Chapter 3 Cousin of the Alpha

CHAPTER THREE: Cousin of the Alpha

He is the cousin of Alpha Robert.

I ran as my leg could take me,but I am heavily pregnant.I had to stop.

I heard footsteps approaching, it was Micheal.

Robert's cousin.

A quiet Alpha who had walked away from pack politics years ago, choosing the isolation of the northern ridgelands over the chaos of dominance battles and council decrees. He wasn't what I expected when I stumbled pregnant, exhausted, and half-feral into his territory two months ago.

I remembered the first time we met. The sky had been thick with frost, and I'd collapsed on his porch, half-frozen and clutching my swollen belly. He hadn't asked questions, not right away. Just picked me up like I weighed nothing and carried me inside.

I should have run that night.

But I didn't.

We clashed almost immediately. He was too perceptive, too quiet. His gaze followed me with the calm intensity of someone who knew far too much and said far too little. He moved like the forest itself silent, steady, and with a strength that didn't need to be flaunted. And worst of all, he saw me.

Micheal said

"You're running," he said one morning, after Michael tried for the third time to sneak out of the cabin before dawn. "But not from danger. From someone.

I froze mid-step, one hand resting on the frame of the door. "You don't know me," I muttered.

Enclosed in the doorway behind me, arms crossed, expression unreadable. "I know desperation when I see it."

After that, I avoided him as much as I could. I kept to the edges of the cabin, the woods, the garden-anywhere he wasn't. But somehow, Micheal found me. Not with force, not with commands. With small kindnesses.

Micheal took clara into his house.

Hot tea waiting on the table after I vomited through the night. A repaired chair where I sat to sew. Firewood chopped and stacked silently after I was too winded to do it myself.

I hated how safe I felt.

One golden evening in late spring, I sat under the eaves of the porch, stitching baby clothes with trembling hands.

The sunlight spilled across the yard, turning the wildflowers a soft gold. My belly was heavy, my back ached, but my mind was restless.

Micheal appeared without a sound, dropping into the chair beside me. He didn't speak right away. Just watched my fingers struggle with the hem of a tiny onesie.

"You're good at that," he said finally, his voice low and even.

I shrugged. "My mother taught me. Before the Claiming."

"Before Robert."

I flinched at his name. The needle pricked my finger. A bead of blood welled up.

Micheal reached out instinctively, taking my hand. I stiffened.

"clara," he said softly. "I know who you are."

I pulled my hand back like he'd burned me. "You don't know anything."

His eyes, slate-grey and storm-silent, searched mine. "I left the pack mouths ago. But I still hear things. Robert has been tearing through territories. He's searched for three packs in the last year alone. Always asking about a pregnant Omega who disappeared the night he married Isabella."

My breath caught. The world tilted. I clutched my belly as if that alone could shield me from the past.

"I'm not going back," I whispered, more to myself than to him.

"I didn't say you should." His voice was firm. "I'm telling you He's close. And you need to decide what you're going to do before he finds you."

I turned my face away, blinking hard against the sting in my eyes. "I've already decided."

He hesitated, then reached for my hand again, gentler this time. I didn't pull away.

"Then don't go back," he said simply. "Stay."

I shook my head. "You don't understand. He marked me. I can feel him sometimes in dreams, sometimes when I'm weak. It's like a chain I can't break."

His jaw tensed. "Bonded Alphas can be broken from, clara. Not easily. But it can be done."

"Even when there's a child involved?"

Micheal exhaled, looking toward the treeline where twilight shadows had begun to stretch long across the ground. "Especially then."

We sat in silence, the only sound the wind rustling through the birches. I stared at our joined hands and dared to ask the question that had haunted me.

"clara said"

"Why are you helping me?"

He was quiet for so long I thought he wouldn't answer.

"When I was younger," he said at last, "I rejected my own destined bond."

That startled me. I turned to face him fully. "You... what?"

"She was kind. Beautiful. Everything the bond promised. But I wasn't ready. I didn't want to be controlled by instinct. I walked away."

His expression was unreadable, but something painful in his eyes.

"I thought I'd never feel that pull again," he said. "Until I met you."

My heart thudded in my chest, uneven and loud. "No," I said, standing abruptly. "Don't say that."

"clara"

"I can't be that for you. I won't be claimed again. Not now. Not ever."

He stood slowly, hands raised as if approaching a frightened animal. "I'm not asking to claim you. I'm telling you the truth. Whatever's happening between us... it's not just one-sided."

Tears slipped down Clara's cheeks before I could stop them. "You're Robert' cousin.Don't you see how bad that is?"

"I left him for a reason," Micheal said softly. "If he finds you, you'll never be free."

Before I could respond, pain ripped through me-sharp, deep, and sudden. I doubled over with a strangled gasp.

"clara?" Micheal at my side in an instant, steadying me. "What is it?"

Another wave of pain curled my spine. My knees buckled. "It's... it's time. The baby"

His arm slid beneath my back as he lifted me effortlessly. "We need to get you inside."

I clutched at his shirt, panting. "No hospitals. He'll find me."

"You're not going to a hospital. I've delivered people before."

Of course he had. He was still an Alpha, even if he'd rejected the crown.

As he carried me inside, another contraction wracked my body, tearing a scream from my throat.

Micheal moved quickly, setting me down on the bed and gathering blankets, water, towels. His calm never cracked.

"You're going to be alright," he murmured, brushing hair from my face. "You're strong, clara. You've already survived more than most."

But I could barely hear him.

Because just as another contraction built stronger than the last-a sudden scent swept through the air.

One I hadn't smelled in months.

It is getting to full moon.

Robert.

His scent was faint, carried on the wind like an omen.

My eyes flew open in terror.

"Micheal" I gasped, grabbing his arm. "He's here."

Outside, in the city below the mountain, a sleek black private jet touched down on the runway.

Robert has arrived.