Chapter 42 42
Lena’s POV
The morning I awoke with an unbearable feeling of dread, they were here. My wolf — the one with wild instincts and primal warnings — was nervously pacing, agitated in a way I knew had nothing to do with pregnancy hormones or medical anxieties.
“Something’s not right,” I murmured into the void of the room, my hand moving instinctively to protect my stomach.
But what was wrong, exactly? Selena's pitch yesterday had sounded convincing enough. Her apologies had sounded genuinely regretful, and her advice on the garden walk was medically sound. Perhaps I was simply paranoid, seeing a threat where there was none because I had been alone and scared for so long.
When Selena showed up with a basket of medicinal herbs and that warm, maternal smile, I almost talked myself out of believing in dangers there were no evidence for.
"How are you feeling today?" she said and set the basket on the leather topped table beside my bed.
"Restless," I admitted. “I believe you were right that we need fresh air and movement.”
“Then you are coming with me on this stroll?” Her pleasure seemed genuine, unforced. "The weather is beautiful today. Perfect for some gentle exercise."
I should have said no. I should have listened to that voice at the back of my head, screaming warnings. But the idea of leaving that room, to breathe air that didn’t smell like sickness and being cooped up too long, was just too tempting.
"Yes," I heard myself say. "I'd like that."
We were slow to get ready — Selena directing me to dress warmly, asking her mom for a shawl in case it was breezy, making sure I had comfortable shoes for walking. The attention seemed nurturing, concerned, just what an interrupted healer would expect to give.
Then why, oh why was my wolf still pacing and becoming more agitated as the time passed?
“You're really up to it?” Selena said as we walked towards the gardens. "You seem tense."
“Just nervous to be on the street after so long trapped indoors,” I lied. That I felt to my very core that something was wrong would have been laughable considering the circumstances.
"That's completely understandable. But trust me when I say, we will do this, slowly. As soon as you get tired or uncomfortable, we will go back to your room.”
When we visited in the afternoon, at least, the gardens shimmered in the sunlight, vibrant pockets of late-season color and fragrance. Even though I was so uncomfortable, I started to feel a little better as we wound our way along the familiar trails.
“This area was actually planted around two hundred years ago,” Selena pointed to a bed of particularly stunning roses. "Lucien designed it himself. He’s always had an eye for beauty, even if he pretends to the contrary.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said, actually curious in spite of myself.
“So much history here that he never talks about,” she continued, her voice warm with nostalgia. “His tendency is to be forward looking, and he forgets that people can help you know where the path came,”
She told me bring stories of the pack’s early years, talk about issues they’d confronted and overcome, recount traditions that had influenced the way things were done. Her information was intriguing, her advice actually helpful when it came to figuring out what my position on the Luna ladder was.
“When you work on territorial disputes,” she continued, “what becomes clear is that most of these conflicts are really about respect and recognition more than a tangible resource. When you can solve for the emotional need, the logistical stuff is a lot easier.”
"That sounds reasonable," I offered, actually beginning to respect her insight.
Perhaps I had misjudged her. Perhaps it had been a legitimate scare, and not manipulative ploy. Perhaps her weeks of quiet hostility had simply been the jealousy and the hurt that she was now beginning to overcome.
We made our way deeper into the more remote parts of the garden, where paths grew narrower and plantings looser and wilder-looking.
“This place is like the woods I used to play in when I was little,” Selena murmured. "Before I joined Lucien's pack. I come here sometimes when I need to be who I was before... it all got so tangled.”
It was the break in her voice that led me to take a second look at her. And, for the first time since she'd been here, I saw what might have been honest emotion beneath the cool control.
“It must be bizarre,” I said carefully, “to see everything carry on without you after you believe you’re gone forever.”
"Stranger than you can imagine." She stopped by a bench obscured by blooming bushes. "Hadn't you rather lie down awhile? You've walked for nearly twenty minutes."
I had no idea how far we would end up going. I glanced over my shoulder at the pack house, surprised to see that we could barely make out the largest of its buildings beyond all of the lush greenery.
“Maybe just for a minute,” I said, and collapsed onto the bench with relief. My feet hurt and the baby was putting pressure on my bladder in a way that was becoming uncomfortable.
Selena was still standing, gazing out at the profusion of plants in the garden beyond with an enigmatic expression I didn’t dare interpret. For a moment, she looked almost sad.
Then that passed, and she turned back to me with the same warm smile. "Feeling better?"
"Yes, thank you." I started to stand. " But maybe we should head back now. I don’t want to go too aggressively on my first day out.”
"Of course. Let’s just — ” She paused, head cocking as if she were listening to something I couldn’t hear. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"I'm not sure. It sounded like... never mind. Probably just my imagination."
But as we turned to walk back toward the larger gardens, my own senses woke up with a jolt and began screaming out an urgent warning. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.
The realization settled over me rather slowly, creeping from discomfort into peril in heartbeats.
Garden patrols of the regular guards who ought to have been seen — were absent. The singing birds on our walk had gone quiet. And there upon the wind was a smell that was not one of ours.
Foreign. Predatory. Wrong.
"Selena," I whispered, placing my hand over my belly without realizing it. "Where are the guards?"
"The guards?" She peered about, as though surprised to find them missing. "I'm sure they're around somewhere. I think you’re probably just trying to give us a little bit of privacy because you’re with me.”
But her voice was too casual, too impatient sounding for someone who had been preaching to me about security protocols for weeks.
The smell increased—many unfamiliar wolves, closing in through the bushes with practiced quiet.
"We should return," I told her, cutting with a sharp voice. "Now."
"Don't be ridiculous. You're just being paranoid—"
“I can smell them,” I cut her off, already spinning away from the pack house. “There are marauders in the land, and we’re all alone out here.”
I saw it then—the quick flicker of something cool and calculating in Selena’s eyes before she covered it with concern. Because that one moment of exposure said all I needed to know.
This wasn't coincidence. This was not a fluke or mistiming.
This was a trap. And I went running into it, disregarding every instinct that had tried to give me a heads up.
"Oh, Lena," Selena said in a soft voice and it was deprived of its warmth from a few seconds ago. "It's far too late for that."
The shrubbery rustled all around us as shifters sprang out of hiding, surrounding us in a ring with careful precision. I counted six — no, seven — all exercising the perfect synchronisation of a professional extraction unit.
“I’m sorry,” Selena went on, although her face showed no signs that she was anything of the sort. But this is how it’s got to be. You never should have attempted to take what belonged to me.
My wolf surged to the fore, opening a connection within me as though strength and rage were surging through veins opened by fear. These sons of bitches were going to take me? They would take me from my home, my mate, a future for my child?
And now they were going to find out the hard way what happened when you challenged a mother who was protecting her children.
“Run,” I snarled at Selena, my voice already slipping to the low harmonics of a changing wolf. "You better run. Far and fast, because when Lucian gets his hands on you for what you’ve done, there will be no rock in this world that’s big enough to hide under."
So I unleashed the power that had been burning me up inside from the time I found out I was unique. The shifter magic, the link to wild forces that I'd been trained to repress and dread.
The garden around us erupted into chaos as I drew on every last drop of that forbidden power and braced to fight for my life.