Chapter 16 - Dane
He hated how on edge he was lately.
The scent had been faint, faded under weeks of rain and wind, but it was there. A stranger. An alpha. Too close to their western perimeter line, near the edge of the Appalachians.
He and Rick had followed it for miles before it vanished into nothing, swallowed by a riverbed and time.
Too clean.
Too intentional.
Dane had paced the perimeter three more times just to be sure, the hair on the back of his neck bristling the entire way. The scent had been unfamiliar, but heavy with aggression, threaded with the sharp, bitter edge of challenge.
Someone had come close.
Too damn close.
And he hadn’t caught them.
Now, standing in front of Lola’s apartment with Sam asleep in the sling strapped to his chest, Dane was vibrating with the kind of tension that made his bones ache.
His knuckles cracked as he flexed his hands.
It wasn’t just the frustration of losing a trail or the pounding headache that’d followed him since sunrise.
It was her.
If she wouldn’t let him near her, how the hell was he supposed to protect her?
She’d gone ice-cold since their last conversation; civil, yes, but entirely distant. She gave him Sam with polite efficiency, thanked him like he was a colleague, and kept her voice as even and empty as a damn librarian answering the phone.
It shouldn’t hurt.
But it did.
He’d tried telling himself it was better this way. That it was good, she was keeping her distance. That it kept her safe.
He was a liar. And not a very good one.
Dane knocked once, already bracing himself for the wall of awkward silence that had become their routine.
Footsteps sounded. Slower than usual. A soft thump. Keys jingling.
Then the door opened, and everything inside him stilled.
Lola stood there in a fitted charcoal skirt that hit just above the knee, a tucked-in forest green blouse with billowing sleeves, and a wool-lined black coat wrapped tightly around her.
She looked like she’d stepped out of an old adventure movie, one where an academic got swept away to some far-off land full of danger and excitement.
Only her eyes gave her away, red-rimmed, her lashes still wet, like she’d only just stopped crying.
She looked up at him, and something flickered behind her expression. Something she locked down so fast it made his gut twist.
“Hi,” she said, voice low and clipped. Her fingers curled tightly around the tote bag slung over one shoulder.
“Hi,” Dane said, quieter than he meant to. Sam stirred against his chest, and he adjusted the sling gently. “You just got back from the library?”
She nodded, glancing at Sam but not at him. “Ethel kept me late. There was a shelving issue in the local history section. I didn’t have time to clean up before you came.”
“I don’t care about that,” he said.
“Didn’t say you did.”
Silence stretched between them, brittle as glass.
Lola reached forward to unbuckle the sling and ease Sam into her arms. Her hands were careful, practiced, but her movements weren’t as fluid as usual. Her balance was a little off. Her breath hitched just slightly when she stood upright again.
And Dane’s senses, keyed up after the failed patrol, caught it.
His body went still.
There, beneath the layers of warm cotton and herbal shampoo, under the familiar scent of Lola and home and comfort…
Something new.
Something subtle, but unmistakable.
A whisper of hormones, earthy and sharp.
A shift in her chemistry.
No. Not just a shift.
Change.
His heart slammed into his ribs. He blinked once, then twice, staring at her with renewed intensity. She was turned slightly away, rocking Sam absently on her hip, murmuring soft nonsense words to soothe him.
She didn’t know.
She doesn’t know.
Dane’s chest tightened, primal instincts roaring to the surface like a tide he couldn’t hold back.
Pregnant.
Lola was pregnant.
With his child.
And she didn’t even know it yet.
He was speaking before he could think better of it.
“You’re pregnant.”
The words landed like thunder between them, even though he’d said them softly.
Lola blinked once. Then again. Her lips parted like she was going to speak, but nothing came out.
Dane barely breathed.
She stared at him as if he’d just announced something completely absurd. Like he’d told her, the moon was made of silver or that she was secretly royalty.
“What?” she said faintly.
