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Rena's fingers are cold on my wrist. She's checking my pulse but her eyes are on the monitor and I don't like the way her mouth tightens.
"How far along?" she asks.
"Sixteen weeks." My voice cracks. "Maybe seventeen. I stopped counting."
She doesn't look at me. Just keeps staring at that screen like it's telling her something I can't hear. The clinic smells like disinfectant and old blood and something else I can't name. Rust maybe. Fear maybe. Cole's standing by the door with his arms crossed and his jaw so tight I can see the muscle jump.
"You said you could help," I whisper. "You said—"
"I can." Rena pulls her hand back. "But I need to know what I'm helping. This isn't a normal pregnancy, Ivy."
I already knew that. I've known since the first time I felt the flutter in my belly and smelled copper in the air. Since I woke up three nights ago covered in sweat with my veins burning under my skin.
"What do you mean not normal?"
Rena wheels her chair closer. Her eyes are dark and sharp and older than her face. "The heartbeat's too fast. The growth rate's off. And your scent—" She glances at Cole. "He can smell it too. Can't you?"
Cole nods once.
My throat closes. "Smell what?"
"Old blood." Rena taps the screen. "The kind that doesn't show up anymore. The kind the alliance spent two generations trying to breed back into existence." She leans forward. "Where's the father from?"
I don't answer.
"Ivy." Her voice drops. "I can't help you if you lie to me."
"North," I say finally. "The old packs. The alliance."
Rena goes still. Then she stands up so fast her chair hits the wall. "You're carrying Derek Vaughn's kid."
It's not a question.
I don't move. Don't breathe. Just watch her face shift from shock to something worse. Something that looks like grief.
"He doesn't know you're alive," she says slowly. "Does he."
"No."
"Good." She crosses to the cabinet and pulls out a drawer. "Keep it that way."
Cole's hand moves to his belt. I see the knife handle. Rena sees it too and shakes her head.
"Relax. I'm not calling anyone." She sets a bottle of pills on the counter. "But you need to understand what you're carrying. That baby's blood could flip the power structure in three territories. Every pack with a grudge, every rogue with a death wish, every alliance lackey trying to climb the ladder—they'll all come for you once they know."
"They won't know." My hands curl into fists. "I'll disappear. I'll go further south. I'll—"
"You'll die in childbirth without help," Rena cuts in. "The old blood doesn't play nice with human anatomy. Your body's already struggling. I can see it in the scan." She shoves the pill bottle toward me. "Iron supplements. Take two a day. And don't leave this building without Cole."
I look at Cole. He's watching me with those pale eyes that don't miss anything. I hate how much I need him. Hate how much I need any of this.
"How long do I have?" I ask.
Rena's mouth thins. "Until you're showing enough that people start asking questions. Maybe a month. Maybe less if the baby keeps growing at this rate."
One month.
Thirty days to figure out how to survive what comes next.
I'm reaching for the pills when the lights cut out.
Rena freezes. Cole moves in front of me so fast I don't see him do it. Just feel his arm against my ribs, pushing me back toward the wall.
"Stay down," Rena hisses.
I hear footsteps. Heavy boots on concrete. More than one pair. The door rattles and someone laughs outside and the sound makes my skin crawl.
"Rena Cash," a man's voice calls through the door. "We know you're in there. We know you've got someone new."
Rena doesn't answer. She's pulling something from under the counter. A gun. Small and black and very real.
Cole's already moved to the other side of the door. He's got his knife out now. His face is blank but his shoulders are coiled like a spring.
"We just want to talk," the voice says. Reasonable. Friendly. Lying. "We heard there's a girl. Pregnant girl. North pack bloodline. Someone's paying good money for information."
My heart stops.
"They don't know it's you," Rena breathes. "They're fishing."
The door shudders. Someone's kicking it. The frame cracks and I smell smoke.
"They're burning us out," I whisper.
Rena's face goes hard. She looks at Cole and jerks her head toward the back. He shakes his head. She jerks again, harder, and mouths something I can't read.
The door splinters.
Three men push through. Big. Armed. One of them has a tattoo crawling up his neck. Alliance marks. I know them because I used to see them every day on Derek's officers.
"There she is," Tattoo says. He's grinning. "Pretty thing. How much you think Vaughn'll pay to get his breeder back?"
Something snaps inside me. Not fear. Not anymore. Just cold, clean rage.
