ch. 2

She hadn't returned home in weeks.

The Nightborne estate kept her chained—unseen, unheard, and exhausted from silent torment. But tonight, one of the servants slipped her a folded note behind the stables. Just five words:

"Your brother is asking for you."

And that was enough.

---

Dia crept through the darkened halls long after the lights dimmed and slipped out past the south gates, breath held tight in her chest. Her body was weaker now—starved, sore, and heavy with life. But her wolf pushed her forward.

She missed them.

Her mother, whose warm hands always smelled of tea.

Her father, who never raised his voice, even when he should've.

And Noel, her little brother who still believed she was magic.

The house came into view just before midnight.

Run-down. Quiet. Home.

She pushed the door open—and the warmth hit her instantly. Familiar. Safe.

"Dia?" her adoptive mother gasped, rushing forward. "Oh, sweetheart—"

Dia collapsed into her arms.

Tears she had fought for weeks broke like a dam.

"I couldn't stay there," she whispered, voice shaking. "They want me gone. I think… I think they'll try to hurt the baby."

Her mother froze, hand instinctively pressing to Dia's stomach. And then her voice turned fierce, protective:

"Then you're not going back."

---

They fed her.

Baked bread. Real soup.

She held Noel that night until he fell asleep in her lap, one small hand resting on her belly.

And for the first time in weeks, she let herself believe—maybe she could still have something. Maybe she hadn't lost it all.

---

But the next night, everything turned to ash.

Dia woke to the crackle of flames.

Smoke poured through the cracks of the floorboards.

She staggered to her feet, heart racing.

"Noel?" she called. "Mama?"

Screams came from the other room.

"Dia, get out!" her father's voice shouted.

She grabbed a wet cloth, wrapped it around her nose, and ran for the hallway—but the fire had spread fast. Too fast.

The roof groaned above her. Sparks rained down like judgment.

She found Noel's door—and kicked it open just in time to see the ceiling collapse.

"NO!"

The fire swallowed the room before she could reach him.

She screamed. Her voice shattered.

Then another explosion—glass, wood, and smoke blew her back into the wall.

She scrambled, dragging herself across the floor, vision spinning, lungs burning.

Get out. Get out. Get out—

She didn't know how she made it to the back door.

But she did.

Just before everything went black.

---

High above, on a nearby hill, a sleek car waited in the trees.

Elora Vexmoor leaned against the hood, arms crossed, lips curled into a cold smile.

The flames lit up her face like she was born of them.

"Sweet dreams, Dia," she whispered. "You took your shot. Now stay dead."

Rain fell.

Too late.

The fire had already done its damage—sheets of flame licking the sky just hours before, now replaced by ash and smoke that clung to the trees like ghosts.

Most assumed the house had been abandoned.

No survivors.

But one man walked the path back alone.

Tomas.

An elder servant of the Nightborne household. He wasn't wealthy. He wasn't powerful. But he remembered Dia—the girl with quiet hands, always respectful, always hurting behind her silence.

He didn't owe her anything.

But he owed the truth everything.

---

He found her body in the mud behind the collapsed back porch.

Still. Curled. Blackened blood caked her side.

At first, he thought she was dead.

Until her hand twitched.

"Moon above," he whispered, dropping beside her. "Dia—"

Her lips moved, dry and cracked.

"Help… him…"

It wasn't her name she called.

It was for someone else.

Her arms were still wrapped around her stomach.

Tomas pressed his ear to her chest.

A heartbeat.

Faint. But there.

And below it—a second one.

Smaller. Weaker. But alive.

The baby had survived.

Barely.

He wasted no time.

---

Under the cover of fog and rain, Tomas carried Dia's unconscious body through the hills—wrapped in his coat, shielding her from curious eyes.

He didn't return to Nightborne territory.

He wouldn't let them finish what they started.

Instead, he took her to the neutral lands—where borders blurred, and names held no weight.

There, in a private wolf-run clinic hidden beneath the city, he placed her in the care of one of the oldest healers left in the region.

"She's carrying a Nightborne heir," Tomas said, voice steady. "Don't tell a soul."

The healer's eyes sharpened. "Then you've just painted a target on this building."

"Then you'd better heal fast."

---

Dia woke three days later.

White walls. Clean linens. No fire.

But pain—everywhere.

Her throat was raw. Her ribs broken. But her hands moved to her belly.

She gasped.

"Your baby's alive," the healer said gently. "Weak. But alive. You're lucky."

Tears slipped down her face—not soft, not graceful.

Silent. Fierce.

She had nothing left.

Her brother was dead.

Her parents—gone.

The only thing growing inside her now was the child of the Alpha who left her to rot, and the fire that refused to take her.

"Where am I?" she croaked.

"A place where no one will find you—if you want to stay lost."

Dia didn't answer right away.

She turned her head toward the rain tapping the window.

"I don't want to stay lost," she whispered. "I want to survive."