Archive of Our Own ^beta

The camp burns and the hunters scream. But no matter how many they kill, the cages with their packmates stay locked, sealed with magic that bites at them if they so much as brush against a cage. The pain doesn’t stop her pack, but even when they ignore it, the magicked cages won’t open.

“Find their mage,” Lada calls out, and her pack scatters.

If the mage were dead, her spells would have fallen and the cages would open. That means the mage is a holdout, hiding like a rat, a weak coward, not worthy of the power she’s been abusing.

“Alpha,” a voice calls out, and her second, Khali, throws a man at her feet.

Expecting a corpse, Lada pauses over his body, eyes flicking to Khali, who raises a pointed brow back at her. There’s a scent to this mage, more than his cursed magic, something…sweet.

Her lip curls in a silent snarl, and she nudges the mage with a foot. The man curls into a fetal position, presses an arm protectively over his abdomen, and then she knows. She knows, despite the overpowering scents of blood and smoke and magic,

“You’re pregnant.”

The mage flinches away from her, without her even touching him again. The mage who enslaved wolves was himself an omega. Now if that wasn’t the biggest fucking laugh of the century.

Lada towers over him. A quick death, and her packmates are free. But this omegan mage just has to be carrying an innocent, and while her pack will do a lot of things, they will not compromise their morals.

He doesn’t know that.

She drops to a crouch next to him, puts a clawed hand on his neck. “Open the cages,” she orders softly. 

The man swallows under her touch, curled up around his baby. The air around them feels tight, and then releases with a sigh. The cage doors pop open, her packmates spilling out, and the mage trembles beneath her. 

She can feel a headache brewing.

“Bring a mage collar,” she calls, and the man under her comes to life.

“No,” he says, getting on his knees, a hand still cradling his abdomen. “No, please, don’t, I won’t—just—I can’t—”

“You’re pregnant,” Lada says, standing up next to him, looking down on him. “We won’t kill you until you’ve had the babe. The child is innocent.”

He stares up at her. 

“After?” he asks softly, and Lada wonders if he realizes his hand is rubbing his stomach gently.

“Yes,” she tells him. “After the birth, a quick death. We’re not monsters like you.”

Jaime has a room. A bed, all to himself. Well, himself and his child.

When the camp was attacked, he told himself it was for the best if he and his baby died there. He isn’t even sure who fathered the child, wouldn’t have carried to term with the hunters, certainly wouldn’t have wanted to raise a child in that world. 

But now.

He places a hand on his gently stretching skin, feels the firm abdomen protecting his child as much as his body can, and feels hopeful.

His child will live. His child will live and grow and be loved.

This pack abhors him, as well they should (he knows he’s a monster), but no one has laid a hand on him in anger, or in—desire. They’re feeding him, with a side of hateful glances, but it’s food.

Food for his baby. 

The collar chafes his neck, but it’s not as though it’s a new sensation. And it won’t be there for long. He’s sad sometimes, sad that he won’t get to see his baby grow up, but also relieved. The quiet of death, the release from slavery and misery and fear…he’s looking forward to it.

“Are we really just keeping him as an incubator?” Khali asks, flopping on Lada’s bed. 

“We can’t kill the child,” Lada says absently, mind elsewhere.

“No, but he’s a mage,” Khali says, reaching out and poking Lada with her foot. “He could be doing something other than eating all our food.”

“A ward?” Jaime asks, looking between the tall wolves. His baby kicks him, and Jaime lays a steadying hand on his womb.

It’s okay, Jaime tells himself and his child. I know how to do this. We won’t get in trouble.

“Yes,” snaps a wolf. “You’re a mage, right?”

Jaime doesn’t meet his eyes. “I can do a ward,” he says, staring at the ground. “But I need to know where the boundaries are.”

A wolf scoffs but says, “Follow us.”

As Jaime follows them through the woods, he trails a hand across leaves and bark. This is the world he’s letting his child be born into, a beautiful world. A world that will be better off without him in it.

“You want an offensive ward?” Jaime asks, when they’ve walked the perimeter.

“What?” The older wolf looks at him blankly.