"I'm not his breeder," I say.
Tattoo laughs. "Sure you're not. That's why you're hiding in a basement with a mute and a dead woman's doctor." He raises his gun. "Come on, sweetheart. Make it easy."
I step forward. Rena hisses my name but I'm not listening. I'm staring at the gun and thinking about the baby curled inside me. The one they want to take. The one they'll use the same way Derek used me.
"You want me?" I say quietly. "Come get me."
Tattoo's grin widens. He takes a step.
Cole moves.
I don't see the first strike. Just hear the crack of bone and Tattoo's scream. The gun skitters across the floor. The other two lunge but Cole's already between them and me, his knife flashing in the dim red emergency light.
Rena fires twice. One man drops. The other stumbles back, clutching his shoulder, and runs.
Silence.
Tattoo's on the floor, groaning. His nose is a ruined mess. Cole's standing over him with the knife still in his hand and his chest barely moving. Like he didn't just take down two armed men in under ten seconds.
Rena steps over the bodies and crouches next to Tattoo. "Who sent you?"
He spits blood. "Fuck you."
She presses her boot into his broken nose. He screams.
"Who. Sent. You."
"Bounty hunter," he gasps. "Got a contract. Description. Photo. Big payout for a pregnant girl, dark hair, north pack features." He coughs. "Didn't say she was Vaughn's. Just said she's worth half a million alive."
My stomach drops.
Rena looks up at me. Her face is pale. "They have your photo."
"That's impossible," I whisper. "I burned everything. I—"
"Someone kept a copy." She stands and crosses to the bodies. Starts searching pockets. Pulls out a phone. Swipes through it. Goes very, very still.
Then she turns the screen toward me.
It's a photo. Old. Grainy. Me standing next to Derek at some alliance function. I'm smiling. I look so young. So stupid.
But that's not what makes my blood freeze.
It's the caption underneath.
*Target: Ivy Grace. Bloodline: Awakened Halfblood, Seventh Generation. Bounty: $500k alive, proof of termination accepted for $100k. Note: Subject is the only recorded female carrier of the old blood in forty years. Pregnancy must be preserved. Secondary objective: Capture for alliance breeding program.*
Rena's voice sounds far away. "Derek's not hunting the baby. He's hunting you."
I can't breathe. Can't think. I'm staring at the words *only recorded female carrier* and feeling the room tilt.
"What does that mean?" I whisper.
Rena looks at me and I see it in her eyes. The truth. The one I've been running from since my nineteenth birthday.
"It means you're not just Derek's escaped breeder," she says quietly. "You're the last of a bloodline everyone thought was extinct. And that baby you're carrying?" She glances at the screen. "It's not just his heir. It's the first pure old-blood child born in half a century."
The world narrows to a pinpoint.
Cole's hand touches my shoulder. Steady. Warm. Real.
I look up at him. His face is still blank but his eyes aren't. They're asking a question.
Stay or run?
I think about the baby. About the contract. About Derek's face when he finds out I'm alive.
And I realize something.
I'm not running anymore.
"How do we kill him?" I ask.
Rena's mouth curves. It's not a smile. It's sharper than that. Meaner.
"First," she says, "we make sure you survive long enough to learn how to use what's in your blood." She tosses the phone to Cole. "Burn that. Burn the bodies. We've got maybe an hour before someone notices these three didn't report back."
Cole nods and moves.
Rena looks at me. Really looks. Like she's seeing me for the first time.
"You sure about this?" she asks. "Once we start, there's no going back. You'll have every pack in the north hunting you. Maybe the south too. And Derek—" She shakes her head. "He won't stop. Not now that he knows what you are."
I touch my stomach. Feel the flutter. The tiny heartbeat that shouldn't exist.
"I'm sure," I say.
Rena nods slowly. Then she crosses to the wreckage of her files, kneels down, and starts sifting through the burned papers scattered from the earlier chaos.
She pulls out one photo. Holds it up to the light.
Her face goes white.
"What?" I move closer. "What is it?"
She doesn't answer. Just hands me the photo.
It's Derek. Standing with four other men. Alliance leaders, all of them. But there's one more person in the frame.
A woman.
Dark hair. Pale skin. My face.
No.
Not my face.
My mother's face.
"Rena," I whisper. "What the hell is this?"
She meets my eyes.
"I think," she says slowly, "Derek knew exactly what you were before you ever met him."