My Pregnant Escape From the Alpha Who Caged Me

The scent of lavender and crushed mint always calmed me, but tonight, even the strongest concentration of my Moon Elixir couldn't settle the trembling in my hands. My hidden laboratory, tucked away in the basement of the Blood Moon Pack house, felt colder than usual. I stared at the empty vial in my hand. It was the last of my "supplements"—the bitter, dark liquid Alpha Hayes insisted I take daily to manage my "condition."

"Barren," he called me. "Wolfless." A defect in the perfect lineage of the Blood Moon Pack. The only thing that kept me from being thrown out to the rogues was my nose. I could smell a shift in emotion before a wolf even growled. I could brew potions that brought feral warriors back from the brink of madness. But apparently, I couldn't carry a pup, and my inner wolf was too weak to ever surface.

I needed more supplements. If I missed a dose, the fever would start—a burning heat that Hayes said was my body trying to kill itself. I wiped my hands on my apron and crept up the narrow servants' stairs toward Hayes's office.

The hallway was dark, the pack house silent except for the distant hum of the generator. As I approached the heavy oak door of the Alpha’s office, a sound stopped me dead. A low, guttural moan. It wasn't pain. It was pleasure.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I should have turned back. A good Omega knows when to be invisible. But a scent drifted under the door, paralyzed me. It was the sharp, metallic tang of arousal mixed with cloying, artificial vanilla. Nicole.

My stepsister.

"Oh, Goddess, Hayes..." Nicole's voice was breathless, muffled by what sounded like skin slapping against skin. "She's going to hear us."

"Let her," Hayes growled. The sound of his voice, usually so cold when he spoke to me, was thick with lust. "The little defect is probably mixing herbs in the dungeon. That's all she's good for."

I couldn't breathe. I pressed my hand against the wall to steady myself. My mate. My fated mate, accepted by the Moon Goddess, was in there with the woman who had made my childhood a living hell.

"But the Council arrives in two days," Nicole whined. "What if she messes up the calming draughts? I need to present them as mine, remember? If the Lycan King finds out a wolfless Omega brewed them..."

Hayes laughed, a dark, cruel sound. "Don't worry, baby. She took her dose this morning. That wolfsbane cocktail keeps her brain foggy and her wolf comatose. She believes whatever I tell her. She thinks she's sick. She doesn't know she's actually a powerhouse."

Wolfsbane.

The word shattered my world. The room spun. The "medicine" to help my weak constitution... it was poison. They weren't treating me; they were suppressing me. They were killing my wolf slowly to steal my work.

A gasp tore from my throat before I could stop it. I stumbled back, my elbow knocking into a decorative vase on the hallway table. It crashed to the floor, the sound exploding like a gunshot in the silence.

The moaning inside the office stopped instantly.

"Who is there?" Hayes roared.

I turned to run, my boots slipping on the polished floor, but the door flew open. Hayes stood there, his chest bare, his jeans unbuttoned. His eyes were glowing the crimson red of an Alpha on the edge of a shift. Behind him, Nicole sat on his desk, clutching a sheet to her chest, a smirk playing on her lips as she realized who it was.

"Maeve," Hayes snarled. He didn't look ashamed. He looked furious.

"You..." My voice was a broken whisper. "You poisoned me."

Hayes stepped into the hallway, his aura expanding, heavy and suffocating. It felt like gravity had increased tenfold. "I did what was necessary for the pack. We need a strong Luna. Nicole can give me heirs. You? You're just a glorified apothecary."

"I am your mate!" I screamed, the betrayal tearing through the fog in my mind. Deep inside me, something stirred. A growl. It was faint, buried under years of toxicity, but it was there.

Hayes's eyes narrowed. He stepped closer, towering over me. "You are nothing. And you are going nowhere."

I scrambled backward, adrenaline flooding my system. "I'm leaving. I'm going to the Council. I'll tell them everything—"

"Alpha Command!" Hayes bellowed, his voice vibrating through my bones. **"SUBMIT, MAEVE!"**

The order hit me like a physical blow. My knees buckled, slamming into the hardwood. My body locked up, betraying me. I tried to stand, tried to fight, but the Alpha mandate was absolute for a wolf in my weakened state. Tears streamed down my face as I knelt there, helpless.

"Pathetic," Nicole sneered, walking out to stand beside him. She leaned down, her vanilla scent making me gag. "Don't worry, sis. I'll take good care of your recipes."

Hayes grabbed a handful of my hair, dragging me upright but keeping my body paralyzed. "Take her to the silver cells. The dampeners will keep her from mind-linking anyone until the ceremony is over. Once Nicole is confirmed as the creator of the Elixirs... well, accidents happen in the dungeons."

He dragged me down the hall, my feet uselessly trailing behind me. He threw me into the darkness of the lowest cell, the one lined with pure silver. The metal burned my skin as I hit the floor, searing my flesh. The heavy iron door slammed shut, plunging me into total blackness.

I lay there, shivering, the cold seeping into my bones. But as the minutes ticked by, something strange happened. Without the daily dose of wolfsbane, the fog in my mind began to lift. The pain of the silver was sharp, grounding. It woke me up.

I wasn't barren. I wasn't broken. I was suppressed.

I closed my eyes and reached out. Not with my voice, but with my mind. The silver walls hummed, trying to block the signal, trying to keep me isolated. I pushed harder, fueled by a rage I had never allowed myself to feel. I pictured a face from my childhood. A boy with kind eyes and a crooked smile who had promised to protect me when we were just pups.

*Wes.* I screamed his name into the void of the mind-link. *Wes, please. Can you hear me?*

Silence. Just the damp dripping of water in the cell.

I gritted my teeth, blood trickling from my nose as I forced my mental barriers down, pushing through the static of the silver. *Alpha Wes Robertson. They are going to kill me. Help me.*

A beat of silence. Then, a voice, clear and frantic, echoed in my skull, cutting through the darkness.

*Maeve? I have you. I'm coming. Hold on.*