Pregnant for The Hollow Alpha

smelled l

a long time ago. But there's a specific feeling you get when you walk into a room that has been kept from you.

moment I hit t

he moved, throwing shadows that lurched across the walls

wi

ny of the fifty ordinary things I'd told myself were d

wall wa

identify from here and symbols that made my eyes want to slide sideways. In the center of it all, car

journals with dark red cove

t the wall beside

before Merek cou

ds. My chin, exactly. My nose. Eyes that were a color I'd never seen in a photograph

f

I'd never s

d strange. Flat and distant, like it bel

Mere

oks li

es

. On the back, in handwriting I didn't recog

ear b

re w

down very

y mother

that clearly enough. But I said it anyway because saying

Merek

pposed to

was

ned a

xpression doing the thing, the thing I'd seen my whole life without understandi

dead," I sa

sed hi

said. "Sh

om step for a lon

his room while my grandfather told me my dead mother was actually alive and a prisoner in a wolf compound and I was some kind of supernatural bloo

lked. I

was not just shifting, not just the wolf that had been waking up in me for weeks, but something olde

key to

hy the Alph

said. "My mothe

es

her for tw

es

reathed. "You kept me here.

ing you saf

e out harder than I planned. He flinched. I d

dn't

ost made

wall. Read the words carved

lost daughter wakes

is counted in the bo

silenced will sp

line will end what

d it

e. Carved in stone tha

exist," I said slowl

es

ve been planni

es

hole

es

e was cold. The words were real. The weight of both sat in m

ned a

I said. "Kael. He

es

he been at t

ed slightly against e

ted. "He's been out

. Against his f

my forest for six years in the dark, keeping things out that I didn't e

the almost smi

diately. Extremely no

talk to h

g the tree line with the focused calm of someone who'd been on alert long en

I could see him prope

ing along the left side, old enough to be faded but deep enough to have been significant once. He was lean in the wa

es wer

eam. Exactly the amber from

ntical to what I could feel burning on my own wrist right now. He looked at m

The wall. The prophecy

," I

nd

rom him and sat down in it and

"You've been at my tr

es

ather s

es

ort bac

es

ied to him

my gaz

hy

ng the question, the quiet of someone being careful with t

used, and something shifted in his expression, " with a kitchen knife, because you'd heard something in

him. "I wa

kno

now what wa

u were furious instead of afraid. You stood there for ten minutes before you went back inside." He looked

en was ve

rs," I said. "For a

e right thing," he said. Si

him for a

but I did. There was a particular quality to the way he said things, stri

er," I sai

h his face at the name

es

ne who took

es

wolves to my

He knew something had changed." He met my eyes. "He's been

Se

he warm, pulsing mark that had

said. "Exp

t for one b

oked

ae

n the bond recognizes itself." He said it evenly. Matter of fact. Like he wasn't saying anything e

red a

cted,"

es

ed. Fated pai

es

my lips together. "I

he distinct impression he'd known that about me specifically for

mark too," I sai

es

w l

pa

ietly. "Since the first

fourteen with a kitchen knife

ecognized us b

it as leverage or reason or anything at all. He'd just... carrie

s getting distracting and I needed to think clearly and it was very h

ated bond," I sai

w," he

greeing to

asking

d and twenty-three other women who need to get out and a prophecy with my name in it and I do not have t

ifted in his

is mouth again.

e other wome

"Merek me

e," he said. He leaned forward slightly.

lin

.. " I frowned. "I don't kn

ooked at

nd steady and deeply, infuri

already knows things you don't. It

d at th

uestion this time. It was a certainty that had come from somewhere bel

ael said

lik

like

side, nothing, the wol

ed up

t just about my

aid. "It n

rough wooden beams of a cottage I'd lived my whole life

hought. O

d back

that compound. Every patrol, every guard, every weakness." I held his gaze. "And I need you

at me fo

he no

tood,"

f you can. Come back at dawn." I looked at the window, at the lightening ed

the door. Stopped wit

," he

ked a

years old with a kitchen knife and you told the dark to face you properly." A pause. "I thought

ned th

t into the p

olutely did not feel anything

on my wri

, it

nt t

n't s

name in it and a mother I didn't remember and a man who had stood at my tree li

twenty three women I

about eigh

dy. Patient. Like a second heartbeat that had alwa

't fig

t time, I di

rything that was coming and decided, somewhere around 4am,

to the prophecy, to the forest tha

on

's