CHAPTER NINE: THE ALPHA WHO COULDN'T FORGET

Six months passed.

The Blackwood Pack continued to thrive.

Borders were secured, alliances strengthened, and rival packs learned to think twice before challenging Alpha Kael.

From the outside, his life appeared perfect.

He had everything an Alpha could want.

Power.

Loyalty.

Respect.

Everything except peace.

Aria's absence had become an irritation he couldn't explain.

At first, he had expected her to return.

Pride, he had reasoned, would eventually give way to practicality. Aria had grown up among wolves who valued the mate bond, and he believed that sooner or later she would understand that his rejection had been necessary.

She would come back.

She would ask to speak with him.

Perhaps she would even apologize for leaving without permission.

He had waited a week.

Then a month.

Then three.

She never returned.

And the longer she stayed away, the more her absence seemed to spread through the mansion like a shadow.

Kael hated it.

He hated that his attention wandered whenever he passed her former bedroom.

He hated that he occasionally caught himself listening for her footsteps.

Most of all, he hated the dreams.

They came without warning.

Sometimes he saw Aria walking away from him through a forest filled with silver mist. Sometimes she stood on the other side of a locked door, calling his name while he struggled to reach her.

And sometimes he heard the cry of a child.

Every time, he woke before he could discover what it meant.

"You're doing it again."

Kael looked up.

Darius stood in the doorway of his study, holding a stack of reports.

"Doing what?"

"Staring at the same page for ten minutes."

Kael glanced down at the document in front of him.

He hadn't read a single word.

"Leave the reports."

Darius placed them on the desk.

"There's something else you should know."

Kael's attention sharpened.

"What?"

"One of our scouts reported seeing a woman matching Aria's description in a town beyond the eastern territories."

For the first time that morning, Kael stood.

"Where?"

"Ashbourne."

The name stirred no immediate recognition.

"Was she alone?"

"The scout wasn't certain. He saw her entering a bakery."

Kael's jaw tightened.

A bakery.

Aria, who had been raised among the Blackwood Pack's noble families, was apparently working in a bakery.

He didn't know whether to feel angry or relieved.

"Why wasn't this reported sooner?"

"The sighting happened several days ago. The scout only recognized her after reviewing an old photograph."

Kael reached for his coat.

"Prepare a vehicle."

Darius raised an eyebrow.

"You're going yourself?"

"Do you have a problem with that?"

"No, Alpha. I'm simply wondering whether you've finally decided to stop pretending you don't care."

Kael shot him a warning look.

Darius wisely stepped aside.

Ashbourne smelled of fresh bread, rain-soaked earth, and the ordinary human life Kael had rarely experienced outside pack territory.

He stepped out of the vehicle and immediately regretted leaving his guards behind.

The town was too quiet.

Too unfamiliar.

And beneath all those unfamiliar scents, he could almost detect something he recognized.

Wildflowers.

His pulse quickened.

He followed the scent down a narrow street until he reached a small bakery.

A bell rang as he opened the door.

Warm air washed over him.

Behind the counter stood an elderly woman arranging loaves of bread.

"Good afternoon," she said. "What can I get you?"

"I'm looking for someone."

Her expression changed slightly.

"Who?"

"Aria."

The woman studied him.

For several seconds, she said nothing.

Then she placed the loaf in her hands on the counter.

"If you're here to hurt that girl, you'd better leave."

Kael stared at her.

"Excuse me?"

"I said what I said."

The woman's voice was firm.

"She came here with nothing. No family, no money to speak of, and enough sadness in her eyes to break a person's heart. Whatever you've done to her, she doesn't need more trouble."

Kael felt something cold settle in his stomach.

"What did she tell you about me?"

"Nothing."

"Then how do you know—"

"Because people don't look like that unless life has given them a reason."

The woman's words struck harder than he expected.

Kael forced himself to remain composed.

"I need to speak with her."

"Then you'll have to wait until she's back."

"Where is she?"

"At the clinic."

The moment the words left the woman's mouth, something inside him tightened.

"Why?"

The woman looked at him for a long moment.