“Offensive,” Jaime says, keeping his voice neutral. “When a stranger trips the ward, I can set it to hurt them, or to make a loud noise.”

Or to do any number of things, really. 

The wolves exchange a glance, and head back to the den without a word. Jaime follows, because what else is he supposed to do? For a moment, he pauses with the sun on his face and the fresh air in his nose, and thinks when his baby kicks this time it’s because they’re happy.

“There are different kinds of wards?” the alpha asks, sitting across from him. 

The room is full of strong, angry wolves, and Jaime can’t quite keep his equanimity. 

“Yes,” he manages to say, breathing deeply. His babe kicks at him, again and again, and he works to keep the wince off his face.

“Tell me about them,” the alpha orders him. 

The baby gives him a particularly hard kick, and Jaime can’t stop the way the breath wooshes out of him.

“Problem, mage?” a wolf asks, leaning down. “Don’t want to share your secrets with us?”

Jaime shakes his head. “No problem,” he quickly says. “Most people think of wards as always being offensive. They sting you if you touch them, or burn you, or explode.”

The alpha is nodding slightly and Jaime feels a little cheered. He can do this.

“But you can set them to trigger all kinds of reactions,” he continues, hoping the baby stops kicking soon. “I could set a ward that made a sound only in one room, or only for people keyed to the ward. I could set it to make a very, very loud noise, or even just a quiet chime.”

Tipping her head, the alpha looks thoughtful,

“Often, there’s a perimeter ward that acts as an alarm. It lets visitors know to stop and wait, and alerts the people within the ward. Past that, there can be a nastier ward for those who don’t stop to see who set the first ward.”

“You could set both of those?” she asks him.

Jaime nods, pushing one hand against his side, trying to convince his baby to turn, to stop pushing right there.

“You’re quite useful,” she murmurs, and Jaime can’t control his spike of terror at all.

He doesn’t want to be used anymore, doesn’t want the wolves to think him worth keeping around as anything other than a way to grow this baby who deserves a chance at their own life. But he merely bows his head, and doesn’t say a word as he’s led back out to set up two perimeter wards.

“How far along does he have to be before we could just—cut the baby out?” Dimitri asks, tossing a knife up in the air.

Khali glances over at him, appalled. 

“What? He’s just eating our food, and not doing anything. His baby probably won’t be any good, either.”

In a flash, Khali has her hand around Dimitri’s throat.

“That baby will be a pup in our pack, and will be treated as such,” she growls at him.

Dimitri tips his head back in submission. “Yes, Khali,” he murmurs.

“Good,” she says, giving him a little shake before she releases him. “We never punish children for the sins of their parents.”

“Isn’t there anything else the mage could do, though?” Dimitri asks, cautious after Khali’s snap of temper. “I mean, he’s got all this power, right? He could do more than setting wards?”

“We don’t need more,” Khali says. “We don’t even really need the wards.”

“I just think he could do a lot more,” Dimitri says, but changes the subject when Khali glares at him.

“Think of the pack,” Khali says coaxingly. 

“I am,” Lada snaps out, nearly a snarl. “We’ve never relied on magic to keep us safe, and we won’t rely on it now.”

“But it’s a tool that we could use, while we can,” Khali argues. “We don’t even know what else he might do.”

“That’s right,” Lada says flatly, turning to face her. “We don’t know. We do know he is capable of locking up and murdering hundreds of wolves. We do know by all rights, for the safety of our entire pack, he should be dead right now. We do know the child in his belly is the only thing keeping me from ripping his throat out myself.”

Khali looks back at her, lost for words.

“He warded the camp,” Lada says, more softly. “Let that be enough.”

It’s not enough.

“Was the money good?” Khali asks, resting her hip against the door as the mage reaches for the tray.

He freezes, eyes darting between her face and the tray, and she holds out it with a mental sigh of exasperation. They’re not going to starve the baby. His hands are shaking as he takes the food from her, and it irritates her.

His merely being in the den irritates her, a pebble she can’t get out of her shoe, a grain of sand slipped in where it ought not be. He won’t yield them a pearl, that’s for damn sure.

“So, was it the money?” she asks again, when the tray of food is in his hands. 

He licks his lips, and says, “No.”

