MAYA’S POV

Rage no longer felt like an emotion.

It was heat. Pressure. Breath.

Something feral and vicious clawing beneath my skin that wouldn’t ease until I tore Lucian’s throat out.

But before I did that, I would have answers.

I would drag him back to Sera and make her split his mind and lay his reasoning bare.

Why did he desert OTS, the refuge he forged, the trust he won, the people who relied on him, to serve as Catherine and Marcus’ puppet?

“Sorry,” he whispered from his spot on the ground.

I snarled just as Nyra and Logan lunged for him—

The shockwave hurled us backward, tilting the world all over again. Before I regained my bearings, Lucian had vanished deeper into the forest after Jack.

Ignoring the pain and pressure, Nyra bolted after him with a savagery that drowned out all my instincts.

She crossed barely ten feet before the ground changed beneath us.

The forest seemed to inhale.

A dark pulse spread outward from the place Lucian had disappeared, spilling through the roots like black ink poured beneath the soil.

Symbols surfaced across the ground in flashes of blue-white witchlight before vanishing again, and then the trees ahead twisted, bending perception around themselves until the path we had been following folded into three identical trails.

Nyra skidded hard, claws tearing deep grooves into the earth.

Beside me, Logan stopped just as sharply.

I snarled and threw myself toward the path that held the strongest part of Jack’s fading scent.

My shoulder hit an invisible wall hard enough that stars burst across my vision.

Pain jolted through Nyra’s body, but it only fed the fury burning through me.

I slammed against the barrier again, harder this time, and the impact sent a ripple through the air, revealing for one brief second the shape of the trap around us.

Lucian had folded the forest into a cage.

The pathways ahead mirrored the chaos of the square with cruel accuracy.

Black smoke drifted low across the ground even though there was no fire, and beyond it, I could see the ghost of Jack’s trail splitting into false directions.

In one direction, the scent of blood surged so strongly it felt real. In another, the broken brush and claw marks continued deeper into the trees.

In a third, a hollow-eyed wolf shape moved between the trunks before dissolving into smoke.

He had trapped us in an echo of Jack’s escape—an imitation of our earlier failure.

That realization drove me wild.

‘Maya,’ Ethan said through the mind link, his voice steady despite the tension running beneath it. ‘Stop throwing yourself at it.’

Nyra wheeled toward him, teeth bared.

‘They’re getting away.’

‘I know.’

‘Do you? You don’t seem to fucking care!’

Ethan did not answer quickly enough.

That silence enraged me even more.

Nyra lunged toward another false trail, but this time Logan cut in front of me, using his body rather than force to block my path.

He lowered his head, blue eyes fixed on mine, and I felt Ethan reaching for me through the link with careful pressure, the way someone might extend a hand toward an animal caught in a snare.

‘You’re not thinking clearly.’

I snapped my teeth at him before I could stop myself.

Logan did not flinch, but something in Ethan’s presence tightened.

I hated that too.

I hated everything.

Nyra’s breath came harsher.

My thoughts would not stay in order.

Lucian standing in front of us.

Lucian saying he was not the enemy, and using witchcraft anyway.

Sera lying near the platform with ash in her hair.

Kieran telling us not to let Jack escape.

Jack’s corrupted wolf tearing through the barricade.

Everything tangled together until fury and hurt became one unbearable thing inside me.

‘He betrayed us,’ I snarled through the link.

Ethan’s answer came softer this time. ‘Maybe.’

That made me freeze for half a heartbeat.

Nyra turned slowly toward Logan, rage still burning through her body but now sharpened by the terrible suspicion that Ethan was holding back something.

‘What do you mean, maybe?’

Logan stepped closer, careful and deliberate.

‘I mean, Lucian could have killed us if he wanted to. He didn’t.’

‘Shit. I’d better find him and give him my profound gratitude.’

Logan huffed. ‘I’m just saying, this feels more complicated than it looks.’

I hated how reasonable he sounded.