Then she answered with a question of her own.

"Who are you to Aria?"

Kael opened his mouth.

The answer should have been simple.

He was her Alpha.

Her mate.

The man who had rejected her.

Instead, he found himself unable to speak.

The woman gave a sad little shake of her head.

"That's what I thought."

Aria left the clinic shortly before sunset.

She carried a small bag of groceries and a folded medical appointment card. Her back ached, and she was exhausted after spending most of the afternoon helping at the bakery.

Still, she smiled when she thought about the tiny movements she had begun to feel.

Her baby was growing.

That thought had become her greatest source of strength.

She turned onto the street leading home.

Then she stopped.

A familiar black vehicle stood near the bakery.

Her blood ran cold.

She knew that vehicle.

She knew the man standing beside it.

Even from several feet away, she recognized the broad shoulders, the dark hair, and the commanding presence that once made her heart race with happiness.

Kael.

For a moment, the world seemed to disappear around her.

He turned.

Their eyes met.

His expression changed so quickly that she almost missed it.

Shock.

Relief.

And something dangerously close to longing.

"Aria."

Her name sounded different in his mouth now.

Softer.

As though he had spent months searching for the courage to say it.

She tightened her grip on the grocery bag.

"What are you doing here?"

Kael took one step toward her.

"I've been looking for you."

She almost laughed.

"You've been looking for me?"

"Yes."

"How unfortunate."

His brows drew together.

"Aria, I came here to talk."

"Then talk."

He seemed unprepared for her coldness.

Perhaps he had imagined she would cry when she saw him. Perhaps he thought she would throw herself into his arms, grateful that he had finally come looking for her.

He had underestimated her.

"I want to know why you left," he said.

For several seconds, Aria simply stared at him.

Then she let out a disbelieving breath.

"Why did I leave?"

Her voice shook with anger.

"You rejected me, Kael. In front of everyone. You told an entire pack that I was unworthy of being your mate, and now you want to know why I left?"

His expression hardened.

"I never said you were unworthy."

"You didn't have to."

The silence between them was unbearable.

Kael looked at her as though he wanted to say something, but the words refused to come.

Aria shifted the grocery bag in her arms.

She wanted to walk away.

She wanted to run.

Most of all, she wanted to stop caring that he was standing in front of her.

Then Kael's gaze dropped.

His eyes settled on her abdomen.

Aria's heart stopped.

The bag slipped slightly in her hands.

For one terrible second, neither of them moved.

Kael looked back at her face.

Then down again.

His voice emerged as little more than a whisper.

"Aria..."

She swallowed.

"Don't."

"Are you—"

"Don't ask me that."

His face had gone pale.

The scent reached him then.

Beneath the familiar wildflowers was another scent.

Small.

Warm.

Unmistakable.

A child's scent.

Kael staggered half a step backward.

"No."

Aria's eyes filled with tears, but she refused to let them fall.

He stared at her abdomen as if the world had suddenly shifted beneath his feet.

"You're pregnant."

It wasn't a question.

Aria lifted her chin.

"Yes."

Kael looked at her, searching her face for something he could understand.

"How long?"

"That is none of your business."

"Aria, please."

The word please sounded foreign coming from him.

She had spent so long begging him for affection that hearing him use the same word felt almost cruel.

"Please what, Kael?"

He had no answer.

She stepped around him.

"Move."

He didn't.

"Aria, is the child mine?"

She stopped.

Slowly, she turned to face him.

"Who else would it be?"

The moment the words left her mouth, Kael looked as though she had struck him.

He had imagined many possible reasons for her disappearance.

He had imagined her finding another man.

He had imagined her building a life without him.

But he had never imagined this.

A child.

His child.

Growing inside the woman he had rejected.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked.

Aria's expression broke into something bitter and exhausted.

"When exactly was I supposed to tell you? Before or after you made it clear that you wanted nothing to do with me?"

Kael flinched.

For the first time in his life, the Alpha of the Blackwood Pack had no command capable of fixing what he had broken.

And Aria had never looked more determined to walk away from him.