I groaned softly, the sound barely leaving my throat as I shifted on the bed.
For a moment, I didn't open my eyes. I stayed there, suspended in that half-space between sleep and waking, where nothing quite made sense yet and I didn't have to question anything.
Then something registered.
Heat.
Not the kind that came from blankets or the low fire that had burned through the night, but something closer. Steadier. Pressed against my back
My brows pulled together slightly.
Then came the weight.
An arm
Draped across my waist and pressing me to its body.
Body???
My eyes pried opened and I'm met with the view of two chairs beside the window, with a bottle of knocked down whisky on the table. Yesterday's memory came rushing instantly.
The moon. Drowning his drink. Our argument and him tugging me back. I gasped. His kiss and…... my skin bare against his…
I almost screamed when I realised what really went down between us last night. How did we….how did we ended up …
Now his arm was a solid band across my ribs, heavy and warm, anchoring me to the mattress. His chest pressed flush to my back, rising and falling in the slow rhythm of sleep. Bare skin. Mine too. The sheet had slipped low sometime in the night, leaving nothing between us but heat and the faint scent of last night's sex.
I didn't move.
Couldn't.
I stared at the window, my thought going hireways.
Okay.
Okay.
It's ok.
It should be ok.
The prophecy.
The thought dumped on me like cold water.
My womb. The Oracle's words. The child I must never carry. The reason I had lost everything, the reason my pack had tried to execute me, the reason I had run barefoot through a dark forest and collapsed at the edge of a territory I wasn't supposed to be in.
And last night I had—
We had—
I pressed my eyes shut. How could I be so stupid!!! I should've stopped him while I could. I shouldn't have had the damn whiskey. I shouldn't have left the fucking room in the first place!
And now I was lying here with his arm across me in his room in his pack and he knew nothing. Nothing about the prophecy, nothing about why I had been running, nothing about what the Oracle had said about the…
I couldn't finish that thought.
I looked at him again.
He was still asleep. His chest rose and fell evenly, unhurried, the way he did everything. Even unconscious he managed to be composed. It was honestly annoying.
I thought about waking him. Thought about what that conversation would look like, what his face would do when I tried to explain any of this, what a man like him would do with the information that the woman currently in his bed might be carrying the child that would bring chaos to the shifter world.
He'd probably kill me himself. Save my old pack the trouble.
I lifted his arm carefully off me.
I moved to the edge of the bed and sat there for a moment, the cold air hitting my skin, and I made myself be honest about something I had been avoiding since the dungeon. There was no going back to Silvermoon. There was no negotiating with the elders, no appealing to whatever was left of Aric's feeling for me, no version of that story where I walked back through those gates and came out alive.
And I couldn't stay here.
Whatever last night was — and I wasn't going to call it anything because putting a name on it will not uncomplicate it in my head but I was sure that I couldn't stay here and let it continue.
I found my clothes hanging over the headboard and the memory of how it flashed in my head and i couldn't help but shiver.
Snap out of it!
I shuffled into the white plain nightwear sort of dress quickly, my eyes on him the whole time. He didn't move. The arm that had been across me was still in the same position, curved around nothing now, and I looked at that for a second longer than I should have.
I looked at his face one more time.
Don't, I told myself. Don't do that.
I opened the door slowly, inch by inch, holding my breath until the hinge cleared without a sound. The corridor outside was empty and cold and I stepped into it and pulled the door closed behind me.
————
The roadside stretched out like a gray scar under the flat morning sky, cracked asphalt humming with the occasional distant semi-truck that never slowed.
I stood on the gravel shoulder, chest still heaving from the last half-mile I'd run after ditching the tree line, and I knew—I knew—I wasn't in pack territory anymore.
My white nightdress was filthy now, hem dark with mud and stuck to my thighs. The thin fabric did nothing against the wind that penetrate straight through it. I wrapped my arms around myself, scanning both directions. Left: endless fields turning into low hills. Right: a faded green sign that read "Ashford 14 mi" in chipped paint. Fourteen miles. On foot. In this.
I wasn't lost in the woods anymore. I was lost in the human world, and the difference hit harder than the cold.
My white nightdress was filthy now, hem dark with mud and stuck to my thighs. The thin fabric did nothing against the wind that penetrated straight through it. I wrapped my arms around myself, scanning both directions. Left: endless fields turning into low hills. Right: a faded green sign that read "Ashford 14 mi" in chipped paint. Fourteen miles.
On foot. In this?
….oh goddess
I wasn't lost in the woods anymore. I was lost in the human world, and the difference hit harder than the cold.
A car appeared in the distance, the first one close enough to matter—an old blue sedan rattling down the two-lane like it had seen better decades. My thumb shot up before I could overthink it, hand raised high and desperate, the universal human plea I'd only ever seen in movies. The brake lights flared red and it actually stopped. A few feet ahead.
Relief crashed through me so fast my knees almost buckled. I jogged toward it, feet screaming in the too-big sneakers, nightdress flapping against my legs.
Thank the goddess, Someone actually stopped.
Then the engine revved just as I was almost near it. The tires spun on the gravel, kicking up a spray of loose stones, and the car peeled away with a sharp laugh bursting from the open window—some guy in a hoodie, middle finger half-raised as he glanced back.
I skidded to a halt in the dust cloud he left behind, lungs burning, hand still stupidly outstretched.
I…I can't believe….did he just….
"Fuck you!" I screamed after him "You piece-of-shit coward—laughing like that makes you big? Hope you and your god damned trash car fall off a hill!!"
The wind snatched the words away. I kicked a rock hard enough to send it skittering across the asphalt, then kept going because stopping would mean crying and I refused to give the universe that satisfaction.
"Moon Goddess," I spat under my breath, turning up to the sky "if you're even listening anymore, screw you too. You and your prophecies bullshit."
I marched forward, fists clenched at my sides, each steps reminding me of how much pain I was in "And Aric—fuck you most of all. You and your perfect pack loyalty and tge stupid elders. I hope you all rot in hell!!."
My voice dropped lower, almost a growl, as the alpha's face flashed behind my eyes—the steady rise and fall of his chest against my back, the arm I'd slipped out from under only hours ago.
"And you," I muttered to the empty road, to the man whose room I'd fled, "fuck you for being warm. Fuck you for making me want to stay even one second longer."
The fields blurred past in my peripheral and I kept on marching.