THE HUNT

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*Chapter 5: The Hunt*

“Aria.”

Kieran’s voice was the only thing keeping me from shattering.

He said my name like it was the last word in the world. Like if he didn’t say it, I’d disappear too.

_She has our son._

The words didn’t make sense. My hands went to my stomach. Flat. Empty. But I’d felt him kick 3 hours ago. I’d felt him get _stronger_ after the Blood Rite.

“He was inside me,” I whispered. “He was— I didn’t push. I didn’t—”

“Accelerated gestation,” Morin said again, hands up like she could calm an Alpha mid-shift. “The Blood Rite + trauma. It’s rare, but it happens. Wolf pregnancies can complete in hours if both parents are Alpha and the pup is strong. He was born while you slept. Eight pounds. Healthy. Silent.”

Silent. Wolfless babies didn’t cry. They didn’t have the lungs for it yet.

_My baby didn’t cry and I wasn’t there._

The mate bond _screamed_. Kieran’s grief hit me first — black, bottomless, edged with violence. Then mine hit him. A mother’s panic, raw and animal.

He staggered. I staggered.

“Where,” Kieran said. The word was not a question. It was a death sentence. “Where did she take him.”

Darius wiped blood off his mouth. “North. Luna Mother’s private lodge. She had six warriors. Said the ‘Alpha Heir needed to be raised away from wolfless influence.’ I tried to stop her, K. She broke my ribs.”

Six warriors. Against a new mother and an Alpha who’d just had his chest cut open.

Kieran looked at me. No more ice. No more hate. Just a man who’d finally figured out what he had to lose.

“Can you walk?” he asked.

I was already off the cot. My legs shook. The cut over my heart burned. But my son was out there.

“I can run.”

His eyes flashed gold. Pride and terror. _Mine._

“Morin,” he barked. “Supplies. Silver. Guns. Whatever she has.”

“You’re in no condition—”

“I am _Alpha_,” he roared. The windows rattled. “My son was stolen from my mate’s womb while I slept. If you think a little blood loss is going to stop me, you don’t know me at all.”

Morin moved.

Darius stepped in front of me. “Aria, you just gave birth. Accelerated or not, your body—”

“My body made him,” I snarled. The sound shocked me. It shocked Darius more. “And my body will get him back.”

The bond roared approval. Kieran’s. _That’s my Luna._

He threw a jacket at me. His. It swallowed me whole and smelled like pine and rage. “We go now. Darius, get the car. Call the Betas. I want every warrior who’s not on patrol at the north border in ten minutes.”

“Pack law says you can’t challenge your mother—”

“Pack law says the Alpha’s heir belongs to the Alpha,” Kieran said. Low. Lethal. “She declared war when she touched him. Now she learns what happens when you go to war with me.”

He held out his hand to me.

Not an order. An offer.

_Hunt with me._

I took it.

His fingers closed around mine. Calloused. Bloody. Warm. The bond settled. Not calm — _focused_. Two predators, one target.

We ran.

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*The Lodge*

Luna Mother’s “private lodge” was a fortress 20 miles north. Stone walls. Silver in the mortar. Guards who’d been loyal to her for 30 years.

We didn’t knock.

Kieran’s SUV took the gate at 60mph. Wood and iron exploded. Alarms screamed.

“Left side!” Darius shouted from the driver’s seat.

Warriors poured out of the treeline. Not rogue. Pack. _Her_ pack.

“Traitors,” Kieran breathed. He was out of the car before it stopped, shifting mid-leap.

His wolf was monstrous. Black as midnight, twice the size of a normal Alpha. Ice-blue eyes. Scars from a hundred fights.

He hit the first warrior and didn’t stop. No challenge. No dominance fight. This was execution.

Throat. Rip. Next.

I stumbled out after him, Morin’s silver knife in my hand. My legs were jelly. The bond was a live wire — every kill Kieran made, I felt the recoil. Every bullet that missed him, my heart stopped.

“Aria, down!” Darius tackled me as a silver bullet split the air where my head had been.

We hit dirt. He covered me with his body. “Stay low. You’re not healed—”

“He’s my _son_,” I screamed.

And I moved.

I don’t know where it came from. No wolf. No training. Just 7 months of running, 1 hour of being a mother, and a lifetime of being called weak.

I rolled out from under Darius, came up running. A warrior raised a gun.

