I don't remember deciding to run. I just ran.
The blizzard swallowed me whole the moment I turned my back on the pack house. Snow came at me sideways, sharp enough to sting even through fur I'd never had before. My wolf moved like something wild and unpracticed—legs too long, balance all wrong, every stride a controlled fall forward. I didn't know how to be this. I didn't know how to move in a body that felt borrowed and enormous and mine all at once.
But my wolf knew one thing: away. Away from the man who'd spoken those words. Away from the hall full of witnesses. Away from the bond-place at my throat that had gone cold and empty as a winter grave.
The wolfsbane was still in my blood. I could feel it like poison threading through my veins, slowing my legs, making my vision blur at the edges. My pup. I pressed forward because stopping meant thinking and thinking meant feeling the thing I couldn't feel yet or I would collapse in the snow and not get up.
I don't know how long I ran. Time went strange. The trees thickened. The snow got deeper. At some point I realized the scent markers had changed—not Shadowvale anymore, something else, something older and colder—and my wolf's instinct said border, said stop, said you've gone too far.
I didn't stop.
I made it three more strides into Nighthollow territory before my legs gave out.
The shift back happened without my permission. One moment I was wolf, the next I was human again—naked in the snow, skin burning where the wolfsbane burns met the cold, my belly tight and cramping in a way that made my breath come shallow and fast. I tried to stand. My body said no. I curled on my side in the snow and pressed both palms flat against my abdomen and I thought, very clearly: Please. Please don't take her too.
I heard voices before I saw them. Boots in snow. The low, clipped cadence of a border patrol reporting in. Someone said, "Female, injured, crossed from Shadowvale." Someone else said, "She's bleeding."
Then a different voice. Deeper. Quieter. "Move."
I forced my eyes open.
The Lycan Prince stood three feet away, perfectly still, and the scent hit me like a fist to the chest. Cedar and winter rain. Clean and cold and somehow safe in a way that made no sense because I didn't know him, I'd never met him, and I had no reason to trust any male ever again.
He was looking at me. Not at my body—at my face. His expression didn't change but something in his posture did. He went very still in the way wolves go still when they've scented something that shouldn't be possible.
"Your Highness?" one of the patrol wolves said.
Franklin didn't answer immediately. He kept looking at me. Then he said, very quietly, "Get Elara. Now."
"Sir, we can carry her to—"
"I said now." His voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. The patrol wolves scattered.
Franklin crouched—not close, just enough to be level with me—and his eyes were grey and steady and I couldn't read them at all. "You're safe," he said. "No one will touch you. Do you understand?"
I tried to answer. My mouth wouldn't work. The cramping in my belly got worse and I curled tighter and made a sound I didn't recognize.
His jaw tightened. "The pup?"
I nodded. Barely.
"Elara's the best healer in three territories," he said. "She'll take care of you both." He stood. Looked at the patrol wolves who'd stayed. "Carry her. Carefully. If she shifts, back off and let her. If anyone speaks to her without her speaking first, I'll hear about it."
They lifted me in a blanket someone had brought. I was shaking too hard to fight. The last thing I saw before I passed out was Franklin standing in the snow, watching the patrol carry me toward the pack house, his face unreadable and his scent still in my lungs like something I'd been breathing my whole life without knowing it.
---
I woke in a bed I didn't recognize, under blankets that smelled like lavender and woodsmoke, in a room with stone walls and a fire burning low in the grate.
Panic came first. I sat up too fast. My head spun. My hands went to my belly and I felt the swell there, still present, still real, and I couldn't breathe until I felt the flutter—faint, fragile, but there.
Alive. She was alive.
"Easy." A woman's voice. Calm, clinical. "You're in Nighthollow's infirmary. I'm Elara, senior healer. Your pup's stable. The wolfsbane traces are dissipating, but you need to stay down."
I turned. She was older, maybe fifty, with silver streaking her dark hair and hands that moved with the confidence of someone who'd set a thousand bones. She was checking a tray of medical supplies on the side table and didn't look at me like I was fragile. I appreciated that more than she could know.
"How long?" My voice came out raw.
"Eighteen hours. You shifted twice in your sleep—your wolf's still adjusting. I let it happen. Trying to suppress a new shift can do more harm than good."
I looked at my forearms. The burns were bandaged, clean white gauze wrapped wrist to elbow. I could still feel the sting underneath.
"The wolfsbane—" I started.
Elara's expression didn't change but something in her eyes sharpened. "Whoever laced that water knew what they were doing. That concentration should have ended the pregnancy. The fact that it didn't means your pup's stronger than she has any right to be." She paused. "Or you are."
I didn't know what to say to that.
Elara set down the tray. "Prince Franklin left instructions. You're to stay as long as you need. No one will ask you questions. No one will demand anything. If you want to leave, you can leave. But—" She looked at me directly. "You're bleeding still. Internally, slow but present. And your wolf's not stable. If you run again, you'll miscarry within two days."
I stared at her. "You're saying I'm trapped."
"I'm saying your body's telling you to stop." She moved toward the door. "I'll be back in an hour to check the dressings. There's food on the table when you're ready. Don't get up unless you have to."
She left. The door clicked shut. The fire crackled.
I lay back down because my body gave me no choice. I pressed my palm flat against my belly and I thought about Alexander's voice saying those words in front of everyone. I thought about Callie's satisfied little breath. I thought about the bond snapping and my wolf rising and the way every wolf in that hall had dropped their gaze.
I thought about Franklin's scent. Cedar and winter rain.
I thought about the fact that I had nowhere to go.
And I thought, very quietly, in the dark: I'm not done yet.
---
That evening, footsteps stopped outside my door. A knock. Soft.
"Come in," I said. My voice was steadier now.
The door opened. Franklin stood in the threshold—not inside, just at the edge, his posture slightly to the left of the doorway like he was giving me space even in how he stood. He looked the same as he had in the snow. Controlled. Unreadable. His scent reached me before his words did.
"You're awake," he said.
"You didn't have to come."
"I know." He didn't move closer. "Elara says you're stable. That's good."
I waited. He didn't say anything else. Just stood there, grey eyes steady, like he had all the time in the world and no agenda for how I should fill it.
Finally I said, "Why are you helping me?"
"Because you need help," he said simply. "And because no one should cross a border bleeding in a blizzard and be turned away."
"You don't know me."
"No," he agreed. "But I know what a severed bond looks like. And I know what wolfsbane poisoning smells like. And I know—" He paused. His gaze didn't waver. "I know you're carrying something more than just a pup."
My breath caught. He knew. He'd scented it. The thing even I didn't understand yet.
I should have been afraid. I wasn't.
"Stay," Franklin said quietly. "As long as you need. No one here will hurt you. That's not a favor. It's a fact."
He stepped back. Started to close the door.
"Prince Franklin," I said.
He stopped.
"Thank you."
He nodded once. Then he was gone, and I was alone with the fire and the blankets and the faint flutter of my pup under my palm.
I closed my eyes. I didn't sleep. But I stayed.
