Fleeing Away

When I finally stumbled back to Moon Glazed Pack three days later, everything had changed.

The whispers started the moment I crossed the border. Pack members who’d known me my whole life turned their backs, literally stepping away as I passed. Their eyes burned with judgment, their hushed voices not quite hushed enough.

“…heard she slept with a rogue…”

“…complete disgrace to her father…”

“…and after everything Alpha Taylor gave her…”

My stomach twisted. How did they know? I’d been gone for three days, holed up in that stranger’s apartment, too broken and ashamed to come home.

I couldn’t remember if we’d actually done anything. Everything after that kiss was a blur of alcohol and tears.

I rushed toward my house, desperate to see my dad, to explain, to make him understand that I wasn’t the villain in this story.

But the closer I got, the more my wolf whimpered inside me, sensing something terribly wrong.

The door hung crooked on its hinges.

“Dad?” My voice cracked as I stepped inside. The living room was trashed—furniture overturned, pictures smashed, his favorite chair torn to shreds. “Dad!”

I found him in the kitchen or what was left of him.

His body lay crumpled against the wall, his head… his head was gone.

Just gone. Blood pooled beneath him, already starting to dry into a dark, horrible stain. On the wall above him, scrawled in his own blood, were the words .

‘TRAITOR’S FATHER.’

I couldn’t scream. Couldn’t breathe.

My knees gave out and I collapsed beside him, my hands hovering over his body, afraid to touch, afraid to make it real.

“No. No, no, no, no, no.” The words came out in a broken whisper. “Daddy, please. Please wake up.”

“Touching, really.”

I spun around. Taylor stood in the doorway, flanked by two of his enforcers. His face was cold, expressionless—nothing like the desperate, stammering man who’d begged for my understanding just days ago.

“You did this,” I breathed, the truth crashing over me like ice water. “You killed him.”

“I executed a traitor’s accomplice,” he corrected, his voice flat and official. “When you ran off and fucked some random rogue, you committed treason against your Alpha. Against our bond. Your father tried to cover for you, claimed he didn’t know where you’d gone. He was lying, of course. He always protected you, even when you didn’t deserve it.”

“I didn’t... we didn’t... I was drunk, I don’t even remember—”

“Doesn’t matter.” He crouched down to my level, close enough that I could smell Ennik’s perfume still clinging to his shirt. “You left me. You disrespected me in front of my pack. You think I could just let that slide? What kind of Alpha would that make me?”

“The kind who cheated first!” I screamed, my grief erupting into rage. “You were inside her! I walked in on you fucking her in your father’s bed!”

His hand shot out, gripping my jaw hard enough to bruise. “Watch your tone. You’re addressing your Alpha.”

“You’re not my Alpha anymore.” The words tasted like poison, but I forced them out. “I, Lori—”

His hand clamped over my mouth, silencing me. “Oh no. You don’t get to reject me. That’s not how this works.” He released me with a shove that sent me sprawling into my father’s blood. “You’re going to live with what you’ve done. Every single day, you’re going to remember that your slutty little revenge stunt cost your father his life.”

He stood, brushing off his pants like he’d just finished a routine pack meeting.

“You have until sunset to get out of Moon Glazed territory. If you’re still here after dark, my enforcers have orders to kill you on sight.” He paused at the door, glancing back with something almost like pity. “For what it’s worth, Lori? You could’ve had everything. You just couldn’t accept that everything wasn’t enough.”

The door slammed behind him.

I sat there in my father’s blood, my world reduced to ash and agony, and finally understood the truth: Taylor had planned this.

All of it. He’d wanted me to find him with Ennik. Wanted me to run. Wanted an excuse to break me completely while maintaining his image as the righteous, wounded Alpha.

And I’d played right into his hands.

As the sun began its descent toward the horizon, I pressed one last kiss to my father’s cold forehead and whispered, “I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m so sorry.”