Khali watches him, and he watches her. Eventually, he turns to put the tray on the small table in his room.

“Was it because you hate wolves?” she asks his back, and watches him flinch. “Because we’re the ones going to end up with your child, so if you didn’t want that, you should have said something sooner.”

“I know you’ll take care of the baby,” the mage says, not turning to face her. “You won’t mistreat the child.”

While true— 

“But we’re still wolves,” she presses. “He or she will be raised with the pack, as pack.”

“You won’t mistreat the child,” the mage repeats. “I’ve seen how you raise your pups. I’ve seen how you—come for your own.”

The briefest of hesitations, the slightest of allusions to the night everyone but him died. But Khali is a wolf, and she can pick up a scent where most trackers would fail.

“We killed the father of your child,” she says idly. “Didn’t we?”

The mage doesn’t answer.

“And we’re going to kill you,” she adds. “We’ll kill both of the child’s parents, and you’re okay with us raising them?”

“You won’t mistreat the child,” he says again, but his voice is brittle.

“But you won’t know,” Khali says softly, and watches him flinch. “Because you’ll be dead.” 

When Jaime is finally alone in his room, he forces himself to eat. His appetite is vanished, but the babe still grows within him, and he’s literally only living for his child. He knows the wolves hate him, knows he deserves to die, but—he’s done whatever they asked, eaten their food, stayed in his room, done nothing—nothing but help kidnap and murder their kind.

It doesn’t matter how docile he is now, they’ll never forget who he is and what he’s done. And, despite all his efforts, a small seed of doubt starts to grow; a worry about the life his child will have as the bastard of a man who murdered wolves. Is there really any place in a pack for one such as that?

It takes a few days, but he finally asks a wolf who brings him food.

“Is my child going to be treated well?”

The wolf looks at him with angry eyes.

“You think we’d hurt a child?” he demands, and Jaime shrinks back.

“N—no,” he stammers. “I only meant—with me as their parent—”

“You think we’d hold what you’ve done against a baby?”

Jaime doesn’t really have anything to lose, so he simply asks, “Will you?”

His heart pounds in his chest, each beat painfully loud, and his eyes lock with the wolf. There’s—there’s something there, a hesitation, an uncertainty, and then the wolf slams the tray down and stalks out of the room.

Jaime doesn’t feel reassured. 

He sits with his worries for a week, then two, then three.

And he knows he’s running out of time.

“I want to speak to the alpha,” he says, when his door opens for a food delivery. 

His hands are clenched so tightly his fingernails dig into his palms, and he’s sitting on his bed, far away from the door. He doesn’t want to appear threatening.

The wolf looks at him, raises a brow, and then sets the food down and leaves without a word.

It makes sense. Jaime isn’t worth their alpha’s time, not unless he’s being useful, and he does not want to be useful. He’s not even sure he wants to grow this child anymore, to leave them alone in a pack that hated their parents—

So, he doesn’t eat his food, for the first time.

He’s used to going hungry.

“He won’t eat,” Dimitri says, kicking a tree.

“What?” Khali asks, finally turning her full attention to him. “Is that why you’ve been sulking? Wait, who’s not eating?”

“The mage,” Dimitri mutters.

“He stopped eating?” Khali asks, alarmed. “But what about the baby?”

“He says he doesn’t care,” Dimitri says. “Says he won’t eat until he speaks with our alpha.”

“And why hasn’t he spoken to Lada, then?” Khali asks, astonished. 

“He’s not a guest,” Dimitri snaps out. “And he doesn’t just get to order us around and make us do what he wants for that brat growing inside his belly. He’ll eat when he gets hungry enough.”

Khali stares at Dimitri. She stares so long the man looks at her and demands, “What? What? We can’t let him control us!”

Eventually, Dimitri drops his gaze. Khali stalks slowly over to him.

“We talked about this,” she says, voice low and dark. “The child is an innocent, and will be raised in our pack.”

Dimtri shrugs awkwardly and nods, not meeting her eyes.

“Who else feels like this?”

Shrugging again, Dimitri says, “Just…some of us.”

“I need names,” Khali orders. “And all of you are forbidden to interact with the mage.”

