiming.

Darius took the driver’s seat. The doors locked.

As we pulled away from Marty’s, I looked back. The diner was still standing. The truckers were alive.

Because I got in the car.

Kieran followed my gaze. “I don’t burn things that are mine,” he said quietly.

“Since when am I yours?” I whispered.

His hand covered mine on the seat. His thumb brushed my knuckles. Possessive. Inevitable.

“Since the Moon Goddess made you,” he said. “Since you put my pup in your belly. Since you survived me.”

He turned my hand over, exposing my wrist. Where the silver cuffs had scarred me. He pressed his lips to the scar. A brand.

“Welcome home, lone wolf.”

The SUV hit the highway, heading east. Back to Blood Moon. Back to the pack that wanted me dead.

Back to him.

Darius’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. Pity. Warning.

“They’ll kill you,” he said quietly. “The pack. His mother. You’re wolfless. You’re the traitor’s daughter. You’re carrying his heir but you’re not Luna material.”

Kieran’s growl filled the car. Low. Lethal. “She’s under my protection. Anyone touches her, I peel their skin off. Slowly.”

“But Alpha,” Jace said from the passenger seat, “the Council—”

“The Council can challenge me,” Kieran snapped. “And die.”

He turned to me. Really looked at me. For the first time since the diner, his expression wasn’t ice or rage. It was something else. Something that made my broken heart stutter.

“You’re not weak,” he said. “You survived my rejection. You survived six months alone. Pregnant. Hunted.”

His hand came up to my face. I flinched. He stopped, then continued, slower. His thumb wiped a tear I didn’t know I’d shed.

“That’s not weakness, Aria. That’s war.”

The baby kicked, hard, like it agreed.

Kieran felt it. His eyes widened. His hand went to my stomach again, and this time, he didn’t let go.

“He’s strong,” he whispered. Wonder. Awe. “My son is strong.”

“We don’t know—”

“I know.”

We drove in silence. Nevada turned to Utah. Utah turned to Colorado.

I fell asleep somewhere in the Rockies, despite myself. Exhaustion + pregnancy + terror = unconscious.

I woke to Kieran carrying me.

“Put me down,” I mumbled.

“No.”

We were at the Blood Moon border. The massive gates, carved with wolves, were open. The entire pack stood waiting. Hundreds of them. Warriors in front. Elders behind. And in the center, a woman in silver silk.

Luna Mother. Kieran’s mother.

Her eyes were Kieran’s ice-blue. Her hair was silver. Her smile was a knife.

She looked at me in Kieran’s arms, at my hoodie, at my stomach.

And she laughed.

“Son,” she called, voice carrying. “You brought home a stray. And you got it pregnant.”

The pack murmured. Disgust. Hatred.

Kieran set me on my feet but kept his arm around my waist. Claiming. In front of everyone.

“This is Aria,” he said, voice like thunder. “My mate. Mother of my heir.”

Gasps. Growls.

“She’s wolfless,” Luna Mother said. “The daughter of traitors. She’s nothing.”

Kieran’s aura exploded. Trees bent. Wolves dropped to their knees, gasping. Even I felt it, pressing on my lungs.

“She’s _mine_,” he roared. “And anyone who calls her nothing will answer to me.”

Silence.

Luna Mother’s smile didn’t drop. She stepped forward, her eyes on my stomach.

“Then she’ll do the Luna Trial,” she said softly. “At dawn.”

Darius inhaled sharply.

Kieran went still. “Mother—”

“The Trial,” she repeated. “All Lunas do it. If she’s carrying the next Alpha, she must prove she’s worthy. Or...”

Her gaze dropped to my belly.

“We cut the pup from her belly and crown a worthy Luna.”

The baby went still inside me.

Like it understood.

Like it was waiting.

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