Now You'll Never Be Safe

Pain dragged me back to consciousness like claws through velvet.

My wolf stirred first, as if wrapped in thick fog. Where am I? I whispered.

I tried to open my eyes, but the fluorescent lights above were too bright. My nostrils searching for familiar scents, but found only the sharp smell of bleach and something else... something metallic that made my wolf recoil.

Silver, I realized with growing alarm. They've put silver in my system.

I attempted to sit up, and immediately regretted it. Fire shot through my left shoulder where it had been dislocated in the crash. But my hands moved instinctively to my stomach, pressing gently against the flat plane beneath the thin hospital gown someone had dressed me in.

The baby. I needed to know about the baby.

Nothing immediately obvious, but the persistent ache low in my abdomen made my heart race.

"You're awake." The voice came from behind me.

I turned my head slowly, a woman in scrubs stood in the doorway, her wolf scent masked but not completely hidden.

"Where am I?" My voice came out as a rasp.

"Safe," she replied, which wasn't an answer at all. "You were in a terrible accident. We're taking excellent care of you."

But her scent told a different story.

Over the next few hours, a parade of medical staff filtered through my room. They checked my vitals, adjusted IV lines, and administered medications I didn't recognize. Each time I asked about my condition, about the baby, I was met with deflection.

"Let's focus on getting you stabilized first," the sandy-haired doctor would say while avoiding my gaze.

"All in good time," the nurse with the foreign accent would murmur, injecting something clear into my IV that made my wolf whimper and retreat further into the recesses of my mind.

I tried to resist, but whatever they were giving me made my thoughts sluggish, my body heavy and unresponsive. The worst part was how it dimmed my connection to the mate bond. The steady warmth that had always told me Marcus was my mate was almost gone.

The guards changed every four hours, but they weren't pack wolves in the traditional sense. These were mercenaries.

Days later, the pattern became clear. My phone had been confiscated "for my recovery." The medical staff deflected every question about contacting my pack, my family, anyone who might wonder where I was.

I began testing the boundaries of my captivity. The door was locked from the outside. The windows were reinforced glass that wouldn't break, even for a wolf. My room was monitored by cameras disguised as smoke detectors.

But I was still alive, which meant someone needed me that way. The question was why.

Moments later, a young nurse entered my room. She was different from the others, her movements nervous, her scent tinged with guilt instead of cold professionalism.

"I shouldn't be doing this," she whispered, glancing toward the door before pulling something from her pocket.

It was a newspaper, yesterday's date, and the headline made my world collapse:

"ALPHA MARCUS BLACKWOOD ANNOUNCES ENGAGEMENT TO CAPITAL PACK HEIRESS"

But it was the photo that destroyed me.

Marcus stood in formal attire, his arm around a radiant Serena Caldwell. They were at the Royal Gala, the very party I'd been racing toward when my brakes failed. She was wearing a stunning white gown, her hand displaying an enormous diamond ring, and they were both smiling like the happiest couple in the world.

I'd never seen him look at me the way he was looking at her in that photograph. Like she was the sun and he was a planet finally finding his proper orbit.

The gala was three nights ago, my wolf snarled, doing the math I was too devastated to process. The same night we were meant to tell him about the baby.

The same night I'd sat in our house, surrounded by candles and flowers and hope, waiting for a man who was already pledging his future to someone else.

The article detailed their "romantic reunion" after years apart, their "destined love that overcame political obstacles," and their plans for a "spring ceremony that will unite two of the most powerful packs in the territory."

Not a single mention of his current mate. No reference to the wife he'd already pledged his life to. I'd been erased from his story as if I'd never existed at all.

I set the newspaper aside with hands that no longer shook, my mind suddenly crystal clear despite the drugs in my system.

I was held hostage until I was no longer important.

As I stared at the photograph of my mate with his arms around another woman, something shifted inside me. The part of me that had loved him, trusted him, believed in our forever—that part died as surely as if it had been buried six feet under.

I was no longer Marcus Blackwood's mate waiting to be rescued.

I was a pregnant she-wolf trapped by enemies who thought they could eliminate me quietly, and every instinct I possessed was now focused on one simple truth: they had made the last mistake they would ever make.

The young nurse returned an hour later to collect my tray, and when she leaned close enough, I whispered two words that made her eyes widen in understanding:

"Help me."