Chapter 7

AURORA

I woke up gasping like I'd been pulled up from underwater.

For one horrible second I didn't know where I was, and my whole body reacted before my mind could even catch up to it. I could still feel the cold metal of the chains digging into my wrists, still smell the inside of that truck, still hear the engine grinding on and on for hours with no end anywhere in sight. My whole body still ached in the same places it had ached for days.

My hand flew to my stomach before I even opened my eyes all the way.

"No," I said, and then it wasn't a word anymore, as a scream ripped from my throat. "No, no! Where's my baby?! Someone tell me where my baby is!"

I didn't recognize the room around me. But what I noticed was the soft blanket pulled up to my chin, a warm fire crackling somewhere close by, and curtains in a deep green shade I'd never seen before in my entire life.

None of it made any sense, and none of it mattered, because all I could think about was the small curve under my hand and whether my baby was still there, or whether the poison, the chains, and the endless truck ride had taken the one thing I still had left in this world.

It was still there.

The relief that hit me was so strong and sudden that I nearly threw up from the force of it. My baby was still alive, against every single terrible odds that had piled against it since the night everything fell apart.

"Hey, hey. You're okay." A woman I didn't recognize leaned over me, her hands gentle but firm on my shoulders as she eased me back against the pillows before I could throw myself out of the bed entirely. "You're safe. You're in Ravenwood Pack, in the Alpha's palace."

Safe wasn't the word I would have picked for this.

My heart was still slamming against my ribs really hard, and my whole body felt wrong somehow; too light and too heavy at the same time, like I'd forgotten how to exist properly inside my own skin.

Ravenwood? I'd heard those words my entire life, always spoken in the hushed, careful tone grown-ups used for things that scared them, always followed by a small shudder from whoever said them out loud.

"The Kingslayer," I whispered, mostly to myself, testing the name against everything I'd ever been told about the man who supposedly owned it.

The woman's face didn't change much, but the look in her eyes told me she'd heard that particular name whispered plenty of times before too, probably more than she'd like.

"Where's Dylan?" I asked, my voice breaking now. "Does he know I'm alive? Did anyone even tell him?"

She hesitated just for a second, but it was long enough for my stomach to sink.

That hesitation told me everything I needed to know before she even opened her mouth to answer properly.

"I don't know who Dylan is," she said carefully, choosing each word like she was walking across thin ice. "Nobody's come asking about you, sweetheart. Nobody has sent a single word north since the night you arrived here."

Nobody's coming.

The thought landed in my chest like a stone, taking every ounce of my breath with it. Dylan didn't know I was alive. Or worse, maybe he did know by now and simply hadn't bothered to come looking, exactly the way he hadn't shown up the last time I needed him.

Either way, I was here, completely alone, in the home of a man everyone south of the border talked about with fear, carrying a baby whose father probably thought I was already dead and buried in some quiet, forgotten grave somewhere.

I pressed my hand harder against my stomach, as if I could somehow shield my baby from all of it just by holding on tight enough, like my body could be a wall between my child and the rest of this cruel world.

"I want to go home," I said, even though I wasn't entirely sure anymore that I even had a home left to go back to.

"I know," the woman said softly, brushing a strand of hair away from my damp face. "Just breathe for me. You're safe here, I promise you that much."

I didn't believe her. How would I be safe in this cold, unfamiliar place, with the weight of everything that had happened to me hanging over my head like a thick cloud no matter how hard I tried to push it away?

"What's your name?" I asked, mostly just to have something to think about besides the panic still clawing up my throat.

"Elsie," she replied.

I looked down at my stomach again, like I still wasn’t quite sure that my baby was there, unharmed. "Is the baby really okay? You're sure?"

"The heartbeat's strong," Elsie replied, her voice softening even further.

It wasn't much. It wasn't home, and it definitely wasn't Dylan showing up in the doorway to tell me none of it had been real, that he'd come the second he heard. But it was something to hold on to, and right then I needed something to hold on to more than I needed almost anything else in the world.

I was still trying to slow my breathing and make my shaking hands go still, when the door opened without a single knock announcing it first.

I froze completely, every muscle in my body going rigid at once.

A man filled the entire doorway. He was tall, broad shouldered, dark haired, and dressed head to toe in black like he'd stepped straight out of every terrifying story I'd ever heard whispered back home in Silverlake pack.

His eyes were so dark they looked almost black in the firelight, and they were locked on me the second he stepped through the door.

Nobody in the room moved. Nobody said a single word.

The man just stood there in the doorway, watching me with an intensity that made my skin prickle all over, like he was trying to work out exactly what kind of creature I actually was.