“What?” Dimitri’s head snaps up, and he meets her gaze challengingly. “We’re keeping the pack safe.”

Khali firmly returns his gaze and when he doesn’t look away, she slams him up against a tree. He tries to twist out of her grasp, but she’s got a decade of experience on him and there’s not a trick she doesn’t know.

“You should be ashamed,” she tells Dimitri. “All of you. I want names, and I want them now, and then—”

She wants to teach this younger wolf a lesson, but if it’s not just him, if the pack is starting to think an unborn child is somehow to be blamed—it’s going to take more than just her. 

“And don’t come back to the den,” she finally gets out through gritted teeth, and Dimitri’s struggles under her renew. “Go, get everyone you know of who feels the same as you do, and get out.”

Dimitri finally stills under, the weight of what she’s saying catching up to him. 

“For how long?” he asks, and his voice is small.

She remembers him as a newborn babe himself, with dark eyes, a pup with too-large paws, and an overly eager juvenile. She thought he’d tempered with time, but apparently not.

“That’s up to Lada,” she says, finally dropping him and backing him away. “But we can’t have anyone in our den who might harm a pup. Give me those names, now.”

Khali doesn’t think Dimitri is so far gone he won’t do as she’d ordered, but she sends a whisper among the senior pack to keep an eye out as she heads for Lada. 

It is one thing for her to poke at the mage, to cause him pain and worry, to pay him back a bit for all he’s done to her pack and other wolves. It is completely another for that rage and hatred to transfer onto the baby, even in the slightest. She worries, just a bit, that the intensity of their hatred is coming from her, because she doesn’t bother to conceal how the mage is worth less than nothing to her.

But she’s never, never hated the child.

“We have a problem,” Khali says, opening the door she’s scented Lada behind. “A big one.”

Lada looks up, and Khali blows out a breath before laying it all out. Lada’s face darkens with each sentence out of her mouth.

She interrupts only once to say, “Are you sure they’re out of the den?”

“I didn’t verify, but I passed the word.” Lada nods, and Khali finishes.

Without another word, her mate gets up and walks out.

“Wait,” Khali says, trailing after her. “I thought—we need to figure out what to do with them.”

Lada glances at her. “I knew you hated him, but I didn’t think it would cause problems like this.”

Khali stops, stung. “I didn’t encourage this,” she tells her mate.

“Maybe not,” Lada says, not slowing down, and Khali scrambles after her. “But the mage is pregnant, hasn’t eaten in days, and you kicked out Dimitri and the others and came to me. While a pregnant person is starving to death in our den, by choice.”

“That’s not—” 

But Lada is right. Khali doesn’t think of the mage as a person, as anything to be concerned about, although she swears she’ll make sure the child is raised without hate. But to not even check—to not bring food and reassurances to him first, to focus on the fracture in her pack while the baby is at risk—

“I don’t like him, either,” Lada says. “But Dimitri came to you for a reason, and by your account he was shocked that you kicked him out over this. He felt like you were a safe place to hate the mage, because you make no secret of it.”

“But not his child,” Khali argues. 

“Right now, they might as well be the same person,” Lada says. “Wait out here.”

Khali watches as Lada slips into the mage’s room, feeling a growing sense of—shame.

Jaime had almost forgotten what it’s like to be this hungry, the pains gnawing away at the inside of his stomach, consuming his entire mind. His baby’s kicks grew more insistent, and then slowed, and still Jaime refused to eat.

What was the point? They don’t care if he starves himself to death, and if he can’t talk to the alpha, it’s his only way out of here, for both of them.

When the alpha comes into his room, Jaime doesn’t have enough energy to be shocked.

“You asked for me,” she says, her voice too gentle. 

She glances at the untouched food on his table, and then brings the tray to him in bed. His thoughts are sluggish, disconnected, but he pushes the food away.

“I’m here,” she tells him. “And you must eat.”

Jaime shakes his head. “No,” he says.

“For the baby.”

“No,” Jaime says. “I’m not—having the child.” It’s hard to get words out.

A shadow passes over the alpha’s face, but Jaime isn’t afraid. He wants this to be over, and if the alpha is angry, good. It might be over faster. 