I hated that a part of me understood exactly what he meant.

And I hated most of all that understanding did nothing to calm me.

Before I could answer, silver pressure washed through the forest, and the trap trembled.

Every false trail shivered. The hollow-eyed wolves dissolved. The black smoke thinned into ordinary dust.

The trees unbent one by one, and the blue witchlight beneath the roots flickered like dying embers before disappearing completely.

A moment later, Sera stepped into the clearing with Kieran at her side, his face still streaked with dried blood.

Alois followed behind them, amber eyes narrowed with interest rather than alarm, while Corin moved silently at Sera’s other shoulder.

Relief struck me so hard that Nyra nearly sagged.

Sera’s gaze found me immediately. “Maya.”

The softness in her voice almost undid me.

Nyra shifted before I even made the conscious decision.

Human skin returned, and the rush of cold air hit me at the same time Sera rushed forward with clothes.

I pulled them on with shaking hands, frustration making every movement too sharp.

Ethan shifted beside me and accepted a pair of pants from Kieran, but his attention never fully left me.

“We need to keep moving,” I said, voice rough as I turned toward the path Lucian had taken. “Jack’s trail is almost gone.”

Ethan caught my wrist before I could take a single step.

I looked down at his hand, then up at his face. “Let go.”

“No.”

The word was quiet, but it landed with Alpha weight.

My temper snapped.

“Jack is loose, Lucian is helping him. What the fuck are we standing around for?”

Ethan’s expression did not change, but his grip softened enough that it no longer felt like restraint. It felt like concern.

That stopped me more effectively than force would have.

“Maya,” he said carefully, “you are not going back into this fight.”

I stared at him as if he had spoken another language.

Then I laughed once, sharp and humorless. “Excuse me?”

Alois cleared his throat softly behind him.

My eyes cut toward him. “You got an opinion you want to share?”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You made a noise.”

He raised a brow but wisely didn’t speak again.

Sera stepped closer, concern pulling at her features. “Maya, what’s going on?”

“What’s going on?” I snapped. “Why is everyone acting like Jack Draven didn’t just disappear into the forest, helped once again by Lucian?”

I whirled on them. “Why is everyone looking at me like I’m insane?”

Ethan inhaled slowly, and I realized then that he looked less like a man making a decision and more like one confirming something that had been terrifying him for longer than this moment.

“I suspected for a while,” he said.

My anger faltered despite myself. “Suspected what?”

His eyes moved over my face, and the tenderness there made my stomach drop before I understood why.

“Your emotions have been volatile,” he said gently. “More than usual. You’ve been exhausted and restless. Your scent changed days ago, but with everything happening, I wasn’t sure enough to say anything.”

My heart began beating too hard.

Alois stepped forward, his expression unusually careful. “The blast and the Shift likely aggravated what was already making itself known. I can confirm it now.”

I looked between them, my throat suddenly dry.

“Confirm what?”

Sera’s eyes widened, and she slapped a hand over her mouth.

I took a staggered step back. “No.”

Ethan’s hand tightened around mine.

“Maya,” he said softly.

I shook my head because if I let him finish the sentence, the world would change, and I was not ready for that. Not while enemies closed in from all sides, and everything smelled like blood and smoke.

“No,” I repeated, though the word had lost most of its strength.

Alois’s voice gentled. “Congratulations. You’re pregnant.”

The forest vanished for a second. My mind went blank so completely that the trees, the smoke, the battlefield, Jack, even Lucian all fell away.

Pregnant.

The word did not fit inside my head.

I looked at Ethan. He was watching me like I was something precious and terrifying all at once.

“Oh my gods,” I whispered.

Sera made a small sound beside me, halfway between joy and fear.

I looked toward the trail again, instinct trying to surge back up, but Ethan stepped in front of me fully this time.

“No,” he said.

“Ethan—”

“No.” His voice cracked. “You’re not going after that thing while carrying our child.”

The words struck harder than any command.

Our child.

Shit.