I threw the knife.

It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t skilled. It was desperation and rage and 25 feet of pure luck.

The blade took him in the throat.

He gurgled and dropped.

Silence for one second.

Then Kieran _howled_. Not pain. Not grief.

Pride.

_MY MATE. MY LUNA. MINE._

The bond flooded me with his strength. My legs stopped shaking. My vision went sharp.

I picked up the dead warrior’s gun.

“House,” Kieran snarled, human again, naked and covered in blood. He jerked his head to the lodge. “She’s inside. With him.”

We went together.

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*The Nursery*

It was a nursery.

White walls. Mobile with wooden wolves. Crib imported from Italy.

And Luna Mother, rocking a bundle in her arms.

She looked up when we kicked the door in. No fear. Just disappointment.

“You’re late,” she said. “He’s been fussy.”

Rylan.

I could smell him. Milk and baby and _Kieran_. Alpha blood. _My blood_.

He wasn’t crying. Wolfless babies didn’t. But he was awake. Eyes open.

Ice-blue.

Just like his father.

“Put him down,” Kieran said. Quiet. That was worse than the roar. Quiet meant someone was going to die slow.

“Why?” Luna Mother stood, cuddling Rylan closer. “So the wolfless whore can drop him? So he grows up thinking weakness is acceptable? I am saving him, Kieran. From _her_. From _you_.”

She looked at me. “You killed a warrior today. How does it feel? Good? Powerful? That’s what killing your own son feels like. Quick. Easy. Then it’s over.”

The gun in my hand was shaking.

“She’s trying to bait you,” Darius said from the doorway, gun trained on her. “Don’t listen.”

“Give me my son,” I said. My voice didn’t shake. “Now.”

“Or what?” She smiled. “You’ll shoot me? With him in my arms? Alpha blood makes you strong, but it doesn’t make you _smart_. One twitch and I snap his neck. Wolfless pups are fragile.”

Kieran took one step. The floorboards creaked.

“Try it,” he whispered. “I dare you. Touch him and I’ll peel your skin off while you scream. Then I’ll make your warriors eat it.”

“Kieran—”

“I meant what I said in the Trial,” he told her. “Weakness dies. And you are the weakest wolf I’ve ever met. You’re afraid of a baby because he might love his mother more than your _rules_.”

He took another step.

Luna Mother’s eyes flicked to the window.

It was the only tell she gave.

Darius saw it too. “KIERAN, DON’T—”

The floor exploded.

Not a metaphor. Actual explosives.

Silver and fire and stone erupted under Kieran’s feet. A trap. She’d been standing on a pressure plate.

The blast threw him backwards into the wall. The bond _shrieked_ in my head. Pain. White. _Agony_.

“KIERAN!” I couldn’t hear myself. My ears were ringing.

Luna Mother was already moving, Rylan tucked against her, heading for the back window.

“You’ll never be Luna,” she said. “You’ll never be mother. He’s _mine_ now.”

She jumped.

Three stories down into snow.

I ran to the window. She hit the ground running, warriors closing around her. A snowmobile roared to life.

They were gone. Into the trees. Into the storm that was rolling in.

Kieran was on the floor, bleeding from his ears, his side, his head. But alive. Alpha healing was already knitting him back together.

He looked up at me. Gold eyes, broken.

“I lost him,” he said. Blood on his teeth. “I lost our son.”

I dropped the gun. Fell to my knees next to him. Grabbed his face.

“No,” I said. Fierce. Certainty I didn’t feel. “We know where she’s going. North. To the Claws. She just declared war on Blood Moon.”

I pressed my forehead to his. The bond sparked. Pain and rage and something else.

Purpose.

“We hunt,” I told him. “Together. And we don’t stop until we have him back.”

Kieran’s hand came up. Covered mine. On his face. On my stomach. Where our son had been.

“Pack,” he said. Bloody. Broken. But Alpha. “Darius. Call them. All of them.”

He looked at me. And for the first time, he didn’t see weakness.

He saw his Luna.

“Get up, Aria,” Alpha Kieran Dragos said. “We have a pup to bring home.”

Outside, thunder rolled.

The first snow of winter started to fall.

And in the distance, barely audible over the storm, a sound.

Not a cry.

A howl.

Tiny. Defiant.

_Alpha._

Rylan was calling for us.

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