But she doesn’t drag him out of bed, doesn’t hurt him, merely asks, “Why?”

Jaime closes his eyes, finding comfort in the darkness. “Your pack hates me,” he says softly. It’s easier when he doesn’t have to look at her. “They are going to hate my child. Please, kill us both. Show us mercy.”

His voice is weak, wavering, but he means every word. A hand on his forehead makes his eyes snap open. 

“We won’t hate your child,” the alpha tells him softly.

“Not—you,” Jaime forces out. “The others.”

When the hunters looked as displeased as she does now, Jaime knew it meant pain. But he’s beyond being afraid for himself. 

“Khali,” the alpha’s voice snaps out, and Jaime turns his head to see another woman has come into the room.

“We won’t hate your child,” the other woman—Khali—says intensely, dropping down to kneel next to Jaime’s bed. She takes his hand in hers. “We won’t. Please, eat something.”

Jaime blinks at them, both of them, and realizes the alpha is still touching him.

“Eat,” the alpha orders, but he manages to turn his face away. The warm hand drops away. 

“Not—a hunter’s pup,” he tells them.

“The child won’t be a hunter’s child,” Khali says. “They will be pack.”

Weakly, Jaime laughs. “No,” he says. “Not after—what I did.”

“I know you’ve lost everything,” the alpha says. “I know it seems hopeless. But not for the child inside of you. Not for them.”

“Is it because we’re a pack?” Khali asks softly. “Are you having second thoughts about the child being raised by wolves?”

“Better—than hunters,” Jaime gets out. “But—I wouldn’t have had the baby there—either.”

The two wolves exchange a glance. “You wouldn’t have?” the alpha asks softly.

“Not—by choice,” Jaime says slowly, haltingly, feeling like he’s swimming through a fog, their faces blurring in front of him. “They’d beat me into a miscarriage. But—better that way. In case the magic can pass through the womb.”

If his child had his powers, the hunters—well, the hunters are dead and they won’t be touching Jaime or the baby. But if his child is also a mage, a mage among a pack, after what they know a mage can do—

“They’d beat you,” the alpha says slowly. “For being pregnant?”

Jaime had already forgotten what he’d told them. “For fun,” he says, letting his eyes close.

“And you let them father a child on you?” Khali asks, and there’s something in her voice Jaime doesn’t bother to pick out.

He also doesn’t bother to answer her.

“Why?” she asks again, demands, and Jaime is too well conditioned to completely ignore them. His hand reaches up and touches his collar, as much of an answer as he can give.

“The collar?” the alpha asks, confused.

“They had one, too,” he tells the backs of his eyelids. “Only way to control me, make me—hurt the wolves.”

He’s not sure how long the silence stretches before one of them asks, “You weren’t a hunter?”

“I trapped and killed wolves,” he tells them. That makes him a hunter by any standard.

“But not by choice?” the alpha presses.

“I chose it,” he tells them, because he’s accepted who he is.

“What happened if you didn’t?” Khali murmurs, but it’s not a question for him.

The silence stretches, and Jaime wants to think that maybe they’ll leave him here to die. Left alone, he can just fade away. A slight movement under his skin, but he knows what’s best for both of them. He still doesn’t open his eyes.

“No one is required to carry a child to term,” the alpha finally says. “But you can’t consent in this state. Eat, regain your strength, and we’ll talk.”

Jaime feels her shift to get off his bed, and his hand clasps on hers without his consent. He forces his eyes open.

“You promise?” he asks, voice weak. “You’ll kill us?” 

“If that’s what you want,” the alpha says evenly. “But you have to eat first.”

Jaime studies her face, as best he can. He sees nothing but sincerity there, and says, “Okay. I’ll eat.”

She hands him bread from the tray, and he takes a small bite.

“Khali, with me,” the alpha orders as she rises.

“But—”

“Now,” the alpha snaps, and there’s something going on there, but Jaime is too tired to figure it out.

He needs to save his energy for eating, so he can consent to die.

“You’re not going to kill him, are you?” Khali asks Lada on the third day, unable to take the silence.

Lada raises a brow at her mate. “Why shouldn’t I?”