“You’re pregnant,” he repeated, quieter this time, like he could soften the blow with repetition. “I can smell it. You’re only a few weeks in, but it’s there. I’d stake my life on it.”
Still, she didn’t move.
Her face was blank, scrubbed clean of expression in that way she did when emotions were too big to manage. When things slipped out of her carefully built internal filing system.
He watched her blinking, watched her wrap her arms tighter around Sam, watched her breathing shallow, as if the air had thickened.
“No,” she finally whispered.
“Lola—”
“No,” she said again, shaking her head, voice rising in pitch, “that’s not…you must be wrong.”
“I’m not.”
“You have to be wrong.”
Her voice was climbing now, her heartbeat thudding so loudly that he could hear it. He could see the tremble start in her fingers, the way she suddenly clutched Sam to her as if Dane had threatened to take them both.
“I can’t be—” she broke off, shook her head again, and looked down at the floor like it might give her a different reality to stand on.
Dane took a slow step forward, “Lola. You’re not alone. Okay? Whatever happens, I’m here.”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
She looked up at him, eyes wide and bright and filled with sheer disbelief, “Stop acting like you can say things like that.”
“I’m not acting.”
“You told me,” she snapped, the emotion finally cracking through, “that we weren’t anything. That you couldn’t do this. That it was too much. So what, now that my hormones have shifted slightly, I’m suddenly worth fighting for?”
He took another step forward, “It’s not about that. It’s—”
“Then what is it?”
“You’re carrying my pup.”
“Don’t say that like it explains everything!”
She was flushed now, pacing a small, agitated loop with Sam in her arms, like she couldn’t stand still. Dane could see her hands tightening against the baby’s blanket, could hear the change in her breathing.
“I don’t even know if I want to be—” she began, then stopped herself, the words catching. “God, I haven’t even taken a test. I haven’t felt sick, I haven’t had time to think, and now you show up, saying these things, acting like…”
Her voice cracked.
Dane moved toward her instinctively, but she stepped back, eyes flashing.
“Don’t.”
He stopped. Palms open. Trying not to spook her, even though every part of him was screaming to pull her into his arms.
“I’m not trying to scare you,” he said quietly.
“Well, you are.”
“Lola—”
“You can’t just claim me, Dane. You don’t get to say ‘you’re mine’ and think that somehow erases all the ways you pushed me away.”
He opened his mouth. Closed it again.
She was right.
But reason and instinct didn’t always move in the same direction, and right now his instincts were deafening.
He could still smell it, the subtle shift in her. A flicker of life taking root. His life. Theirs.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” she muttered, starting to turn toward the hallway.
He moved too fast.
His hand caught her wrist, not hard, not to stop her, just to keep her there. To not let her leave while everything inside him was burning.
She stilled. Slowly turned back.
The look in her eyes was something he couldn’t quite bear.
Hurt. Anger. Fear. And underneath all of it, that terrible, flickering hope.
“Let go,” she said tightly.
“Lola.”
“Let go.”
He did.
But he didn’t back off.
“I can’t pretend this doesn’t matter,” he said hoarsely, “I can’t walk away and act like I didn’t just find out you’re—”
“I didn’t ask you to walk in.”
He stared at her.
She stared back, breathing hard now, like she’d run up a hill and didn’t know how to come back down.
“Do you even want this?” she asked suddenly, her voice cracking. “Or is this just your pack instincts firing off like a reflex? Because I’m not a duty, Dane. I’m not a line item on your list of responsibilities.”
“Of course I want it.”
“Do you want me?”
His mouth opened. But the words, real words, got tangled up in his throat.
She saw it.
And flinched.
“That’s what I thought,” she said, and this time, when she turned, he didn’t stop her.
She vanished down the hall with Sam, leaving him standing in the center of her doorway like someone had stripped the walls from around him.
Everything was crashing down too fast to keep up with. His fear. His guilt. His anger at himself. His fierce, bone-deep desire to protect her, to protect them both.
And none of that made a damn bit of difference if she wouldn’t let him close.
