Chapter 177

Ronan

The hideout was exactly as I remember it: little more than a hunter’s ruin tucked against a slope of stone, its roof half-collapsed, its walls crooked.

But it was shelter, and after the fight in the woods, shelter was all that mattered.

I shoved aside broken branches and dragged what brush I could across the entrance, masking it with the scent of pine. My ears strained at every sound. I couldn’t afford mistakes, not with Lila so vulnerable.

She lay on a bed of furs I’d scrounged from the corner, her breathing shallow, skin too pale against the small fire I’d lit for warmth.

I’d cleaned the blood from her shoulder as best I could, but the wound still looked angry. She didn’t complain while I stitched, only set her jaw, sweat shining along her temple. Or when I set her write and wrapped it.

She was stronger than half the warriors I’d trained. Stronger than me, maybe, though she’d never believe it.

Her eyes flicked open when I placed a strip of roasted rabbit near her nose. She hesitated, nostrils flaring at the smell, but hunger pulled her forward.

“For the baby,” I said before she could argue. My voice sounded gruffer than I meant it.

Her gaze snapped to mine. For a heartbeat I thought I’d imagined it, but no, her arm curled instinctively across her middle, protective, confirming what the words had already betrayed.

Pregnant.

The ground seemed to tilt beneath me. I masked my reaction, turned back to the fire, but inside my chest everything roared. The stakes had changed: she wasn’t only surviving for herself. She carried Damon’s child.

And here I was, exiled, condemned, sitting guard over a future that should have belonged to another male.

My hand tightened around the knife I was sharpening, the rasp of stone against metal keeping me steady.

“How did you know?” she asked, cautiously.

I drew in a deep breath to emphasize my next words. “Your scent has changed. It’s still you, but… more. And you fought like a mother protecting her cubs.” My lips twitched at that, remembering the way she tore into the Rogues.

“You need your strength,” I said before she could argue, holding out the roasted rabbit again. My voice sounded gruffer than I meant it.

She didn’t answer, only chewed slowly, shoulders. I watched the line of her throat work, the faint quiver of her fingers. My own stomach growled, but I ignored it.

I busied myself sharpening the edge of her dagger, forcing my hands steady. The rhythm soothed me, kept me from staring too long at her or saying the things I shouldn’t.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said at last, voice quiet but firm.

“No,” I admitted. The steel rasped against stone. “But here I am.”

Her gaze flicked to me then, sharp despite the exhaustion dragging at her features. “I thought you weren’t coming back.”

“A lot happened that kept me away,” I admitted, voice low. “Damon named me traitor and cast me out.”

Her breath hitched, concern flickering across her face. “Yet here you are,” she whispered.

I gave a rough shrug, throat tight. “Exile or not, I couldn’t leave you to face them alone.” I met her stare and held it for long heartbeats.

“I’m sorry.” She said finally. Her lips pressed together before she turned to the fire, arms curled protectively around her middle.

That small unconscious gesture tore into me. She was already fighting for more than herself.

I leaned back against the wall, forcing my claws to retract and my voice calm. “The Rogues won’t stop. They weren’t hunting blind; they knew exactly where to find you. We’ll need more than a small dagger and luck to survive what’s coming.”

Her jaw tightened. She hated hearing the truth, but she hated lies more.

I ran a hand down my face, exhaustion dragging at my bones. I’d gone days without rest, tracking her scent through mud, fear gnawing me hollow each time it thinned.

And yet, seeing her here, alive, stubborn as ever, some part of me felt more settled than it had in weeks.

The Pack’s laws meant nothing in this place. Out here, there was only survival. I didn’t have to be Beta or traitor. I could just be the male who helped kept her breathing.

She finished the last bite of rabbit and set the bone aside, her hand lingering over her belly once more. I watched the movement, and something twisted in my chest. A thought surfaced that I should have shoved away…what it might be like to guard them both, build a family together.

It was a dangerous, forbidden thought. But I was already exiled, maybe it wasn’t forbidden anymore.

I smothered the idea along with the spark that flew at my boot from the fire. I stacked another log and let the new sparks spit upward. “Rest,” I told her, softer this time. “I’ll keep watch.”

She didn’t argue. Her eyes drifted shut, lashes dark against pale skin.

And as the forest pressed in around our fragile walls, I sat there with blade in hand, vowing silently that nothing – no Rogue, or King, or law – would touch her again while I still drew breath.

I sat there long into the night, ears tuned to the forest, every muscle ready to strike. And when the fire burned low, when her breathing had begun to quicken with pending wakefulness, I reached into my pack.

The vials I had smuggled out were still there. I’d kept them through exile, through hunger, through nights I thought I might not see her again.

A small glass tube stoppered with wax, the liquid inside catching faint glints of gold in the firelight.

I turned it over in my hand, heart pounding. I had stolen it from Damon. The antidote. The cure to the poison that had broken her wolf.

And now, with her lying inches away, I was terrified of giving it to her.

I cleared my throat softly. “Lila.”

Her eyes opened slowly. She sat up a little, wincing at the pull on her shoulder.

“What is that?”

I held the vials out, palm open, so she could see I meant no trick. “An antidote. To what Ella did to you.”

Her eyes darkened. She didn’t reach for it.

“I risked everything to get this,” I said quietly. “I couldn’t stop her from giving it to you, or Damon from caging you, but I could steal this. I knew you’d need it, and I can’t... I can’t in good conscious keep it from you.”

Silence stretched between us. The fire crackled, throwing light across her face.

“How do you know it’s real?” she asked finally, voice low and edged.

“Because I saw her test it,” I said. The memory burned of wolves chained, broken, injected with poison and antidote in turn. “I watched it bring strength back to one she nearly destroyed. It’s not perfect. But it works.”

I had switched out one of Ella’s guards with one under my command, who let me into her “laboratory” when Damon was negotiating for Elena’s hand. I would keep that to myself, though.

Her lips trembled as she looked at the vial, then away. She pressed her hand over her stomach. “And if it isn’t what you think it is? If it’s just another of Ella’s tricks? I won’t risk my child.”

The words shot through my heart like an arrow. The baby was already more than a secret she carried; it was her world.

I swallowed hard and lowered my hand, curling the vials back into my fist. “Then don’t. But I think you should seriously consider it.”

Her gaze flicked back to me, surprise cutting through the mistrust.

“I won’t force this on you,” I said. “When you’re ready, it’s here. Until then,” My voice roughened. “Until then, I’ll protect you both.”

Something shifted in her expression, but she said nothing. She lay back slowly, nodding her assent, eyes closing again, one hand still braced over her middle.

I kept watch, dagger balanced across my knee, the fire painting shadows across the walls. My exile, the Rogues, Damon, none of it seemed to matter anymore.

My world had narrowed to the female sleeping on furs a few feet away and the child she carried.

I wasn’t sure I ever wanted it to be larger than that again.