Khali stares at her, momentarily lost for words.

“This man murdered hundreds of our kind,” Lada says, ticking off facts on her fingers. “Captured them, imprisoned them, killed them.” She shrugs. “If he doesn’t wish to bear the child, that’s not our call to make.”

Khali finds her voice. “He didn’t choose to do those things,” she tells her mate. “He didn’t choose any of it! He was forced.”

Lada shrugs again, carelessly. “What’s done is done.”

“Killing him isn’t done,” Khali says. “If he doesn’t want to carry his rapist’s baby to term, fine. But we don’t need to kill him!”

“What else would we do?” Lada asks. “Set him free, on his word alone? What if another group captured him, and forced him to work for them? Or what if he is lying, just so we let him go?”

The mage’s faint voice, hand limp in hers—Khali doesn’t think it was an act. 

“We can keep him,” she says. “He can join our pack.”

“Our pack,” Lada says, turning to face her fully. “Our pack. When half our young adults are in temporary exile in the woods because they can’t bear the thought of accepting a newborn baby into the pack based on parentage, which speaks to a huge failing on our parts on many levels, and you want to ask the mage to join this pack.”

Khali had imagined more telling him than asking, but in essence, yes. She sees her mate’s point, though. 

“The wellbeing of our current pack comes first,” Lada says. “If that means I have to kill the mage—” She gives another careless shrug, and Khali wants to shake her.

This is a man’s life they are talking about, not some all-but meaningless debate on what kind of wood to use for the main tables or where to send the hunting parties in the winter.

“I’ll go talk to them,” Khali hears herself say. “If we can reunite the pack, surely the mage can stay.”

Surely, she can learn his name.

Another shrug, and Khali leaves before she says something she’d eventually regret.

Jaime is so focused on regaining his strength that it takes him several days to notice that he doesn’t recognize any of the wolves bringing him food. A vague sense of unease settles over him, but he ignores it. Any day now, the alpha will return and grant his wish and this will be over.

He obediently eats and drinks, and feels the strength return to his body, feels the baby inside move with more force than before, and he only sometimes wistfully rests a hand on his belly. Late at night, if he can’t sleep, he dreams of what it would be like this if this child was wanted, if he was safe, if he’d never—

But they’re foolish dreams, out of reach for him after the life he’s had. It’s not fair, but nothing in life is fair, and at least his death might help balance the scales a little.

Jaime is not sure how long it’s been when he’s taken out of his room. Not to do more magic for them, but he’s taken to—an infirmary?

He balks slightly at the doorway, because he was convinced they were taking him outside to kill him.

“Just a checkup,” the alpha says from behind him, and Jaime startles.

He stumbles forward and away at the same time, overbalances into the room, and the oldest wolf he’s seen grabs him to steady him. 

“Whoa,” the wolf says, smiling at Jaime.

Jaime realizes he has his hands on the wolf’s upper arms and snatches them away like he’s been burned.

“I’m sorry,” the alpha says from behind him. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I forgot you can’t scent me.”

The older wolf shakes his head, and indicates a bed for Jaime to sit on. “Lada was always impulsive, ever since she was a pup. Bossy, too, but now she’s the alpha so I guess it all worked out.”

“Ash,” Lada exclaims, a laugh in her voice, but Jaime doesn’t look at her.

He sits on the bed as indicated, the collar heavy around his neck, and stares at the floor. Silence stretches, longer than Jaime thinks it should, but he has nothing to say, nothing to do, no agency here.

“How far along are you?” Ash asks gently, and Jaime shrugs.

He was maybe ten weeks at most when the hunters were killed, and he has no idea how long he’s been locked away in a room, waiting to die. 

“May I examine you?” 

Jaime shrugs again.

“I need your consent for an exam,” Ash says calmly, and Jaime finally looks up at him. The older wolf is looking at him quite seriously. “I won’t examine you without your consent.”

Jaime darts a glance at Lada and then back to the floor. “Do we need to do an exam? I’m stronger now, and I still don’t want to have the baby.”

He’s trying not to call it his baby, trying not to dream.

“And why not?” Ash asks him.

Jaime looks at him, but the healer’s face is completely neutral. 

