Chapter 44 Chapter 44
The week slipped past Zarlia like water through open fingers.
She stopped counting days after the fourth sunrise bled into the fifth, when hope began to feel dangerous. Mimi still hadn’t woken. Her body healed slowly beneath clean bandages, her breathing steady but shallow, as if she were choosing—deliberately—to remain somewhere far away.
Luke was rarely seen, and when he was, it was always in Mimi’s room.
He changed her bandages with practiced hands, his jaw tight, eyes sharp and focused. Sometimes he just sat there, silent, watching her chest rise and fall. It was strange. Unsettling. They had never liked each other. Their arguments used to crack through the house like thunder. Now there was only quiet devotion.
Stetson noticed too, but he never commented.
He was unravelling in other ways.
Letters arrived daily now—thick envelopes, sealed with marks Zarlia didn’t recognize but instinctively feared. The pack was restless. Curious. Hungry. It felt like they knew something had changed. Like they could smell her presence from miles away.
The idea of them finding out about her made goosebumps crawl along her arms. What if they come after her?
She was afraid.
And worse—she couldn’t tell Stetson.
One morning, she rose from bed before the house fully woke. Her body felt heavy, unfamiliar, like it wasn’t entirely hers anymore. She showered slowly, letting the warm water calm the tight knot in her chest, then wandered toward the window.
That’s when she saw Luke. He was crossing the yard with two sacks thrown over his shoulder like dead weight. She never thought he had that much strength in him. At first she thought nothing of it until—
The sacks moved.
Her blood turned to ice. It took only a second for her mind to register the truth—those weren’t sacks. They were people.
Zarli couldn’t help but wonder what he wanted to do with them. Who were those people? Since when does Luke’s job description involve kidnapping people? What if they want to eat them? The doctor did say Mimi needed fresh meat.
Her breath hitched.
“Watching him again?”
She screamed.
Stetson’s voice came from behind her, close, too close. She spun around, heart slamming violently against her ribs. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she snapped, clutching her chest. “You can’t just—appear like that.” For a moment, seeing him was frightening.
He laughed softly, but it faded the moment he looked at her face. “You’re shaking,” he said. “Zarlia… are you okay?” She forced a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m fine.”
He didn’t look convinced.
“I’m meeting Caroline,” she added quickly. “Just… needed air.”
He stepped forward and pulled her into him, arms wrapping securely around her waist. The warmth of him almost broke her resolve.
He kissed her forehead. “Thank you,” he said quietly.
“For what?”
“For staying. For not running. For caring when you didn’t have to.” His voice softened. “For loving me. For trying.”
Each word landed like a confession—and a knife. Guilt burned her throat. She was afraid. She had thought of leaving. And her body had been lying to him in ways she didn’t yet understand.
She kissed his cheek, hoping it would hide the tremble in her lips. “I’m always here,” she said. He smiled faintly. “So am I. Always.”
When he left the room, the strength drained from her. She collapsed onto the floor, fingers tangling in her hair as panic surged. Her breaths came fast, shallow. Too many thoughts. Too many signs she didn’t understand.
She scrambled to the window. Luke was gone.
The yard looked normal. Too normal. Her paranoia screamed.
She dressed quickly and left the house before she could change her mind. Caroline met her outside the hospital, already anxious. “You look pale,” she said. “Are you sure you are okay?”
“I just need answers,” Zarlia murmured.
They waited longer than expected. Zarlia’s knee bounced uncontrollably as the seconds stretched into minutes. Her stomach churned—not with nausea this time, but dread.
Finally, the doctor called her name. He smiled as he flipped through her chart. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
Zarlia’s breath caught. “You’re pregnant.”
The room went silent for a moment before Caroline screamed.“Oh my God—Zarlia!” She jumped up, laughing and crying at the same time. “You’re going to be a mom!”
The doctor chuckled, congratulating her warmly, already explaining timelines and check-ups and care but Zarlia didn’t hear him.
Her world narrowed to a single word.
Pregnant.
Her hands trembled in her lap.
A baby. Stetson’s baby.
A child tied to a pack that already felt too close. A child growing inside a body that had been hurting, bleeding, warning her all along. Fear swallowed the joy before it could bloom.
She was carrying a pup. A killer just like them—no matter how she tried not to thing about them in the negative, she couldn’t, she just couldn’t. the attack at the driveway kept replaying in her mind. The claws, the bloodlust eyes—
Her blood ran cold as her hand instinctly went to her stomach.
Caroline hugged her again, radiant. “This is amazing.”
Zarlia stared ahead, frozen. Because all she could think was—
What will they do when they find out?
And worse—
What will Stetson do when she tells him?
The doctor’s voice snapped her back from her trance. “But the growth of the baby is quite strange”, of course it’s strange—she was carrying a werewolf.
“In all my years in this line of profession, not once have I seen such an extraordinary growth. Your baby is growing faster than normal. At this rate you might give birth in the next 4 months”. Zarlia swallowed, she never expected such a thing and it only made her more frightened.
“…however, the baby seems to be taking a lot of your energy. But I promise with the help of my crew we will make sure you and you baby would end up safe”, there was a weary smile on the doctor’s face—he was lying. He didn’t know if she was going to survive and Zarlia knew it.
Her world just turned an even darker shade of grey—if not red even.