He scrubbed a hand over his face and let out a slow, uneven breath.
She’s pregnant.
The words kept echoing through his head, louder every time.
And he’d blown it.
Again.
But this time, it wasn’t just her heart on the line. It was her safety.
The thought cut through the haze in his mind like a blade. Something primal in him snapped, reacting faster than reason could keep up.
“Lola,” he said, his voice low and sharp as he followed her further into the apartment, through into the living room, where she was gently placing Sam down into his crib. “This isn’t just about you anymore.”
She turned slowly, fire sparking in her eyes. “Oh, I’m sorry, is my potential pregnancy somehow more yours than mine?”
“That’s not what I—”
“Because last I checked, I’m the one carrying it. I’m the one whose body’s about to be hijacked. And you don’t get to show up and start barking orders just because you happened to put it there—”
“I’m trying to keep you safe!”
The words came out louder than he meant, ripping through the apartment like a shockwave.
She flinched, just slightly. It gutted him. But he couldn’t stop.
“I caught the scent of a strange alpha near the territory line this morning,” he growled, stepping forward, “another few steps, and he would’ve been inside our borders. I lost the trail. Lost it. Do you have any idea what that means?”
She paled. Just for a second.
“Do you know what happens if someone like that finds out what you are?” His chest heaved. “That you’re mine? That you’re pregnant with an alpha’s child?”
“Don’t say it like I’m some broodmare to be fought over—”
“I say it like it is. You’re vulnerable. You’re exposed. And if Red Teeth or one of his followers so much as smells you—”
“I’m not helpless, Dane—”
“You are,” he snapped, “compared to them? To me? You think those pretty words and glares you throw around are going to protect you when someone twice your size grabs you in the dark?”
She stepped back, her mouth tight. Her eyes sparked, but he was already spiraling, the heat under his skin uncontrollable now.
“From now on, you’re not walking anywhere alone. Not the library. Not the store. Not even downstairs for the damn mail. If you want to go out, you call me. You check in. Or I’ll assign someone to shadow you, I don’t care which.”
Her expression curdled in disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am serious. And I don’t give a damn what you think about it. Until this threat is gone, you follow orders.”
“Orders,” she spat, the word acid on her tongue, “like I’m one of your enforcers? Or your property?”
“Don’t twist it.”
“You just told me I was yours—”
“Because you are,” he thundered, and before he could think better of it, he closed the distance and slammed his hand against the wall beside her, caging her in.
She gasped, not from fear, but from sheer fury. “Let me go!”
“You want to see how easy it would be?” he snarled, towering over her, every inch of his dominance bleeding from his skin like heat, “How easy it’d be for an alpha to overpower you? To take whatever he wants from you before anyone even hears you scream?”
“Dane—”
He leaned in, his breath hot against her face, “Because that’s what’s out there. And it’s not a fucking game.”
She shoved him hard, but he didn’t move.
Her chest was rising fast, her hands shaking.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, voice hoarse but unyielding.
“You should be.”
“I’m not!” she shouted. “You think you’re terrifying, but you’re just…just a man who doesn’t know how to deal with feelings, so he tries to control everything instead.”
He froze.
She was breathing hard. He could see the tears building again, but she refused to let them fall.
And he…didn’t know how to step back.
Didn’t know how to tell her that his fear wasn’t for himself. That he couldn’t breathe at the thought of something happening to her.
He stepped impossibly closer, pinning her to the wall, the warmth of her soft curves against his hard muscles reassuring that wild part of him that she was here and safe and nothing could touch her so long as her body was beneath his.
“I don’t want to control you,” he said roughly, “I just want you safe. I want to know I’ll come back from patrol and you’ll still be here. That no one’s taken you from me.”
She stared at him, stunned.
“That’s all,” he said, more quietly now, “that’s all. But I don’t know how to protect you without acting like this. Without…feeling like this.”
And that was the truth. Ugly and raw.
He didn’t know how to be soft.
Not when it came to her.
Not when his entire soul was screaming mine.