Pregnant for The Hollow Alpha

I woke up on the floor with a stranger's name on my lips and my body aching like it had been claimed.

Third time this week.

I lay there, cheek against the cold wood, heart slamming. On my right palm, four thin lines of dried blood, curved like claws, had raked from the inside.

From the inside.

Between my thighs, an ache I had no right to feel. Unfamiliar. Insistent.

The dream was already dissolving, but the feeling stayed. Dark. Fast. The sound of something enormous moving through trees. And eyes: amber eyes burning in the dark, watching me like I was already theirs.

I sat up. Closed my fingers over the marks. Stood.

I was fine. I was always fine.

My father was already awake when I got downstairs.

He sat in his chair by the dying fire, waiting. One eye clear, one clouded by an old scar.

"Bad dream?"

"I'm fine."

He looked at me with that face he'd been making my whole life like he knew something I didn't.

I went to the window.

The Hollow Woods pressed against the back of the cottage. Tonight the forest wasn't breathing. Still. Unnatural. Like every creature had stopped at once.

"There's something out there."

"There's always something out there. That's why we stay inside."

"It's different tonight."

He didn't answer.

Something moved at the tree line.

Too tall for an animal. Too still for a person. A figure standing where the forest gave way to our clearing.

Then it looked up.

Even in the dark, I saw its eyes. Amber. Glowing. Catching the moonlight from the inside.

The same eyes from my dream.

I had my boots on and the door open before I knew I'd moved.

"Aria..."

I opened it.

A cold hit my face. Behind me, my father was on his feet.

The figure was closer now. Much closer. Fast.

I grabbed a kitchen knife from the hook.

"That's not going to do much," he said.

A voice. Low. Steady. Male. It slid under my skin like heat.

"Step back."

He didn't. He tilted his head, looking at me like he'd been waiting a long time.

"I need you to go back inside."

"I need you to explain who you are..."

"Inside," he said, urgent now. "Please."

Then the forest howled.

Not one wolf. Three. Then six. Then more... surrounding the clearing in a sound that hit my chest like a fist.

The man turned toward the tree line.

Moonlight caught him. Tall. Dark-haired. A scar along his jaw. Young: mid-twenties. Dressed in black. And on the inside of his right wrist, a mark. A wolf's head, mid-howl.

My wrist burned.

I looked down. Underneath the dried blood, something pulsed. Warm. Pressing outward. Like waking up.

The howling got closer.

He turned back to me. His eyes were amber, exactly like the dream. Urgent. Calm. And underneath that, something softer. Something that looked at my mouth.

"They're here for you. We can't be standing in the open." He stepped toward me. I raised the knife. He stopped. "I'm not the threat. I promise."

"You're a stranger in my garden at two in the morning."

"I'm the person who's been keeping those wolves out of your garden for six years." His voice dropped, intimate despite the danger. "And tonight my cover is blown. You have about sixty seconds." His eyes held mine. "Please. Come with me."

The howling swelled.

I went.

We ran north through the trees. He moved ahead, fast and silent, but every few strides he looked back at me. Those amber eyes checking. Lingering.

The forest felt different with him in it. Alive. Like the trees leaned in as we passed.

He stopped at a rocky outcrop, pulled me behind it, pressed my back against the stone. His body blocked mine. Close. Too close. I could smell him: woodsmoke, pine, something deeper that made my mouth water.

"Quiet," he breathed against my hair.

The howling stopped.

Silence. Worse.

His hand found my wrist. His thumb traced the marks on my palm. Slowly. Once.

I gasped.

His eyes snapped to mine. The corner of his mouth moved not a smile, something darker.

"Stay behind me."

"No."

He stared at me. Then something shifted in his expression. Hunger, barely leashed.

"Then don't take your eyes off me."

He turned, putting himself between me and the dark. But he didn't let go of my wrist.

Footsteps. Heavy. Deliberate. From the east.

One thing. Walking on two legs.

Kael went rigid. "He's here."

"Who?"

He looked at me over his shoulder. His eyes glowed.

"My father. The Alpha."

The footsteps stopped.

Then a voice came from the darkness. Deep. Commanding. Familiar in a way that made my stomach drop and my thighs press together.

"I can smell her. Bring her to me, son."

That was all. No growl. No movement. Just a voice that knew me.

Kael's jaw clenched. His hand tightened on mine.

Then the wolves howled again, farther now. Redirected.

Kael exhaled. "He's calling them off. For now."

"Why?"

He looked at me. His thumb traced my palm again. "Because he doesn't need wolves. He already knows exactly where you are."

We looped back to the cottage twenty minutes later. Kael checked the clearing, then the back door, then inside.

My father stood in the kitchen with an iron poker. His expression wasn't surprising. It was guilt.

"You know him," I said.

He didn't answer.

"You know him."

"Aria..."

"How long?"

My father set the poker down. He reached up and took the iron key from around his neck. The one that opened the cellar. The one he'd always said held wine.

"Sit down."

"I don't want to..."

"Please."

I sat. But I didn't take my eyes off Kael. And he didn't take his off me.

My father crossed to the cellar door. Put the key in the lock.

"There are things I should have told you the night you were born. I was trying to protect you."

"From what?"

The lock clicked. The door swung open. Cold air rose from below.

He looked at me over his shoulder, one eye clear, one clouded, both full of eighteen years of something I finally had a name for.

Guilt.

"From the truth," he said. "Come and see."

Kael's fingers brushed mine one last time: warm, electric. "Whatever you find down there," he murmured, "it doesn't change what's between us." Then my father descended into the dark, and I followed. The last thing I heard before the cellar swallowed me was the Alpha's voice, somehow coming from beneath the cottage:

"Finally."