All Chapters of Running Away with Alpha's Baby Bump: Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

Night settled over the forest like a veil pulled tight.Kael didn’t let go of me the entire walk back. Not once. His hand locked around mine, his other arm always hovering at my lower back as if the ground itself might decide to swallow me again.The others had been sent away from the temple hours ago, when the Devourer’s presence first flared. Which meant the three of us returned to a silent camp with no firelight, no voices, nothing but the faint glow of barrier sigils Lira had drawn in a rushed, sloppy circle.They flickered.A warning more than protection.Kael guided me to the bedroll he’d laid out for us earlier, but the second my knees bent, the ground felt wrong. Too soft. Too warm. Too alive.I shook my head. “I can’t lie down. Not yet.”Kael’s jaw tightened. “Aria—”“I’ll see it again.”His breath caught.Lira knelt a few feet away, already pulling out small rune stones. “Then we don’t let you sleep. At least not until we know what triggered the vision.”“It wasn’t a vision,

The vibration in the air didn’t fade.It deepened.Thickened.Like invisible fingers pressed against the barrier of the world, testing its seams.Kael was on his feet before the breath fully left my lungs. One moment his warmth was at my back like an anchor, shield, certainty, and the next he was a wall of golden fury between me and anything that dared breathe in our direction.“Stay behind me.”Not a command.A plea wrapped in iron.Lira scrambled to gather the rune stone, but her hands shook so badly she nearly dropped it. “We need to go. Now. Whatever reacted to her awakening—”“It’s not awake,” I whispered, pushing to my feet even as my legs trembled. “Just listening.”Kael shot me a look that could have shattered mountains. “That doesn’t make it better.”The forest groaned again. A ripple moved across the ground like a sigh passing through dirt and roots. Not dangerous, but searching. Trying to locate the new beat inside me.The cold heartbeat pulsed once.Once.Once.Calling bac

Sleep didn’t find me.Not even close.Kael stayed near, close enough that the heat of him brushed my skin every time I drew a breath, but even his presence couldn’t quiet the restless cold that pulsed in my chest. That second heartbeat. That uninvited companion.That ancient thing.We stayed inside one of the inner temple rooms, the ones layered in old wards that hummed faintly through the walls. They were supposed to keep outside forces out.But nothing could keep what was inside me from stirring.Kael watched the door the way a wolf watches a threat no one else can see. Muscles locked. Jaw sharp. One hand was always, near a blade he didn’t need, but couldn’t reach for.I sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, staring at my palms like they might tell me something.They didn’t.Just skin.Just me.And something beneath.A faint vibration rippled up my spine.Kael turned immediately.“That it?” he asked, voice low.“Yes.” I rubbed at my sternum. “It’s… aware.”He cursed softly

( Kael’s POV )The wards screamed.Not with sound, wards never screamed with sound, but with pressure, a sickening shift in the air that told me something ancient and starving was pushing its way into our world.Aria’s fingers tightened in mine.Too cold.Too fragile.Too important.I didn’t let go.Lira stumbled back from the cracked wall, sigils still burning faintly across her palms. “Kael, it’s halfway through the veil—”“I know.” My voice was steady, but inside my chest something was tearing itself apart. “Stay behind me.”A snarl rose in my throat before I could stop it. A response. Instinctive. Territorial. The same instinct that had been pulling at me ever since Aria’s second heartbeat started syncing to mine.But now it roared.The stone split wider.Black fog poured through the crack with no shape, no form, just hunger made visible. It crawled across the floor like spilled oil, tendrils tasting the air, reaching for—Her.Always her.Aria’s breath hitched, but she didn’t st

( Kael’s POV ) The night tasted like iron.I felt it before I heard it, Aria’s pulse, sharp and wrong, spiking through the bond like a blade dragged across the inside of my ribs. I was only halfway across the estate grounds when it hit me, the sensation slamming into my spine hard enough that my knees nearly buckled.Not fear.Not pain.A bruise, dark cocktail of both, wrapped in something I hated more than any enemy I’d ever faced. Helplessness. Hers.The moment it flared, everything human in me snapped backward like a yanked chain.The wolf surged forward.I didn’t fight it.I let it take me.One second I was running upright, breaths ripping through my lungs, the next I was hitting the ground on all fours, claws carving deep gouges into the dirt as I launched myself forward. Branches slapped my fur, stones shredded under my weight, and still it wasn’t fast enough, I could feel her slipping.Her heartbeat stuttered.Aria—The bond thrummed, thin as spider silk, barely holding.I pu