Chapter 5

Seeing Adrian standing at the pack gates was the one thing I had not planned for, which was impressive considering I had spent the entire night planning how to disappear without anyone noticing.

I tightened my grip around the strap of my bag and immediately looked toward the road behind me, wondering whether I could turn around without making it obvious that I was panicking, but that idea died quickly because Adrian had already seen me and was walking straight in my direction with the same unreadable expression he always wore whenever he wanted the entire world to leave him alone.

I kept walking anyway.

Maybe he would let me pass. Maybe he had something else to deal with. Maybe the Moon Goddess would show me a tiny bit of mercy after everything that had happened.

Adrian stepped directly into my path.

I stopped so abruptly that the bag slipped down my shoulder.

“Where are you going at this hour with a bag packed like you're planning to disappear for a month?”

I adjusted the strap.

“Somewhere that doesn't concern you.”

His eyes moved over my face, then to the bag, then back to me.

“You're still my rejected mate, Elena, which means I have every reason to know why you're leaving my territory in the middle of the night.”

I gave him a bitter laugh.

“You made me none of your business the moment you rejected me in front of everyone, so don't suddenly remember some connection between us because you saw me carrying a bag.”

His expression tightened.

For once, he didn't immediately have something cruel to throw back at me. That should have made me feel better. His gaze stayed on my face, and I hated the way he was studying me because I had spent weeks trying to become invisible and now this man was looking at me as if he could somehow see straight through every lie I had carefully built.

“You look sick,” he said.

“I am fine.”

“You nearly fell over while you were saying that.”

“I said I'm fine.”

“You're lying.”

I swallowed and looked away.

The closer he stood, the worse my body felt, and I hated that my own body was apparently determined to betray me whenever Adrian was near. His scent made my stomach twist, his presence made the strange heat beneath my skin return, and I had to keep reminding myself that I was carrying his child while standing only a few feet away from the man who had no idea.

His eyes narrowed.

“Have you been with another man?”

I stared at him. The question was so insulting that for a second I actually forgot I was supposed to be afraid of being discovered.

“Are you seriously asking me whether I ran into another man's arms after you publicly called me worthless in front of the entire pack?”

“I didn't say that.”

“You didn't have to.”

My voice shook with anger.

“You stood there while Rosalie called me a whore, Adrian, and you did absolutely nothing, so don't stand here now and look at me like you suddenly care who touches me.”

His jaw tightened.

“I never called you a whore.”

“No, you just rejected me and let everyone else finish the job.”

He looked away for a moment. I tightened my grip around the bag and stepped around him.

“I have somewhere to be.”

Adrian caught my arm.

The bond slammed through both of us.

I gasped and nearly dropped the bag as heat rushed through my chest, and Adrian's fingers tightened around my wrist while his expression changed because whatever he felt had clearly hit him just as hard.

I tried to pull away.

“Let go of me.”

“What are you hiding from me?”

“Nothing.”

His eyes searched mine, and for one terrible second, I almost told him. I almost looked straight into his face and said the words that had been burning inside me for weeks. I’m carrying your child. They rose all the way to my throat, but I swallowed them back when the memory of the ceremony came rushing in. I could still remember my knees hitting the ground in front of everyone, Rosalie's voice cutting through the silence as she called me a whore, and Adrian standing there while I bled on the sheets that night. Whatever courage had pushed the words to my throat disappeared, leaving me with nothing but the certainty that I couldn't tell him.

So I swallowed the truth.

“Nothing,” I repeated.

Adrian's gaze sharpened.

“You expect me to believe that?”

Before I could answer, a familiar voice came from behind us.

“What exactly are you doing with her?”

Rosalie.

Of course.

She approached with two women behind her, her eyes immediately dropping to Adrian's hand around my wrist before moving to my face. Then her expression hardened.

“I thought you were leaving because you were so embarrassed, Elena, but apparently you found another reason to stay.”

I pulled against Adrian's grip.

Rosalie smiled.

“Don't look so frightened, sweetheart, because I'm not the one stopping you from leaving.”

“You followed him here just to start this again?”

“I followed my Alpha because I wanted to see where he was going, and I found you pretending to be sick so he would stop you from leaving.”

Adrian's head turned toward her.

“Enough.”

Rosalie's mouth fell open slightly.

She looked from him to me.

“Why are you defending her?”

“I'm not defending anyone, Rosalie, but if you have nothing useful to say, then stop making a scene at the gates.”

Her face flushed, and I didn't wait to see what she would say or what Adrian would do next. The moment his attention shifted toward her, I tore my wrist from his grip and ran, ignoring the sting in my arm as I pushed through the doorway. I heard him call my name behind me, but I kept going without looking back.

I ran past the guards, past the boundary stones, past the place where I had spent my entire life being told who I was supposed to be, and I kept going until the trees swallowed the sound of the pack behind me.

By the time the sky began turning gray, my legs were shaking.

I stopped near the border and bent forward, gripping my knees while I tried to catch my breath.

My stomach twisted. I pressed a hand against it.

“You're coming with me,” I whispered, barely able to get the words out. “Whatever happens, you're coming with me.”

I looked back at the distant lights of Blood Moon Pack and waited, half expecting to see someone coming after me, but the road behind me remained empty. At least, no one was close enough for me to see. I wiped the tears from my face and stepped across the border, holding my breath as I waited for something to happen. For several seconds, nothing did.

I almost laughed at myself because I had spent the entire night imagining warriors chasing me through the forest, Adrian finding me, Rosalie exposing me, and my entire life collapsing before sunrise, yet I was standing outside the territory with nothing but trees, darkness, and a bag hanging from my shoulder.

Then I heard something move behind me.

I turned slowly and saw a wolf standing between the trees. It was large, much larger than any ordinary wolf I had seen around Blood Moon, and its fur was so dark that parts of its body disappeared into the shadows whenever it moved. My hand went straight to the knife I had packed into my bag before leaving, the only weapon I had thought to bring in case I ran into trouble on the road.

The wolf didn't growl or move toward me. It simply watched. I tightened my fingers around the knife.

“Don't come any closer.”

My voice sounded ridiculous against the silence of the forest, but I didn't care. The wolf only tilted its head as if it were trying to understand me, and before I could decide what to do, another wolf stepped out from behind the trees. My grip tightened around the knife, and then a third appeared, followed by another, until I found myself slowly backing away while keeping my eyes on them. Every part of me was screaming at me to run, but something about the way they stood made me hesitate. They weren't surrounding me like hunters, and they weren't preparing to attack. They were simply watching me.

It took me a few seconds to notice where their eyes kept going. My stomach.

I looked down instinctively, my palm settling over the small curve that wasn't even visible yet. Nothing had changed, and yet when I looked back up, there were even more wolves between the trees. Five had become eight, and then so many that I stopped counting because my mind couldn't make sense of what I was seeing. Every single one of them was staring at me.

I took another step backward, and the largest wolf moved.

My hand tightened around the knife as it came closer, but instead of attacking, it stopped several feet away and lowered its head slightly. I stared at it, hardly daring to breathe, and after a moment, the wolf behind it lowered its head too. Another followed, then another, until the entire group had lowered their heads toward me. I stood there with the knife still clutched in my hand, suddenly unsure whether I could even use it against them while trying to understand what the hell I was looking at.

I didn't move, and neither did they. I looked from one wolf to another, waiting for one of them to move, attack, run, or do anything that would make this strange scene make sense, but nothing happened. They were simply standing there with their heads lowered.