Then I ran.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The forest was a blur of tears and shadows. I didn't know where I was going, only that I had to get as far away from the Moon Glazed Pack as possible.

From Taylor punishments.

I stumbled onto the deserted road, my breath catching in ragged sobs. That’s when I saw them—an elderly couple with a flat tire, a beacon of normalcy in my crumbling world.

“Are you okay, dear? Calm down, call me Mrs. Richardson,” a gentle voice said. A bespectacled grandmother took my icy hand, her touch a startling kindness. “Why are you out here all alone?”

“I…” Words failed me.

Exhaustion and grief pressed down, and my legs buckled.

Mr. Richardson exchanged a worried look with his wife. “She's in shock. Seems so terrified by something.”

He tried to looking around.

“Sweet little one are you… are you harrased by a thug? Where they are?” Mrs. Richardson stroked my cheeks.

They’re seem like pure human, should I told them about my background? Did they’ll understand about my conditions?

That though make me muted instantly, looked so dumb before them. But Mrs. Richardson seema so nurturing and generous one.

“What if you come with us?” She offered, her voice soft. “We have a spare room. You can stay until you find your feet.”

I could only nod, a silent refugee accepting sanctuary.

“Thank you,” I whispered, the words feeling foreign on my tongue.

They took me to their modest apartment, a safe harbor in the storm of my life. I found odd jobs, clinging to this new, fragile freedom.

I was no longer the shunned hybrid, the rejected mate. I was just a girl trying to survive.

I enrolled in a fashion design course, a dream I had buried deep in my heart, and for a few months, life was peaceful. I was healing.

But my body began to betray the calm. A deep, unshakable fatigue. Months without a cycle. I blamed the stress, the relentless work. I ignored the signs, burying myself in sketches and fabric.

On a day off, during a small picnic by the lake with the kindly Richardsons, Mr. Richardson’s innocent comment shattered my carefully built composure. “The man who marries you will be a lucky one.”

Taylor. Will he feel like the lucky one when he’s my husband?

The name was a ghost in my mind, a phantom pain that never faded.

Later that night, rushing to finish my competition entry under my mentor Marley’s urgent watch, a rival student sneered, "You can't win without experience. Just give up."

I ignored her, pushing forward until a sudden, violent headache slammed into me. I staggered, clutching a rack of fabrics for support.

“Loretta? Are you ill?” Marley asked, her voice edged with impatience.

“It's nothing,” I lied, my vision swimming. “Just tired.”

I worked through the night, fueled by desperation. The next morning, I delivered the finished gown, a piece of my soul packed in a box.

As I stepped out of the company building, a wave of dizziness stronger than any before crashed over me.

The world tilted, the city sounds morphing into a deafening roar.

My knees gave way. The last thing I heard before the darkness swallowed me whole was not the city, but a woman’s ear-piercing scream—my own.

I opened my eyes in a room filled with the scent of antiseptic. The throbbing headache persisted, and I felt even more faint. The woman's voice continued to echo in my ears, urging me to confront a truth I was not prepared for.

“Who... who are you?” I managed to stammer, my gaze searching for familiarity.

The woman sighed, her eyes reflecting a mix of concern and disappointment. “I'm Dr. Turner, and you're in the hospital. You fainted outside a company building. Do you not remember?”

A wave of confusion swept over me. The events leading to my collapse remained elusive, like fragments of a dream slipping away. I nodded weakly, unsure of how I ended up here or why.

Dr. Turner continued, “You're pregnant, and it seems you didn't know. You should have been more careful, especially considering your condition.”

“P-pregnant?”

“Yes, in your first trisemester.”

As I grappled with the shocking revelation of a possible pregnancy, questions swirled in my mind like a tempest.

Was this the consequence of a night I could barely remember, a choice made in the haze of alcohol and vulnerability?

The fear and uncertainty weighed heavily on me.

Did I really have a one-night stand with the mysterious man under the influence of alcohol, and now I'm pregnant? Pregnant with a stranger's child?