Pregnant for The Hollow Alpha

on his boots and something beh

I didn't say

ven are positioned. She can move when we move." He spread the updated map

ed the map. "The

ent s

econd.

Ka

. "Two years. Passing information,

the table between us. "You

ooked

jaw s

," he

n tel

that I understood it was g

twenty. She went inside two years ago

oked

doesn't own." He kept his eyes on the map. "I asked her to go inside and find your mother. Establish conta

tchen w

for two years," I sa

Ye

untar

Ye

w about the ex

note means she's been watching for you. She felt the Howl activate probabl

ed at t

ten days.

r two years, passing notes through forest gaps a

n wrist testing th

kn

or

Ye

re was a feeling attached to that informat

a message to

Voss. It t

n ten days. Tell her to stay low and don't take

no

ed to fol

Ka

look

in the compound. Voss's network." I held his

was

as seventee

the bo

Ye

and you built a resista

smile. More like someone recognizing a

od what my father was planning." He looked at his hands. "I couldn't undo wha

ire cr

of patience. Six years of building something quiet and careful and complet

ed a

ed away

"Now. Before the ligh

s cold and dark-

Howl the way he'd shown me, not grabbing, just ope

onds became

ve became

feeling the edges of my range extending, the forest feeding back to me in text

min

hel

ead. The slow underground pulse of roots

edge of my range,

nds dr

there agai

r. Reached with his own senses, I could feel him do it,

he said

e dis

Ye

he dark. Watching me hold the Howl

king my prog

Ye

he extraction ar

s been timing this for

ed at t

standing right now, feeling me back, m

ed with

t the owl, past the ordinary ra

undred

ound

familiar it felt like hearing

certainty. Not the tactical composure I'd been building a

that felt l

r breath for eighteen years

oat tig

onnection for

I let

. Then slowly, deliberately, moved

watching

lt that,

," he

back and s

Ye

thed ou

my chest, no longer something I managed

days,"

looked

four days," I said

me for a l

just now," he said. "Extended range, su

Ye

ys," he s

Fo

the trees wh

ll Voss,"

d back in

ld breath stillness of something watching. Just night. Just trees. Just th

y back

u tell me about

answer im

goes wrong..." He stopped. "She's there because I asked. That's m

part of

pause. "I k

d at him

pent six years making sure that decision meant something. Who had sent his cous

g quietly, in the dark, with

it. You didn't know I'd wake up. Didn't know I'd

" he

built it

Ye

Wh

was

hen, s

ou deserved

because of the bond. Not because o

deserved

't say

her d

in silence and it was the lou

ttage door

ur

Ka

ooked

f them and the compound is done and your father can't reac

blin

ound a gap in the armor

ned his

lose

didn't have a name for, raw and careful and something

he said quietly.

nod

nt in

Bonding Seal blazing on my wrist and the Howl warm in my chest and th

t I woul

asleep in

t that had finally found somewhere to put itself and I felt some

blanket

upst

the fift

g. Certain and looping

ng me to cooperate. He's star

A man who needs your c

ur devotion is some

pped r

it a

ur devotion is some

pound I hadn't entered. About a man I hadn't met whose le

d written thi

ong enough to understand him. Long enough t

h to know i

d written

or

ed the

ck on t

at the

ur

we'd

leep when the Bo

Something sharper. An alert, the Howl r

e window in

earing

areful two hundred yard observation. Closer. Mult

e p

ree thi

out thinking about it, the

T

bbed m

k door before I fi

el was stil