The ache in my spine was the first thing I felt.
Not pain from the cold forest floor beneath me, but the deep kind. The kind that lives in your bones after you've been kept still for too long — chained, bruised, and forgotten. The sky above was turning grey, early dawn crawling across the treetops. But my thoughts weren't in the woods.
I was still in the cell.
Still there, still cold, still silent.
The dungeon beneath the Blackthorn packhouse wasn't just made of stone and silver. It was made of fear. The kind that soaked into your skin and lived under your nails. I remembered the walls. Damp. Cracked. Covered in old blood stains no one had bothered to clean.
They'd dragged me there like a dog.
Stripped me of everything — clothes, pride, name. The warriors didn't speak. Just locked me behind the bars and left me in nothing but my thin shift, on a floor that smelled of death and mildew.
I think it was day two — or maybe three — when Damien came.
He didn't come to see me.
He came to deliver judgment.
"You think you matter because the Moon Goddess made a mistake?" he said, his voice echoing like a curse.
I didn't reply. I was too tired. Too numb. But my wolf stirred faintly, a broken flicker deep inside me.
"You're a mutt, Celia. A burden. You were born to be used, not loved."
He signaled to someone outside the cell.
A moment later, pain bloomed in my arm — a needle. Cold liquid rushed through my veins, making my limbs sluggish. My wolf whimpered, trying to fight it, but the sedative was too strong.
That's when I smelled him.
Not Damien.
Another man.
His scent wasn't just different. It was foreign. Royal. Power laced with ancient wildness. It clung to my skin even before I saw him.
He entered the cell slowly. No words. Just footsteps.
I remember the gold in his eyes. Faint at first. Watching me as though he already knew me — or was trying to.
I couldn't speak.
Couldn't move.
He reached out. Touched my jaw. Tilted my head gently, examining me like I was something fragile. Or dangerous.
Then he inhaled. Slowly. Deeply.
Not a kiss. Not an assault.
Just... an imprint. A moment.
Then he was gone.
No one explained who he was.
But I knew.
Even then.
---
Now, back in the forest, the memory made my stomach twist.
Not from shame — but from something deeper. Lower.
I knelt by the river, scooping water in my hands, trying to wash away the sweat, the dirt, the fear. My fingertips trembled.
Then the nausea came.
A roll in my gut. Sudden. Heavy. Hot.
I turned and vomited into the bushes, dry heaves tearing through my throat. My vision blurred, stars dancing behind my eyes. My knees hit the earth, my hands gripping grass like it could anchor me.
It wasn't just exhaustion. It wasn't just trauma.
It was something else.
I felt it again. The tug in my abdomen. A stretching warmth beneath the pain.
"No…" I whispered, pressing my palm against my belly.
My wolf stirred weakly, as if confirming what I already suspected.
A life.
Inside me.
A heartbeat that wasn't mine.
I collapsed to the ground, curling around my midsection, trying to breathe, trying to process.
I wasn't just rejected.
I was pregnant.
And not by Damien.
I remembered the scent from the dungeon. The touch. The golden eyes.
Lucien.
The Lycan King.
---
I don't know how long I lay there. Time became mist. The world spun.
Would he even remember me?
Would Damien kill me if he found out?
Or worse… what if Lucien wanted the child?
What if I became a pawn in their war?
I hugged myself tightly, as if I could hide the growing truth inside me. My chest heaved, and for the first time since I was dragged into that dungeon, I cried.
Not from shame.
From fear.
From the weight of what this meant.
---
The sound of crunching leaves snapped me out of it.
Footsteps. Close. Too close.
I froze, pressing myself flat to the earth, heart pounding.
Please, not Damien. Please not a hunter.
The air shifted.
Then I saw him.
Black coat. Tall frame. That same calm, powerful energy I remembered in the cell.
Lucien Drax.
His eyes met mine — golden, unreadable — and for a second, neither of us moved.
"You're hers," he said softly.
I didn't speak. Couldn't.
"You were in that cell," he added. "They gave you to me."
I wanted to scream. Or run. Or collapse.
But I was too tired for all of it.
His eyes dropped briefly to my stomach. Then back to mine.
I could see it — the calculation, the realization, the slow unraveling of truth.
Then darkness swam over me, and I gave in.
Not to him.
To the silence.
To unconsciousness.