Chapter Five: Where Is Rowan?

"I'll call someone to get you."

"No, Rowan, please—" I grabbed the phone tighter, my voice breaking. "I'm hurt. I really need to see a doctor. Please don't—"

The line went dead.

"Rowan?"

Tears streamed down my face as I called him again. And again. Every call went straight to voicemail.

How could he do this to me?

I curled up on the narrow bed, crying. I banged on the door, begging the guards outside to help me. The contractions kept coming, each one worse than the last, but no one answered.

The pain was too much. I didn't think I would survive this. Maybe Rowan was right. Maybe I really was just a weak human. My eyes felt heavy. I collapsed onto the cold floor, blood pooling between my thighs.

Everything went dark.

I felt movement. Someone was carrying me.

I forced my eyes open and realized I was in a car. A car? Had Rowan finally come for me? I knew he wouldn't abandon me.

I lifted my head slightly and saw I was lying across the backseat. When I looked toward the front, my stomach dropped.

It wasn't Rowan.

Two men I didn't recognize sat in the front seats.

I tried to sit up despite the pain. My body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.

"Where are you taking me?" I whispered.

The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror. "We're only following the Alpha's orders."

Alpha's orders?

I started coughing. When I caught my breath, I asked, "Where's Rowan? Why isn't he here?"

They didn't answer.

I looked out the window. We weren't heading toward town or the pack clinic. The road was getting narrower. Trees pressed in on both sides.

"You're lying," I said weakly. "Please, let me go. Aren't you afraid of what Rowan will do if he finds out about this?"

The passenger guard shrugged. "Call him if you don't believe us."

I fumbled for my phone as the car went deeper into the forest. My hands were shaking. I was so scared. I finally found my phone and dialed Rowan's number.

Voicemail. Again.

I was sweating now. I needed to get out of this car.

The guard in the passenger seat turned to look at me. For a moment, something almost like pity flickered in his eyes.

"Humans don't last long out here," he said quietly. "We're doing you a favor."

The car pulled onto a narrow dirt track, miles from any paved road.

The engine idled. Both guards climbed out, shifted into wolves in a blur of fur and muscle, and disappeared into the woods without looking back.

They left the keys in the ignition. My small emergency bag sat on the passenger seat. The car was still running.

I slid behind the wheel, tears blurring my vision. The contractions were coming faster now, one after another. Blood soaked through my clothes and onto the seat.

I drove until the engine sputtered and died. The fuel gauge read empty.

–

Five Years Later

I stood in the bright operating room of Crestwood Pack Hospital, my gloved hands steady as I guided a difficult breech delivery.

The pup emerged with a strong, angry wail.

The new mother laughed through exhausted tears as the nurses wrapped the tiny wolf-shifter in a warm blanket and placed him on her chest.

I stepped back, peeled off my gloves, and let the team take over. For just a moment, I watched the newborn's scrunched face, the way his tiny fingers flexed.

My chest ached the way it always did.

Five years.

Five years since that night on the forest road.

I had woken two days later in a strange infirmary bed. Bandages wrapped tight around my abdomen. An IV line in my arm.

Alpha Kai of Crestwood Pack had found the wrecked car during a routine border sweep. He had carried me to his healers himself.

I remembered crying in his arms, begging him to save my baby first. But the look in his eyes told me everything I was too afraid to hear.

There was no baby.

The trauma cracked something open inside me. My wolf, sealed away since childhood by some magic I still didn't understand, finally woke. She was fierce and protective, flooding me with senses I'd never known I lacked.

I had no family to trace. No past anyone could find. Just me, a human-born woman suddenly carrying a wolf inside her skin.

Kai offered me a future. He sponsored my medical training. "An investment in the pack," he called it, though we both knew he was just being kind.

I graduated early, returned to Crestwood, and built a life delivering werewolf pups. Now I was one of the most trusted obstetric specialists in the region. High-risk births that once ended in tragedy now had excellent outcomes because of protocols I helped develop.

I still carried the single ultrasound photo in my wallet. The grainy black-and-white image of my baby at twenty-eight weeks.

After the delivery, I went to my office to finish my notes. Kai was waiting, leaning against my desk with two paper cups of coffee.

"Still saying no to Blackwood Pack?" he asked, handing me a cup.

Blackwood was Rowan's territory now. Their Alpha had sent three separate invitations in the past year, asking me to consult on complicated pregnancies.

"Yes," I said. "I'm not going."

I had never told Kai about my past with Rowan, and he didn't push. I promised to tell him when I was ready, but it had been five years now. I still couldn't find the words.

I didn't want to be reminded of that nightmare. Kai seemed to understand because he stopped asking.

"The Council wants you at the big meeting next week, though," Kai said as he sat in the chair across from me, crossing his legs. His hazel-blue eyes stared back at me. "Election season. They say birth rates are climbing everywhere because of your methods."

I took a sip of coffee and raised my gaze to meet his. "Will there be Alphas from other packs?”