Luna jumped awake as the truck hit a bump. Her heart raced until she remembered where she was – in the cab of a stranger's truck, running away from everything she knew.
"Sorry about that," the driver said. "These back roads aren't kept up too well."
Luna nodded, trying to calm her breaths. She'd been thinking about Kaelen again. In the dream, he was following her through the forest, his eyes glowing red, calling her name over and over.
"We're almost to Riverdale," the driver said. "Any particular place you want me to drop you?"
Luna had no idea. She'd never been to Riverdale. She didn't know anyone there or have anywhere to go.
"Maybe the bus station?" she offered. She didn't plan to take a bus – she didn't have enough money – but it seemed like a reasonable thing to say.
The driver nodded. "Bus station it is."
Twenty minutes later, Luna stood alone on the sidewalk outside the small Riverdale bus stop with her backpack. The old man had been kind, even giving her a few bucks "for something to eat." She watched his truck disappear around a corner and felt more alone than ever.
Her stomach growled loudly. She hadn't eaten since yesterday morning, before she found out she was pregnant. Before she learned Kaelen was marrying Serena. Before her whole life fell apart.
"First things first," Luna whispered to herself. "Food for the baby."
She found a small diner and spent some of her valuable money on eggs and toast. As she ate, Luna tried to figure out what to do next. She needed a job and a safe place to stay, which wouldn't be easy. No one wanted to hire a pregnant omega wolf with no training and no references.
After breakfast, Luna strolled through the small town. Riverdale seemed nice enough – clean streets, friendly-looking people, lots of trees. It was bigger than her old pack's area but still small enough that she didn't feel overwhelmed.
But where could she stay? The cheapest hotel in town would eat through her money in just a few days.
Luna found herself walking toward the edge of town, where buildings gave way to forest. The trees called to her, reminding her of home. Without really thinking about it, she slipped between the trunks and let the familiar smells of dirt and leaves surround her.
That's when Luna noticed something strange. She could smell things she'd never smelled before – the sweet nectar inside the closed buds of flowers, the tiny ants marching along a branch twenty feet away, even the lingering scent of a fox that had passed through hours ago.
"What's happening to me?" Luna wondered, stopping to sniff the air again. Her nose had always been good – all wolves had strong senses – but this was different. This was like her senses had been turned up to super-power levels.
She kept walking, pushing deeper into the woods, following a scent she couldn't quite name but that seemed to be pulling her forward. After about an hour, Luna stopped short.
In front of her stood a small house. It wasn't much – just a one-room building with a sagging roof and dirty windows – but it looked abandoned. No fresh smells of people, no smoke from the chimney, no footprints around the door.
Luna approached carefully. The door was locked, but one of the windows was broken. She looked inside. The house was dusty and empty except for an old wooden table, a broken chair, and a rusty woodstove.
It wasn't much, but it was safety.
Luna carefully climbed through the broken window, trying not to cut herself on the jagged glass. Inside, the cabin smelled of dust and mice, but underneath that was another scent – wolves. Not recent, but not old either. Wolves had been here, maybe a year ago.
"Hello?" Luna called, just to be sure no one was around. Only silence answered her.
She explored the small space, finding a moth-eaten blanket in a corner and some canned food that had expired two years ago in a cupboard she hadn't noticed at first. There was no running water, but through the back window, Luna could see a small stream not far away.
"It's not perfect," Luna told her baby, rubbing her still-flat stomach, "but it's better than sleeping outside."
As the day went on, Luna cleaned up the cabin as best she could. She swept the floors with a branch she'd fashioned into a broom, washed the blanket in the stream, and gathered some fresh pine branches to make a sort of bed in the corner.
By nightfall, she was exhausted but satisfied with her job. The cabin wasn't cozy, but it was safe. No one would find her here.
As darkness fell, Luna sat on her pine-branch bed, thinking about everything that had happened. Two days ago, she had been just a normal omega wolf, quietly in love with the Alpha. Now she was pregnant, alone, hiding in an abandoned cabin in the woods, and suffering strange changes to her body.
The silver light hadn't returned to her hands since last night, but Luna could feel something different inside her. It was like a warm current running through her blood, making her feel stronger than she'd ever felt before.
To test her new strength, Luna picked up the broken chair. In the past, she would have fought with its weight, but now she lifted it easily with one hand. Too easily. She gasped and dropped it, startled by her own power.
"This isn't normal," she whispered. "Is it because of the baby?"
A sudden noise outside made Luna freeze. Something was moving around the house, circling it slowly. She could hear the soft sound of paws on fallen leaves. Wolf paws.
Had they found her already? Had Kaelen's wolves tracked her all the way to Riverdale?
Luna's heart pounded as she pressed herself against the wall, away from the windows. She didn't dare breathe as the footsteps stopped right outside the door.
For a long moment, there was silence. Then a low growl rumbled through the night air – a sound that made the hair on Luna's arms stand up. It wasn't the bark of a normal wolf. It was deeper, more frightening, filled with power and rage.
The door handle shook. Luna looked around frantically for a weapon, but there was nothing except the broken chair. She grabbed one of its legs, ready to protect herself if the door burst open.
The growling stopped suddenly. Luna heard a strange sound – like a person talking to themselves – then footsteps moving away from the cabin.
She waited, hardly daring to hope the danger had passed. After ten minutes of quiet, Luna crept to the window and peeked out.
The forest was dark and still. Whatever had been out there was gone now.
Luna sank back onto her wood bed, still clutching the chair leg. She couldn't stay here. If they had found her once, they would find her again. But where else could she go?
As tiredness finally pulled her toward sleep, Luna felt something flutter in her stomach – the tiniest movement, like the brush of a butterfly's wing. Her eyes flew open, her hand going to her belly.
It was too early to feel the baby move – she couldn't be more than a few weeks pregnant. Yet she was certain she had felt something.
"Hello, little one," she whispered. "Are you trying to tell me something?"
The flutter came again, stronger this time, and with it, the silver light returned to Luna's hands. But now the light didn't just glow; it spread out from her fingers and made shapes in the air – strange symbols Luna had never seen before.
The symbols hung in the darkness, glowing silver-blue, casting eerie shadows around the house. Luna stared at them, not understanding what they meant but somehow knowing they were important.
As she watched, the symbols began to change, shifting and rearranging themselves until they formed a clear picture – a map. Luna could see the cabin where she sat, the stream behind it, and a path going deeper into the forest to a place marked with a star.
"What's there?" Luna whispered, reaching out to touch the glowing map. As her fingers brushed it, the map disintegrated into sparkles of light that floated to the floor and disappeared.
Luna sat in the darkness, her mind racing. The baby was trying to show her something – somewhere she needed to go. But why? And how could an unborn baby know about a map or have the power to make one out of light?
Outside the cabin, the growling started again, closer now. Whoever was out there had returned. And this time, Luna could feel they weren't alone.
The hunt was closing in.