Pregnant for the Alpha and Vampire

Chapter 12 Different Strangers

Furia startled so badly that she nearly cried out, but the hand over her mouth pressed harder and a familiar voice whispered in her ear, “It is me, be quiet.” She recognized Rhys immediately and stopped struggling, and he slowly removed his palm from her lips while pulling her deeper into the shadows between the buildings.

“What are you doing?” she hissed while turning to face him, but he pressed a finger to his own lips and pointed toward the street. She followed his gaze and saw a man in black clothing walking slowly along the edge of the road, his head turning from side to side as if he was looking for something. The man moved with a strange silence, and his face was hidden beneath a hood, so she could not tell if he was young or old or something else entirely.

Rhys and Furia looked at each other, and neither of them dared to speak or move because the man was too close and the shadows were too thin. The man stopped for a moment and tilted his head, and Furia felt the locket grow warm against her chest. Then, in the next second, the man was gone, not walking away but simply vanishing as if he had never been there at all.

Rhys exhaled slowly and stepped back from the wall, and he ran a hand through his hair while looking at the empty street. “I need to tell Father,” he said while turning toward the house. “He will take it to the Council, and they will send someone to search the area.”

Furia grabbed his arm and stopped him. “Why were we hiding from that man?” she asked while searching his face. “If he was a threat, why did we not run or call for help?”

Rhys went quiet and looked down at his boots, and his jaw tightened while he seemed to struggle with something he did not want to say. He finally looked up at her and spoke with his voice low. “Let us just go home,” he said, and he pulled her toward the gate without another word.

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The next morning, Furia stood in front of her father's house while a carriage waited to take her to the Council headquarters. She found it strange and almost funny because she had never been given the carriage for her own errands unless there was absolutely no helping it, and she wondered what had changed.

Lady Marguerite stood at the door with her arms folded and her face cold. “Do not shame us,” she said while looking at Furia with narrowed eyes. “Answer their questions and come straight back.” Furia said nothing and climbed into the carriage, and the driver flicked the reins and the horses began to move.

The 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.