The Dark Alpha: True Luna

I can see Maude and I crouched together in the laundry room, hiding with the door locked. The shattering sound of the front window plays in my head, mixed with my rapid breathing and then interrupted by Alpha Rowan's voice: Good girl, Celeste.

Not this time. Whoever those wolves are, I won't let them torment me; I won't give them the chance.

The forest floor is wet against the soles of my feet, numbing my toes even though it's soft now and no longer icy. I didn't dress for muggy weather. I dressed believing my morning would be spent on the couch sipping cups of tea between teeth-grinding contractions chipping at the walls of my mental fort. Another contraction builds just under my navel, and I hold my belly like it can be taken from me.

The pain slows me down, but the border isn't too far from...

My plan falters. The border isn't as close as it once was. The first territory expansion stretched the northwestern side, and the second moved the eastern border. Without time to make it elsewhere, I persist ahead because there may still be guards at the eastern post as the new posts are still in construction.

There are no wolves in the forest surrounding me, no scents other than the earthiness and dampness of recent rainfall. It takes about a half hour to get to the border on foot, less if you're in a rush, but I keep stopping to lean on trees as waves of false labor come and go. Eventually, when I near the old eastern border post, the lack of scents is no longer a good thing. I make it to the tower, to the room underneath it, and I open the unlocked door. There's no one inside—nothing at all—just bare bones staring back at me.

In desperate need of a break, I shut myself in the room and slump against the door. The weight of my belly drags me to the stone floor, and its chill cuts through my clothes almost instantly. But I'm not cold. I built up a sweat trekking all the way here. It takes a couple of minutes for me to catch my breath, and then I accept that I need to think of my next move.

Did those wolves trespass onto the territory? Did a group of rogues working for their freedom band together to take matters into their own hands? Or maybe the Alpha of a doomed bloodline is jealous of Draven's endurance—that would explain the wolves' interest in the pack house, in me. Perhaps just now I escaped my murder by the skin of my teeth. I saved my babies and the bloodline and that blood-thirsty gang of hired killers will be caught.

Unless they aren't alone.

A contraction builds again, evaporating my thoughts. I press my back into the door and breathe through the intense cramping.

I pray the wolves don't damage my house. I expect they'll break down the door or through a window to sniff me out, but Amy should have been on her way back just in time. She could have seen the busted-open door and ran back to the fields yelling for help. Goddess, I just hope she didn't run inside after me, right into the intruders' arms.

I groan, pleading with my body. Between the pain of the contractions and the frustration of not knowing what's happening at the house, my emotional control wavers. I feel like a turtle flipped on its back.

Wetness soaks my behind. I scoot away from the door and check to see if water is leaking under it, but the wetness is coming from me. I check myself, knowing my bladder isn't as resilient as it was before my belly started to grow, but I didn't have an accident—I still feel the pressure of needing to go. My panic spills out of my throat in small whines as I search for any other cause of the wetness. The truth looms over me, so I keep my head down.

Howling echoes through the woods, coming from the inner pack. A chain reaction starts, some howls farther and others closer. Draven pack members wouldn't do that unless...they were warning one another. Wolves particularly close shout up into the air, not close enough to be at the border with me, but close enough to be at the fields, the pack house, or the high-standing neighborhood.