- CHAPTER FIVE -

SLOANE.

They killed my mother two weeks ago.

They used a silver blade at dawn, right on the boundary line where the dirt met the pine trees. I wasn't allowed to watch but I heard the crowd roar from my bedroom window.

Afterward, Raul didn't throw me out despite the numerous debates. He locked me in the east wing instead. Every day was a war. He would step into my room, and I would hurl whatever I could reach at his head. A brass lamp, my shoes, a stool. He took every hit without flinching, until I was too exhausted to fight.

I thought the constant dizziness and the cold sweat dripping down my back were just grief. But when the morning sickness hit three days ago, I knew something was wrong. My half human body couldn't handle pureblood diseases, but this felt different.

It was deep and heavy.

I didn't call the pack doctor. I knew better than to trust anyone in Raul's inner circle.

Down, while the night shift sentries were rotating at the eastern fence, I slipped out through the laundry hatch. I stayed low in the tall grass, my boots sinking into the wet mud as I made my way toward the outer border.

Old Neda lived in a dilapidated wooden cabin on the edge of the neutral zone. She was an ancient half blood healer who traded herbs for coins and didn't give a shit about Alpha decrees.

The brass bell above her door chimed as I pushed my way inside. The air smelled of dried sage, bitter roots and wet dirt.

Neda wiped her winkled hands on her apron, her milky grey eyes on me. She didn't offer condolences about my mother, her old friend. She just gestured to the wooden cot in the corner.

"Lie down, girl," she grunted, her voice like dry leaves scraping across concrete. "You look like a corpse.

"I feel like one." I muttered.

She huffed under her breath. "Your mother's death doesn't seem like the only thing that has taken a toll on you."

"She was your friend," I snapped, sitting on the edge of the cot, my hands shaking in my lap. "Show some remorse."

She laughed. "I warned your mother, now shut up and let me do my work."

"I'm sick. I think the fever from last month damaged something."

Neda didn't argue. She pulled a small clay bowl of crushed leaves from her shelf, pressed her thumb into the paste, and smeared it across my lower abdomen. Her cold fingers pressed hard against my skin, pushing deep below my belly button.

I winced, my breath catching in my throat.

A strange, low hum vibrated beneath her palm. She went completely still. Her grey eyes widened, her brow pulling together as she drew her hand back.

"You're pregnant," the healer says, her voice flat.

My heart stopped beating. The air in the cabin turned to ice.

"No....that's impossible," I whispered, my voice cracking as I backed up against the wooden wall. "I'm a half breed. Purebloods don't conceive with my kind easily. It takes years and I haven't slept with anyone recently-"

"It takes one shift of the moon if the Alpha claims you," Neda cut in, wiping her hand on a rag. "His mark is on your neck, girl. It doesn't matter if it's a full bite or a nip in the dark. His blood recognized yours,"

"You're carrying a pureblood wolf."

I placed my trembling hands over my stomach. The heat beneath my skin wasn't a fever. It was a pulse, a second tiny heartbeat thrumming beneath my own.

Raul's child.

The heir to the Blackridge.

A cold wave of terror slammed into my chest, wiping out the grief and nausea. If Raul found out about this, my life was over. He would build a cage so tight I won't be able to breathe. He would use this child to tie me to his throne forever or worse he would take the baby the moment it was born and dump my body in the woods just like he did with my mother.

"I have to go," I panicked, scrambling off the cot, my boots hitting the floorboards.

"He'll feel the shift soon," Neda warned, stepping in front of the door. "An Alpha's bond with his blood is strong. By tonight, his wolf will know."

"If he finds me, he'll take everything," I choked out, tears finally burning the corners of my eyes. My father was dead, and now my mother, my whole life was ruined and now I had the monster's legacy growing inside me.

Neda reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a small, leather bound pouch filled with crushed black roots. She shoved it into my hand. "Then don't let him," she said fiercely, her grip tight around my fingers. "Swallow a pinch of this every sunrise. It masks the scent of the pup in your blood. It should last you for years. Now run, before his forces smell you on the wind."

"Thank you."

I grabbed the pouch, three five silver coins onto her table and shoved the wooden door open.

I didn't go back to the estate to even get my clothes or my mother's last belongings. I ran straight for the tree line, heading west toward the mountains that separated Blackridge territory from the human cities.

The autumn wind whipped through my dress, biting at my bare ankles. I ran until my lungs burned, my feet sliding over jagged stones.

Five miles deep into the thick timber, my collarbone suddenly exploded with heat.

I stumbled, dropping to my knees in the dirt, a gasp ripping from my throat. The claim mark on my neck throbbed wildly, pulling tight against my skin like a hot wire.

Across the distant valley, a low, deafening howl shattered the quiet of the forest. The sound carried a crushing, furious weight that made the birds burst from the canopy in a panic. The air shifted.

Raul knew I was gone. His wolf had woken up, and he was already hunting.

I pushed myself off the ground, clutching my stomach with both hands. I looked back once at the dark mountains behind me, then turned and plunged deeper into the wilderness.

I was running for my life, carrying the Alpha's unborn heir into the dark and it was only a matter of time before Raul found me.