Pregnant with the Alpha’s Baby and He Has No Idea

Chapter 14 – Alpha Instincts

By the time the last form is signed and Sera storms off to terrorize a courier, my brain feels like someone scraped it out with a spoon.

Paperwork always did that to me. Paperwork about my unborn kid and who technically owns him? Extra fun.

I’m still staring at the dent his name left on the page when I realize Kaelan hasn’t moved from his spot by the desk.

He’s watching me. Not in the creepy, boundary‑violating way I’ve come to expect from the outside world lately. More like he’s trying to solve a puzzle and is both impressed and mildly terrified by the picture.

“What?” I ask, because eventually the staring gets to me. “Do I have ink on my face?”

“No.” His mouth twitches. “Just steel where most people have panic.”

“You didn’t see me on the bathroom floor after Child Services left,” I say. “That was a lot less steel.”

He studies me a second longer, then straightens. “Come with me.”

“Wow,” I deadpan. “Compelling argument.”

“I’m serious.” There’s a note in his voice I’m starting to recognize—not the full alpha command he uses on his pack, but something close. Concern sharpened into directive. “I want you to see something.”

“See what?” I eye him warily. “Because your ‘something’ lately tends to involve blood, teeth, or both.”

“Not this time.” He jerks his chin toward the hallway. “Ten minutes. If you hate it, you can tell me I’m an i***t and go back to counting ceiling tiles in here.”

I consider saying no on principle.

Then I think about the last twenty‑four hours: rogue at my door, wolves in the rain, magic chalk lines and Council forms. My world has already tilted so far off its axis the horizon looks different.

Maybe seeing what the other side of all this actually looks like isn’t the worst idea.

“Fine,” I say, pushing back from the desk. “But if this ends with me sprinting, we’re redefining ‘ten minutes’.”

“You won’t be sprinting.” His gaze drops, almost involuntary, to my stomach. “I’ll slow down.”

He says it like a promise, and for once I don’t automatically assume he means for me as a liability. Maybe, just maybe, as something that matters.

We walk down the hall together—him a steady, quiet presence, me acutely aware of how small my bare feet sound on the tile next to his boots.

Instead of turning toward the back door, he leads me the other way, through the side exit and out into the pale afternoon.

The storm washed the valley clean. The air tastes like wet pine and cold stone. The trees that terrify me at night look almost harmless in the light, their branches dripping diamonds.

“Where are we going?” I ask as we cut across the lot.

“Up,” he says.

That turns out to mean a narrow path that snakes behind the motel and climbs a little rise I’d never bothered to look at before. He keeps his pace slow, matching my shorter steps without making a show of it. Every time the ground dips or a rock juts out, his hand is just…there. Not grabbing, not hauling me, just close enough that if I misjudge, he’ll catch me.

It’s infuriatingly competent.

And, annoyingly, comforting.

We crest the rise and step out onto a small, flat shelf of rock.

The whole valley spills below us.

Silver Glen is a scattered handful of houses and shops, smoke threads curling up from chimneys, the diner’s neon sign blinking near the main road. Beyond it, the patchwork of fields and forest. Farther still, the shadowed mass of Vale Ridge, stretching up into the low clouds.

There are dots of movement along the tree line—patrols, I realize. Men and wolves both, too far to distinguish, but obvious once you know what to look for. Loose around the town, tight around the motel.

Center. Anchor.

“It’s not just about you,” Kaelan says quietly at my shoulder, like he read my mind. “Or him. That thing last night? He tested a weak spot because he thought he could rip through and vanish into nowhere. But this isn’t nowhere to us.”

I wrap my arms around myself, more for warmth than anything. “Why show me this?”

“Because you keep talking like you’re camping on the edge of our world,” he says. “Like if things get too bad, you can pick up and move on, and the storm will stay here.”

I chew on that. It tastes uncomfortably like truth.

“I’ve spent a lot of years running when things get too bad,” I say. “Worked okay until recently.”

He huffs a soft breath. “It got you here. I’ll give it that.”

Silence stretches between us, not as tight as it used to be. Down below, a truck pulls out from the diner, heading toward town. A pair of kids race their bikes along the edge of the main street, oblivious to the wolves watching from just inside the trees.

“Silver Glen isn’t perfect,” Kaelan says. “Vale Ridge sure as hell isn’t. We’ve made mistakes. I’ve made a lot.” His jaw flexes. “But this valley is home. To them.” He nods down at the town. “To us. And now, whether you like it or not, to you.”

“‘Whether you like it or not’ is not the sales pitch you think it is,” I mutter.

He turns his head, lips quirking. “You’re allowed to hate parts of it. You’re allowed to be angry. You’re not allowed to talk like you and your son are just…guests passing through.”

The word son does something to my insides. He says it like it’s carved into him now.

“You showed me the wards,” I say. “You made me sign the forms. You’ve got eyes on my roof and wolves in my backyard. Trust me, I’m very aware I’m not passing through.”

“That’s not what I mean.” His voice softens. He looks at me, really looks, like he’s trying to make sure I hear this and not all the noise in my own head. “You’re not the weakest point in this valley, Maris. You’re part of what holds it together now.”

The baby shifts, small and solid, like he’s nodding.

“I’m one pregnant nurse with a bad lease and a questionable relationship with authority,” I say, dry. “You give me way too much credit.”

“Authority and I have never been on great terms either,” he says. “But I know what it looks like when the ground under a pack gives way. When there’s no center.” He nods toward the motel. “You’re building one. Even if you don’t see it yet.”

We stand there a while longer, watching the world we’re both tangled in, whether we meant to be or not.

For years, my life felt like a series of disconnected rooms I moved through carefully, leaving as little of myself behind as possible.

Looking down at Silver Glen, at the patrol lines, at the thin strip of roof that is my crooked little motel, I feel the first, fragile threads of something else.

Connection.

Responsibility.

Not just to the baby rolling under my ribs.

To this place. These people. These wolves.

“Okay,” I say at last, exhaling. “So if I’m not a guest…what am I?”

Kaelan’s answer is simple, but it lands heavy.

“Pack,” he says.