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The distant barks and growls are a disheartening reminder that Yuma is fending the rest of them off himself.

“God! Help me!”

The Rager’s teeth snap.

My arms tremble.

He presses down harder, the stringing drool hitting my cheek.

Seconds later, the weight is lifted from my body, and I look up in time to see Titus throw the infected monster off me. In slow calm strides, he walks the invisible barrier that the monsters seem unwilling to breach. Instead, they snap their jaws and hiss, swiping their arms, but the moment he steps in front of them, they cower and back away. Yuma trots behind him, like a soldier following after the General. As if Titus is the fiercer animal.

I frown, confused by the spectacle.

Blade in hand, Titus fluidly slices the throat of one Rager, before stabbing the skull of the one next to it. With the same lethal grace, he takes out three more, each kill effortless.

Every bone in my body still rattles with fear, while the adrenaline keeps a steady thread of terror humming through me. I look down to find blood smeared over my thighs.

My first thought is that the Rager might’ve bitten me, but when a cramp strikes my belly and more blood trickles out of me, realization dawns on me.

“Oh, no.” I stare down at the blood coating my palms. “Oh, no.”

Strong arms slide beneath my legs, lifting me up from the ground, but I can’t take my eyes off the blood. The baby I’m losing.

Will’s baby.

I rest my head against Titus’s chest, and not saying a word, he carries me back toward the cabin, where I finally break down.

Chapter 30

Pain moves through me as I lie on the bed, curled into myself. I’ve cried so many tears already, there isn’t anything left in me. I feel hollow and empty. Even the bleeding has stopped, the baby evacuated by my inhospitable womb, and during my bath this morning, I noticed my breasts were no longer tender. The nausea has subsided along with the ache in my belly.

As if my body is eager to return to its normal state, while my mind can’t seem to let go so easily.

“Do you need anything?” For the last few days, Titus has stood on the fringes, watching me mourn the loss and process the fear of having nearly been eaten alive. We should’ve left by now, been on our way to Szolen to return to my life, where I’d raise the baby in safety.

With dried tears burning my eyes, I shake my head to answer the Alpha, staring through the window at where the tops of the trees sway in the wind. Nature telling me the world will go on.

“I’m cursed, you know.” My voice has gone hoarse from little use over the last couple of days.

“How so?”

“When I was young, maybe fourteen, I was helping my Nan deliver a baby. While she cleaned and stitched the mother, I held the baby in my arms. It wasn’t until I handed her back to the mother that I was told she was dead.” I frown at the memory, recalling the shock and disbelief. “I held a dead baby in my arms for maybe twenty minutes, and didn’t know. If I had known, my grandmother might’ve saved it, but she couldn’t.”

“You were young, as you said.”

“I was never enamored with babies. She was no safer in my arms than if my grandmother had left her on the floor while she stitched. At least then, she might’ve noticed the baby wasn’t moving.”

“What is the point of this?”

I exhale a shaky breath, still staring up at the trees. “That I’d make a horrible mother. I’m selfish. Pig-headed and stubborn.”

“You are. But brave and smart, too.”

“Except when those Ragers chased me. I’ve never been more afraid in my whole life.”

“Fear and bravery aren’t mutually exclusive.”

In my silence, I think back to the moment he arrived, how effortlessly he threw off that Rager. How, with the wielding of a single blade, he took out a half dozen more Ragers in a matter of seconds. What I wouldn’t give to not be at the mercy of someone. Not to rely on being saved every time. What I wouldn’t give to be able to defend myself.