Pregnant for the Alpha and Vampire

The Stranger's Offer

Before Furia left for the Council headquarters, the house was already thick with tension. Rhys stood in the front hall with his hands clenched at his sides and his face pale, and he watched his mother adjust Furia's collar with cold fingers while Lord Theron checked his pocket watch by the door.

“I should go with her,” Rhys said while stepping forward and looking at Lady Marguerite. “The road is dangerous, and she should not travel alone.”

Lady Marguerite did not look up from Furia's dress. “You will do no such thing,” she said while smoothing the fabric over Furia's shoulders. “The Council asked for her alone, not for you, and you will stay in this house where you belong.”

Rhys opened his mouth to argue, but his mother raised a hand and cut him off with a sharp glance. “Do not make me repeat myself,” she said while stepping back and folding her arms. “She is going to answer questions, not to a ball, so stop fussing like an old woman.”

Celeste sat on the staircase with her chin resting on her hand and her eyes half closed, and she looked too bored to care about the argument unfolding before her. She picked at a loose thread on her sleeve and let out a long sigh, as if the entire scene was beneath her attention. But inside, her stomach burned with envy because Rhys had never once bothered with her the way he bothered with Furia. He had never begged to accompany her anywhere, never looked at her with worry in her eyes, never stood in the hallway with his hands shaking because he feared for her safety. Furia had done nothing to deserve that loyalty, and yet Rhys gave it freely, and Celeste hated them both for it.

Furia glanced at Rhys and saw the frustration in his face, and she wanted to tell him that everything would be fine, but she did not believe it herself. She gave him a small nod instead, and he nodded back before turning away and walking down the hallway with his shoulders hunched and his hands in his pockets.

The carriage ride was smooth at first, and Furia watched the village pass by through the window while she pressed her hand against her stomach and tried to calm her nerves. The buildings gave way to open fields, and the fields gave way to thick trees as the carriage entered the stretch of road known as the Forest of No Dead Man, a place where travelers had been known to disappear and where rogue werewolves were said to hunt.

The carriage stopped abruptly, and Furia was thrown forward in her seat before she caught herself on the leather cushion. She waited for the carriage to move again, but it did not, and the silence that followed was thick and wrong. She looked through the window and saw nothing but trees and shadows, and she knocked on the carriage wall while calling out to the coachman.

There was no reply, and the silence pressed down on her like a weight she could not shake. She knocked again and called out louder, but still no sound came from outside except the wind moving through the leaves. Her heart pounded against her ribs, and she felt the locket grow warm against her chest as she realized that something was very wrong.

She pushed open the carriage door and stepped down onto the dirt road, and her legs felt unsteady as she looked around for the coachman. The seat was empty, and the horses stood still with their heads lowered and their breath coming in slow, heavy bursts.

Then she turned and came face to face with a man standing just a few feet away, a man with red eyes that she recognized immediately, a man who brought back bad memories she had tried so hard to forget.

Furia felt her heart stop for a moment, but she forced herself to breathe and forced herself to stand straight because showing fear to a monster was like showing blood to a wolf. She looked at the man with the red eyes and tried to remember that she had survived worse things, though at that moment she could not think of a single example. She wished that Rhys was here with her because she would have felt safe at the very least, and she would not have been alone in the dark forest with nothing but her own fear and a vampire who seemed to find her amusing.

“Do not bother looking for the coachman,” the man said while gesturing toward the trees with a lazy wave of his hand. “The sight would have been pleasant if you were not human at the moment.”

Furia felt her stomach drop, and she realized that he was talking about the coachman's body, that the driver was dead somewhere in the woods, and that this creature standing before her found the whole situation amusing. She tried to be brave, but her hands were shaking and her voice cracked when she spoke.

“I have nothing of yours,” she said while holding her palms out and stepping backward. “I have not wronged you, so please let me go. I just want to go home.”

He raised one eyebrow and asked, “Where is home?” “Thornhaven,” she said quickly. “My father's house. Just let me walk away, and I will forget I ever saw you.”

The man tilted his head and asked, “Are you not going to the Council anymore?” Furia paused for a moment because she had not mentioned the Council, and she had not told anyone except her family about the private interview, so how did this stranger know where she was heading? She felt stupid for not realizing it sooner because the man standing before her had red eyes and moved like shadow, and he was clearly a vampire, and everyone knew that vampires had ways of knowing things that humans did not understand. But that still did not answer her question about how he knew about the Council.

He sighed while crossing his arms over his chest. “I do not like to repeat myself,” he said, and his voice was calm but carried an edge that made her skin prickle.

She came back to her senses and answered him. “I have no idea where I am,” she said while looking around at the trees and the dark road. “I can only hope to get out of this forest before dark.”

The man smiled, and his teeth were white and straight and perfect. “I will escort you,” he said while stepping to the side and offering his arm like a gentleman at a ball.

Furia thanked him but stayed where she was because she did not trust him and she did not trust any vampire, even one who seemed helpful. “I can take care of myself,” she said while turning away from him and walking down the road with her back straight and her heart pounding.

She walked for several minutes, and the road twisted and turned in ways she did not remember from the ride here. She knew where she had come from because the carriage had left tracks in the dirt, but every time she tried to follow them, they seemed to branch off in different directions. The forest grew darker, and the trees pressed closer, and she realized that she was well and truly lost.

She stopped and looked back at the vampire, and he was standing exactly where she had left him with his arms folded and a wry smile on his lips. He had not followed her or called out to her, he had simply waited because he knew she would come back.

She stood there for a long moment, and she thought about everything she had heard about vampires, that they were dangerous and untrustworthy and that they fed on human blood. But she had trusted this man before, not entirely but enough to climb into his carriage on a rainy night, and she had survived that encounter. Her coachman was dead, and she had no way to get out of the forest, and the sun would set in a few hours, and she knew that rogue werewolves hunted this stretch of road after dark.

The only trust she had left had to be given to the vampire, so she walked the walk of shame back to him with her face hot and her hands clenched at her sides. She looked at him gently, though her heart was racing, and she smiled nervously while clasping her hands in front of her.

“Is the ride still available, dearest sir?” she asked.