"Stop."
Jake shoved me into a niche between the damp stones of the wall. The cold granite bit into my shoulder blades through the thin fabric of my traveling cloak. Outside, around the corner, the iron-shod boots of the patrols clattered. A rhythmic step, the clank of metal—the sound of death itself in this castle.
"They'll pass in a minute," Jake breathed into my ear. He smelled of wet wool and adrenaline. "If we get caught, I won't be able to..."
"You've said that already. Five times."
"You don't understand. Cale will flay me alive."
"Then don't watch him do it."
Jake cursed under his breath. He peered around the corner, his hand convulsively gripping the hilt of his dagger. His knuckles were white. A short, barely audible whistle—the signal.
"Run for the gate. Right now."
I bolted. My legs felt like lead, as if I were walking along a riverbed. Every step throbbed in the back of my head. The mud in the backyard squelched underfoot, trying to hold me back, to betray my presence. Torches on the towers brushed light against the edge of my cloak, but we were already in the shadow of the secret passage.
The gate creaked—the sound seemed like thunder in the silence of the night forest.
"Faster," Jake nudged my back. "The forest won't hide us for long if they let the hounds loose."
"Stop pushing me."
"Then move your legs, omega."
Branches lashed at my face. I tripped over a protruding root, nearly burying my nose in the rotting leaves. Weakness hit me suddenly, draining my strength. In my lower abdomen, something stirred—heavy, alien.
"We're almost there," Jake turned back, his eyes flashing yellow in the darkness. "Do you smell that?"
"Burning and rot."
"It's wormwood. Isabel is waiting."
The healer's hut rose out of the mist like the hump of an old beast. A dim orange light seeped from under the door. The smell of dried herbs was so thick here it could be cut with a knife. Jake froze at the entrance, leaning his back against the doorframe.
"Go in. We have fifteen minutes."
I pushed the door open. It was stuffy inside. Isabel stood with her back to me, stirring something in a cast-iron cauldron over the hearth. Her grey hair lay on her shoulders in a tangled cloud.
"Sit," she threw out without turning. "On the bench. The fabric of your cloak smells of Jake's fear; it's distracting."
"I didn't come here to have my scent judged."
I sat on the rough wood. The stone floor beneath my feet was ice-cold.
"You came for the truth," Isabel turned. Her eyes were clouded with a milky film, but her gaze pierced right through me. "Though you already know it. You just want an old fool to voice it."
She handed me a clay bowl. The liquid inside steamed with a black, oily film.
"Drink. All of it."
"What is it?"
"Bitter root. If there is a void inside you, you'll just vomit. If not—you will see."
I took a sip. The taste was vile—gall mixed with ash. The liquid scorched my throat, dropping into my stomach like molten lead.
"Isabel, there isn't much time."
"Time is the one thing you no longer have, girl. Lie down."
She pointed to a table cluttered with bundles of herbs. I obeyed, feeling the world around me begin to rotate slowly. The ceiling of the hut, bristling with dried sage, drifted to the side.
The healer's cold fingers touched my stomach. I flinched. Her hands were like ice, but where they pressed, a fire flared up.
"Quiet," Isabel whispered. "Do not resist the blood."
"What are you..." the words caught in my throat.
Inside me, deep beneath muscle and bone, something responded. A sharp, distinct thud. A rhythmic pulse that did not belong to my own heart.
Isabel's eyes rolled back, exposing the whites.
"The blood of the wolf-kings awakens in agony," her voice changed, becoming hoarse and layered. "A child of ancient blood. Born in shadow, conceived in pain."
"Stop it."
"When tyranny chokes on its own bile, the one who will crush the throne shall come. You aren't just carrying a child, omega. You are carrying the end of this world."
"That's impossible. Cale... he would have sensed it."
"Cale sees you as a toy. A hunter never expects a blow from the trap he stepped into himself."
Isabel gripped my sides so hard I cried out. Golden sparks exploded before my eyes. The heat in my chest became unbearable; I felt the mark on my neck—the trace of Cale's teeth—begin to pulse, searing my skin.
"Let go!" I tried to wrench myself away, but the old woman held me with inhuman strength.
"Your blood has spoken, omega. Do you hear that hum? That is not your fear. That is his rage."
"Whose rage?"
"The child's, who will devour his father."
I froze. Memories of nights in Cale's bedroom flooded back. His rough hands, the scent of his power, the weight of his body. Every second of that humiliation was now taking shape. A terrifying, living shape inside me.
"Will it be a boy?" my voice trembled.
"It will be ruin."
There was a sharp knock at the door. Three short strikes.
"Guards on the path!" Jake's voice broke into a whisper. "Alina, come out!"
I scrambled off the table, my head spinning. My body no longer felt like my own. It was a vessel, a temporary refuge for something vast and frightening.
"Take this," Isabel thrust a linen pouch into my hands. "Take a pinch with water. It will hide the scent of the child from Cale. Until it grows stronger."
"And if I don't want to hide it? If I want this to end?"
The healer looked at me with her clouded eyes.
"Then go to Cale and tell him the truth. He will cut it out of you along with your soul. To him, nothing is more dangerous than an heir he cannot control."
I pressed the pouch to my chest. My fingers were shaking so violently I could barely hold the fabric.
"Go," Isabel turned back to the hearth. "And remember: your freedom smells of blood. Whether it is your child's or your own is for you to decide."
I burst out of the hut into the cold night mist. Jake grabbed my elbow and dragged me into the brush.
"You're pale as death. What did she say?"
"Nothing. Just a cold."
"Don't lie to me. I saw her face. Did she see a prophecy?"
"Jake, just lead me back."
We ran through the forest, but I barely felt the ground beneath my feet. Inside me, a serpent was uncoiling. Every movement Cale had made, every touch, now seemed like part of a long, gruesome design of fate itself.
"Stay here," Jake pressed me against the castle wall by the secret passage. "I'll check the corridor."
"Wait."
He turned back.
"If everything goes wrong... If they find out... Will you help me get away?"
Jake looked at my hand, resting on my stomach. His nostrils flared. He was a werewolf; he sensed the change, even if he didn't understand its nature.
"You've gotten into something you can't run from, Alina."
"Will you help?"
"It's clear. Go."
He nudged me into the darkness of the corridor. I made my way to my quarters, hugging the walls, flinching at every rustle. The castle, which had once been a prison, now felt like a tomb.
I entered my room and bolted the door. In the dark, it smelled of old wood and Cale—his scent had permeated even the stone walls.
I walked to the mirror. In the faint moonlight filtering through the narrow window, my reflection looked like a stranger's. Pale skin, a feverish glint in the eyes.
I placed my palms on my stomach.
There, beneath layers of fabric and skin, a heart beat. Not mine. The heart of one conceived in hatred, but promising to be the key to freedom. Or the reason for immediate execution.
"Child of ancient blood," I whispered.
The mark on my neck flared with stinging pain. Cale was out there, in another part of the castle, likely celebrating his victory at the council. He didn't know yet that inside his "trophy," the clock of his demise was already ticking.
I squeezed the pouch of herbs. The secret meeting was over, but the real nightmare was only beginning. I was no longer just a broken omega. I was a weapon that did not yet know who it would shoot first.
Fear washed over my back like an icy wave as heavy, confident footsteps sounded in the corridor. Steps I would recognize out of a thousand.
Cale was coming to my door.
I hid the pouch under the pillow and froze, digging my nails into my palms. My stomach responded again with a strange, short surge of heat.
The bond between us was no longer just a mark on the skin. It had become a biological inevitability. And at that realization, I wanted to scream so loud that the walls of this cursed castle would crumble.