The Alpha's Hidden Heir - The heir

rself forty

ould look like panic, and panic left a trail. She needed Selene's watchers to see two more days of ordinary. Two

ormance she'd been g

would d

-

e first day

kept it in her head, running it on a qu

lars saved over three years of pack stipe

y what she could carr

of her absence being noticed. The east perimeter had a gap in the rotation.

new w

ion - four miles east. First

ance. As much of

-

saying goodbye to thing

old books in her hands, the quiet that had been the

here she'd sat on bad d

nd caught the afternoon light in a particular w

the way you do when you're leaving something fo

y good at keeping t

-

ived on the s

nned for cold and darkness and the t

hammering every surface, wind bending the trees along the perimeter into violen

r window and wa

wet ground and w

olves who stayed in

d patrol in weather no one

ged her

ni

-

ked at

and her movements deliberate - choosing only what was necessary, leaving the res

d made. Books left

r mother's silver ring. The photograph - her mother at twenty

photograph

be alright," s

other. T

that was dependi

he photog

uldered

-

to see Ma

or - what symptoms mattered, what couldn't wait. She

twice on the

he specific expression of someone who has made a decision and moved past f

ry to talk h

o her cabi

nt." She wrapped them in cloth and pressed them into Aurora's bag. "Ginger for the nausea. This on

cram

body is doing something enormous. It needs rest and food an

kno

at her for

hing into Aurora's han

A woman who helped others, years ago, before I came h

oked at t

. An a

ller and put it i

you," s

ore I talk myself into

-

tside than it had look

ssed the first open space. The wind pushed against her like something deliberate. The

o the buil

Always

ores - shadow to shadow, timing the lights - and then across the open st

st per

it at elev

rol line from behin

ht. The senior g

junior rotation h

minute

at twelv

-

r and into the tree line bef

h the storm - branches crashing, the ground already flooding

o

oved

alf a mile when th

he wind. Through the consta

ho

Car

e kind used for tr

d turned

tu

, at the tree line behind her, she sa

y

e. Multiple pairs,

lv

ng f

ard

-

e

y alternative is being caught - full and desperate and committed entirely, branches catching her coat

she heard th

os

ndergrowth, fast and coordinated, the way

about Sele

rid o

an ha

now how far

now if she c

new that s

ore - and then she needed both arms for balance and she ran and the wolves beh

br

foot

d of them ge

-

dn't lo

ack was ho

oving and she ran through the dark and th

he tho

ton

ot taking

e r