Chapter 2
984 Words
Selena POV
Selene never found out who those voices belonged to.
By the time she got the courage to follow them, they were gone. She was too broken to chase answers she wasn't even sure she wanted yet. She told herself she would come back for the truth later. She told herself a lot of things that night that she never kept.
She left Blackthorn territory before sunrise, while the sky was still gray and the air still smelled like smoke from last night's torches. She didn't pack much. A change of clothes, the little money she had saved, and a photo of her mother, who died when Selene was too young to remember her voice. She left no note, because there was no one left to read it.
She walked for three days before a trucker took pity on a girl alone on the highway and dropped her at the edge of rogue territory. Her feet were blistered and her stomach was empty. She remembers thinking that whatever waited for her out there had to be better than what she left behind. She didn't know it yet, but that road would carry her somewhere she never expected.
Four weeks later, she learned why her body had been acting strange.
She was staying in a small room above a diner, working as a waitress for cash, when the smell of frying eggs sent her running for the bathroom for the third morning in a row. The woman who ran the diner, an old rogue named Marta, found her on her knees in front of the toilet and didn't say a word. She just handed her a small box from her purse.
"Take it," she said. "Better to know."
Selene sat on the edge of the bathtub for ten minutes before she got the nerve to look at the test, her hands shaking so badly she almost dropped it twice.
Two lines.
She stared at it until the lines blurred together, until she couldn't tell if she was breathing or holding her breath. A baby. Damian's baby. The same Damian who had stood in front of the whole pack and said five words like they cost him nothing.
She should have been terrified. Part of her was. But another part, a quiet part underneath the fear, felt something close to relief. She wasn't completely alone anymore.
"You're sure?" Marta asked when she came out, her face probably saying everything before she even spoke.
"I'm sure," Selene said.
Marta studied her for a long moment, the kind of look that made Selene feel seen straight through. "Rogue packs don't take kindly to outsiders showing up pregnant with no mate and no story," she said. "You'll need a new name if you want anyone to take you seriously. A new face. A reason nobody will ask too many questions about."
"Why are you helping me?" Selene asked, because no one had given her anything for free in a long time, and the kindness felt almost too plain to trust.
Marta shrugged, like the question barely needed an answer. "Because somebody helped me once, a long time ago, when I had nothing either. Pay it forward someday. That's the only payment I want."
Selene thought about her old name. Selene Hartley. The girl who got rejected in front of her whole pack. The girl who didn't matter enough to keep.
"Selene Cross," she said, trying the name out loud.
Marta nodded, like that settled something. "Cross," she repeated. "Has a good sound to it. Strong."
Selene didn't feel strong. She felt like she was holding herself together with thread and stubbornness. But she said the name again anyway, quietly, like she was trying to make it true.
That night, lying in the dark above the diner with her hand resting on her flat stomach, she made herself a promise. Whatever this baby turned out to be, wolf or human, strong or small, she would build a life where no one could ever throw either of them away again. She would become someone too powerful to reject.
She didn't know yet what that would cost her, or how many fights she would have to win to get there. She only knew she couldn't go back to being the girl crying at the watchtower.
Three months later, that promise was tested for the first time.
She was walking home from the market when two rogue wolves cornered her in the alley behind Marta's diner, the kind of men who could smell weakness on a person and decided to use it. Her bag of groceries hit the ground. An onion rolled into a puddle. She remembers staring at that small, useless thing, because it was easier than looking at their faces. One of them grabbed her wrist hard enough to bruise.
"Pretty thing like you shouldn't be wandering around without a pack," he said, his grip tightening. "Maybe you need someone to look after you."
Her wolf rose inside her, sharp and furious, more protective than she had ever felt before. It wasn't only about her anymore.
She twisted free and shoved him back harder than she expected, hard enough that he stumbled into a stack of crates and went down.
He looked up at her with surprise, then anger, then something darker, something that told her he wasn't finished, not even close.
"You're going to regret that," he growled, getting up slowly, his friend already moving behind her to block the way out.
She backed against the wall, her heart hammering, her hand moving without thinking to cover her stomach. One sharp, desperate thought filled her head.
If they touch me, they touch my child too.
The man's eyes dropped straight to her hand pressed against her stomach. The ugly smile that spread across his face told her he had just found something far more useful to him than fear.
- Writer
