"Stay back, Margaret." I grip the fire poker tighter, my heart hammering against my ribs.
The footsteps stop. Heavy breathing echoes from the kitchen, followed by a low growl that makes my wolf recoil in terror. The scent hits me, wild, feral, wrong. Rogue. But underneath that madness, something familiar that makes my blood run cold.
Marcus. The name whispers through my mind, though I can't see him in the darkness.
"Eve?" Margaret's voice trembles behind me. "What's happening?"
"Shh." I press myself against the wall, straining to listen. The breathing grows fainter, then disappears entirely. Minutes stretch like hours before I dare to move.
The kitchen window hangs open, torn screen fluttering in the night breeze. Claw marks score the wooden frame. But whoever, whatever, was here is gone.
"Just a raccoon," I lie, helping Margaret to her feet. "Big one. Knocked over some pots."
She studies my face in the dim light. "Mighty strange raccoon, making sounds like that."
Dear Little One,
It's been two months since we came here. I write to you every night because talking out loud makes me feel crazy, but somehow putting pen to paper keeps me anchored. Margaret, she's become the mother I never really had. Don't tell Aunt Lilah I said that.
Your father... I try not to think about him. Some days I succeed.
Love,
Mama
I close the journal and rest my hand on my growing belly. Five months along now, and you're getting stronger every day. Your kicks remind me I'm not alone, even when the loneliness threatens to drown me.
"Eve, dear, come have your tea." Margaret's voice drifts up from the kitchen.
I pad downstairs in my slippers, finding her at the kitchen table with two steaming mugs. She's taken to adding ginger and honey to help with the lingering nausea.
"Couldn't sleep again?" She pushes a mug toward me.
"Just thinking." I sink into the chair across from her. "Margaret, can I ask you something?"
"Course, honey."
"Do you ever miss your husband? Even after everything?"
Her weathered hands wrap around her mug. "Harold? Lord, yes. Even though he drank too much and gambled away half our savings." She meets my eyes. "Missing someone doesn't mean they were good for you. Heart's got its own logic, doesn't it?"
The farmer's market bustles with Saturday morning energy. I weave through the stalls, basket in hand, trying to focus on Margaret's shopping list instead of the couple browsing tomatoes near the corner stand.
He pulls her close, whispering something that makes her laugh. She swats his arm playfully, and he kisses her temple with such tenderness my chest aches.
Stop watching them. But I can't look away. They move together like dancers who've practiced the same steps for years. Easy. Natural. The way Adrian and I never got to be.
"Miss? You all right?"
I blink, realizing I've been standing frozen beside the lettuce stand. The vendor, a middle-aged man with kind eyes, looks concerned.
"Fine. Just... spacing out." I grab a head of lettuce and fumble for my wallet.
Walking home, I pass the hardware store. Through the window, I glimpse the owner helping a customer, a tall man with dark hair. For one heart-stopping second, I think it's Adrian. My wolf surges, desperate and longing, before logic kicks in. Wrong shoulders. Wrong stance.
But the damage is done. The mate bond, dormant for weeks, flares to life like a match struck in darkness.
The scent hits me as I'm hanging laundry on the line behind Margaret's house. Wet pine and leather, so potent it might as well be Adrian himself standing behind me.
I drop the sheet I'm hanging, my knees buckling. It's just the neighbor's new aftershave, has to be. But my body doesn't care about logic. The mate bond roars to life, phantom hands on my skin, phantom lips against my throat.
"No, no, no." I press my palms against my eyes, trying to block out the memories. Adrian's voice growling "mine." His teeth grazing my collarbone. The way he looked at me like I was everything he'd ever wanted.
Before he chose her instead.
A sob tears from my throat, then another. Soon I'm sobbing so hard I can barely breathe, clinging to the clothesline for support. Six months. It's been six months, and it still feels like a fresh wound.
"Eve!" Margaret's arms wrap around me from behind. "Honey, what's wrong? Is it the baby?"
"I can't, " Another sob chokes off my words. "I thought I was stronger than this."
She guides me to the porch swing, rubbing my back while I fall apart. "There now. Let it out."
"I hate him," I whisper between gasps. "I hate him so much it scares me. But I, "
"But you love him too."
I nod, miserable. "How pathetic is that?"
"Not pathetic. Human." She tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. "Or whatever you are, dear."
Mrs. Chen from the grocery store clutches my hands as I finish wrapping her sprained wrist. "You're a miracle worker, Eve. How did you know exactly where it hurt without me saying?"
I force a smile, packing away my supplies. It's getting harder to pretend this is normal, the way people's emotions hit me like waves the moment I touch them. Mrs. Chen's pain, but also her worry about her son overseas, her grief over her late husband, her gratitude toward me.
Too much. Too intense.
"Just experience," I lie, accepting her payment.
Walking home, I pass the young couple from the farmer's market. They're arguing now, voices sharp with frustration. Without touching either of them, I can feel their anger, their hurt, their love tangled up with fear.
This isn't normal.
"Eve?" Margaret looks up from her crossword puzzle as I enter. "You look pale. Everything all right?"
"Can I ask you something strange?"
"Stranger than a pregnant girl showing up on my doorstep in the middle of the night? Try me."
I sit across from her, considering my words. "Do you think some people are born... different? Like they can sense things others can't?"
She sets down her pencil. "My grandmother used to say she could smell storms coming three days out. And my aunt Helen always knew when someone was lying to her." Her eyes study my face. "Why do you ask?"
"That mark on my wrist, you said it looked familiar."
"Mmm." She reaches for my hand, tracing the crescent-shaped birthmark with her finger. "My grandmother had one just like it. Said it ran in certain families. Old families." She meets my eyes. "Families that remembered things others forgot."
Before I can ask what she means, she's back to her crossword as if nothing happened.
Dear Little One,
I dreamed about you again last night. We were in a moonlit forest, and you were maybe three years old, with the most beautiful silver eyes. You held out your arms and called me "mama" in this sweet, clear voice that made my heart want to burst.
In the dream, I wasn't afraid anymore. I wasn't running or hiding or wondering if I'd made the right choice. I was just your mother, and that was enough.
I woke up feeling like it was a promise somehow. Like you were telling me everything will be okay.
I hope you're right.
Love,
Mama
Thunder rumbles overhead as I set down my pen. Rain has been threatening all evening, the air thick and electric. I glance at the clock, past midnight.
Another rumble, closer this time. Lightning flashes outside my window, followed immediately by a crack of thunder that shakes the house.
Then a different kind of pressure hits me, low in my belly. Sharp. Insistent.
I sit up straighter, hands going to my stomach. "Not yet, little one. It's too early."
But another contraction grips me, stronger than the first. Pain radiates from my back around to my front, stealing my breath.
"Margaret!" I call out, panic creeping into my voice as the storm breaks overhead, rain lashing against the windows.
Lightning illuminates my room as another contraction hits,
and I know with terrifying certainty, ready or not, you're coming tonight.