The tree line swallows me whole and I let it. Branches rake my arms, roots catch my ankles, and the dark dress tears at the hem on something I don't stop to identify because stopping is not available to me right now.
My legs are shaking from the hip down, each step landing slightly wrong, like the ground and I are having a disagreement about where it is. The bond severance took something structural out of me—nerve endings still firing into empty space, still sending signals to something that isn't there anymore.
Run. That's the whole thought—not a plan, a reflex. Behind me, two hundred wolves are standing in a clearing recalculating whether I'm a miracle or a detonation, and I am not interested in being present for the verdict.
The supply road appears through the trees. Wide, packed earth, the route the merchant carts use—it leads straight to the eastern boundary and then out, and out is the only direction my body wants right now.
Two border guards step into the road ahead of me, armed, unhurried, positioned with the practiced ease of men who have been standing here for hours. The taller one dips his head. "Luna. Road's closed."
"I'm aware of how roads work." My breath is coming in ragged pulls and my voice sounds like something dragged over gravel. "Open it."
"Can't do that, Luna." He shifts his weight, not aggressive—apologetic, which is somehow worse. "Full siege lockdown, pack’s protocols—rogue assault hit the eastern boundary about an hour ago."
The ground tilts. An hour ago I was standing in a clearing speaking ancient words while the bond mark burned white-hot through my collarbone, and an hour ago the eastern wall was being hit, and I knew about neither of these things.
"Nobody in or out," the shorter guard adds, eyes traveling over my torn dress, the silver scars at my throat, the hand I keep pressing flat against my stomach. "Healer's wing is just south of here—I can escort you."
"I don't need the healer's wing. I need the road." My legs choose this moment to remind me of their ongoing disagreement with gravity, and I lock my knees before anything humiliating happens. "I'm invoking Luna authority."
They exchange a look—the specific, careful look of men who are about to follow protocol over rank and feel genuinely bad about it. "Siege lockdown supersedes Luna authority," the tall one says quietly. "I'm sorry."
Nobody's called it off because the man who could call it off is currently on his knees in a clearing with a shattered bond and no functioning vocal cords. I almost laugh. The sound sits in my chest like a trapped animal, and I swallow it before it escapes.
They escort me south. I let them, because the alternative is collapsing on a supply road in a torn dress, and I have already provided enough spectacle for one evening.
Neve is waiting in the healer's wing with the flat-focused expression of a woman who received information ahead of my arrival and has already made a plan—just like she did for all these years, working as the main healer of the pack. She points at the examination table. "Sit."
"I don't want to sit. I want the eastern road and I want it ten minutes ago." I am still standing, which I consider a significant personal achievement given current circumstances.
"Sit down, Agatha." Neve's voice doesn't rise—it carries the specific authority of a woman who has pulled arrows out of screaming wolves and does not have time for theater. I sit because my legs have been waiting for permission to quit and they take it immediately.
Her hands go to my stomach without preamble—palms flat, eyes closed, the focused stillness of someone listening to a frequency I can't hear. The silence stretches. I count my own heartbeats because it's the only thing I can control: one, two, three, four—
Neve's hands go still. Her eyes open, and there it is—the thing I did not expect from a woman who handles battlefield injuries without flinching: pupils wide, lips pressed white, the hands she lifts from my stomach trembling.
"How far along?" My voice comes out smaller than I authorize it to, and my fingers grip the edge of the table.
"Under three weeks, give or take." She steps back, fingers finding the edge of the supply cabinet behind her and gripping it hard enough to whiten her knuckles. "The pregnancy is viable. Strong."
"You say that like there's a but." I press my nails into my palms and wait, watching the way her hands haven't stopped shaking.
"The energy signature—" She stops, jaw working once before she starts again. "I've felt powerful pregnancies. Alpha bloodlines run hot, it's normal. This isn't that."
"Meaning what, exactly?" The examination room is very small and very bright and my heartbeat is doing something unhelpful.
"The density is wrong. Too much power compressed into something this early." Her fingers tighten on the cabinet. "A fetus at three weeks should not register like this—nothing at three weeks should register like this."
My hand presses flat against my stomach, as though I can feel what she felt. There's just warmth, and the persistent nausea I've been blaming on everything except what it actually is.
"What does it mean?" My throat closes around the last word, and I press my palm flat against the warmth below my navel.
"I don't know." Two words, delivered with the specific honesty of a healer who refuses to guess. "I'm not going to invent an answer to make either of us feel better."
"I need to leave tonight." The words come out unplanned, stripped of anything tactical. "There has to be another route past the boundary—"
"There isn't." Neve cuts me off without apology. "And even if there were, you would not be running through rogue-occupied woods in this condition."
"So I'm trapped." My jaw locks around the word hard enough that my teeth ache, and the walls of this examination room press closer.
"You're making a plan." She meets my eyes, steady and unblinking. "A slower one than the one you had twenty minutes ago. Whatever you're doing next—smart, rested, and with someone who can tell you if that signature changes."
She doesn't tell me to stay. She doesn't argue loyalty or pack or any of the words that would make me stop listening. She argues survival—mine and the thing inside me—and she does it without flinching.
They put me in a small room off the healer's wing with a guard outside the door—for my protection, supposedly. Protection and captivity share a floor plan tonight.
The sounds of the siege filter through the walls: distant shouts, the percussion of impact against the eastern barrier, the organized chaos of a pack under attack.
My hand rests on my stomach. Underneath it, something unexpected is growing—small and innocent, carrying a prophecy and expectations it’s not ready for.
I am not staying because anyone convinced me. I am staying because the exit just got more complicated, and I need a better plan than running blind through a war zone with a three-week earthquake in my womb.
The siege drums pulse through the walls like a second heartbeat. I close my eyes and start planning.