Chapter 3
Chapter Three
SOREN
I’d fallen out of the car, and although the snow was soft, the impact punched a grunt out of me and sent fresh pain through my head.
Blood spilled down the side of my face, and I crouched, one hand buried in ice and the other locked over my belly as I’d planted my free hand on a half-covered rock and pushed myself forward.
“We’ll be okay,” I said to reassure Asha…and myself, but there was no answering flicker of comfort or brush of my cat’s fur against my thoughts.
Nothing.
The silence stretched on.
Was I anywhere near the place I was supposed to be?
My sneakers were half on, half off, sliding off my feet as I crawled on hands and knees up the bank—and I lost one and didn’t go back for it.
Blood kept finding its way into my eye. Every few feet, I had to stop and scrub at my face with the back of my hand, smearing red across my sleeve and seeing little more than snow and darkness afterward.
I crawled.
The bank was steep, and it crumbled under me.
Every time my knee lifted, the pain came up under my belly, low and dragging, and a sound came out of me that wouldn’t stop, somewhere between sobbing and whimpering, as I made it to the verge somehow.
But I couldn’t move anymore, lying on my side in the snow with one arm under my belly and my face turned into the cold.
Where had I been sent?
My pulse kicked harder.
Trees surrounded me. The road curved away below.
I knew that farther up the mountain, a track branched off into the forest, disappearing toward the nothing where I assumed the alpha wolf’s house was.
I’d thought the bridge I’d crossed would kill me.
Wind shear had slammed the car sideways; the barrier was a foot away, and below was nothing but dark.
I’d crawled across in second gear and said thank you out loud when the tires found solid ground on the other side.
Then I’d stopped for a while, breathing heavy, not knowing how I’d even managed to get over, until the flash of lights behind me in the distance made me carry on.
A bend I never saw coming put me in the ditch, and there was no telling whether this Cassian’s house was a hundred yards from here or fifty miles away, no telling whether I’d crashed in front of his door or in the middle of nowhere, no telling whether I was supposed to walk up the road or off it, no idea, no idea—
How close was the alpha wolf?
The snow kept coming. Somewhere far away, a branch cracked under the weight of it, and the sound carried through the cold and was gone.
Then something moved on the road, and for a second, I thought it might be a car.
I couldn’t make out the shape through the snowfall, but my terrified mind supplied answers anyway.
Someone had found me. Center 14 had realized I was gone.
My brother had finally caught up to me. The family of the man who’d fathered my baby had found out and wanted her.
I watched the snow fall, my heart pounding faster with each second, and suddenly, the once silent mountain didn’t seem so deserted anymore.
The shape kept coming through the snow.
I fought to push myself upright, but my arms shook beneath me, and pain tore through my body. The figure was closing the distance, and through the panic, I saw a wolf. Huge. Dark fur. It sprinted down the road toward me, snow spraying beneath powerful paws, its breath fogging in two steady plumes.
I tried to scramble, but my legs didn’t work, my hands slipped in the snow, and my belly wouldn’t let me get up. I had nothing between my baby and whatever was coming down that road.
A thin choked noise came out of me, and I tried to crab walk away, but the wolf was on me.
I screamed.
He stood over me, very close, his breath hot on my face, and terror hit me, and my gaze dropped.
My shoulders hunched. Every instinct I had warned me not to challenge him, not to give him a reason to pin me down.
My body knew what to do before I could think, chin lifting, throat exposed, making myself small and harmless so maybe he wouldn’t hurt me.
Dominance.
Pain. Submission. Pinned. Helpless.
A whimper cracked out of me, and I curled into a ball, both arms over my belly, please, please, please —
The wolf growled—
It was —
Not a growl.
Words. Underneath. There were words underneath the growl.
They weren’t clear, but they were there, and I stared up into amber eyes to see the wolf had become a man, on his knees in the snow over me, big—Goddess, he was big—his hands going to me before I could flinch, one to my shoulder and one under my head, and the words came clear all at once in an urgent voice I’d never heard before.
“Hey. Omega. Hey, look at me.”
“No…”
“Fuck, you’re bleeding. Stay with me, omega.”
“Don’t hurt us…”
I sobbed, and the shaking took me so hard no sound got past it, and then his arms were under me, lifting.
“My baby girl!” I yelped as I gripped hard.
“I’ve got you.”
He smelled of cold air and snow and pine, and my cat stirred weakly inside me. “Cassian,” I whispered into his throat. “Ronan.”
He went very still over me.
“Fuck,” he choked out.
I closed my eyes.
This was how it ended.