“I don’t want my baby raised by this pack,” he says, trying to match Ash’s calm, not looking to see if he’s offended the alpha. 

“Because we’re wolves?” Ash maintains his neutrality.

“Because you’ll hate the baby,” Jaime says, going back to looking at the ground. “Because it’s a hunter’s child. I don’t want that life for my child.”

He suddenly realizes that decision is completely out of his hands, and curls a hand over his abdomen. Maybe they want this child, to hurt and torment them to pay the hunters back for all they’ve done, but they should hurt Jaime, not the baby.

“Mmmmm,” Ash says. “We don’t hate pups in this pack.”

Jaime doesn’t respond.

“Did someone say something to you?” Lada asks, and only the fact that Jaime was already rigid with tension keeps him from flinching at her voice.

For an answer, he shrugs.

“An exam won’t hurt,” Ash says briskly, and Jaime nods reluctantly.

“How long were you with the hunters?” Ash asks, busy just out of Jaime’s sight.

Jaime closes his eyes and breathes deeply. “A while,” he says. Years, is what he means. 

“Will you take off your shirt?” Ash asks.

Jaime goes tense, but he knows the price of disobedience, the price of failure—and while he wants death, would welcome pain if it meant the end, he can’t risk his failure meaning his baby grows up to be punished for the crimes of their parents. 

His shirt comes off.

Ash tsks softly. “That’s a lot of scars,” he says, and Jaime is almost impressed with the consistent neutrality the man manages. 

“Yes,” Jaime agrees simply. He knows the tapestry of pain woven into his skin.

“Tell me about them,” Ash invites, and Jaime sighs internally.

“Which one?”

“The large burn on your upper right back,” Ash says.

“Someone held a bar of hot metal to my back,” Jaime says flatly. He doesn’t like to remember that one.

“Someone?” Ash inquires.

Jaime turns to look at Lada, and then back to Ash. “A hunter,” he says, voice still flat. “I didn’t do what he wanted.”

“Hmmm,” is all Ash says before he orders Jaime to lay back.

Jaime does so, and the wolf gently puts his hands on Jaime’s swollen stomach. The baby kicks at the hands, and Jaime closes his eyes so no one can see the way they fill with tears. 

“You look at least thirty weeks,” Ash murmurs. “Is this your first?”

The first one that’s gotten this far, Jaime thinks, but all he says is, “Yes.”

Ash looks in his mouth, at his eyes, in his ears, grumbles at how thin Jaime’s arms are, but eventually steps back. As Jaime sits up, Lada steps forward, into Ash’s place, and Jaime tenses as well as feels relief.

“I don’t want the child,” Jaime says, forcing himself to meet her gaze.

“You weren’t with the hunters willingly,” Lada says, and there’s a hint of a question in her tone.

“I worked for them,” Jaime tells her, still meeting her eyes. “I locked up and killed wolves.”

His hands are balled into fists, and he doesn’t know when that happened.

“They had a collar on you.”

“Yes,” Jaime bites out. “It fell off when your pack killed the hunter it was keyed to.”

“And you didn’t run away?”

Jaime laughs, and even he can hear the bitter tone. “Run where? And how would I get away from a pack out to kill me?”

“With your magic,” Lada suggests. “The same magic you used to open the cages, to free the wolves.”

The ones still alive.

“I don’t want this child,” Jaime says impatiently. “I don’t want it raised—here. So can we please just get it over with?”

A kick against his abdomen, and Jaime rubs the spot absently.

“While it’s true that you don’t have to carry the baby to term, our pack has never harmed innocents,” Lada says slowly. “Your child would not be blamed.”

Jaime can’t help himself, and he snorts.

“You’d best believe her,” Ash says, from a corner. “She’s banished half the youngsters from the den for thinking your child was someone they could blame.”

She—what? Jaime looks between the two of them.

“Moreover,” the alpha continues. “If you were a slave, forced into helping them, we won’t harm you, either.”

Jaime shakes his head slightly, not understanding.

“But I—”

“We don’t harm the innocent,” Lada says.

“I’m not innocent,” Jaime says, shock giving way to something like anger. “I’m not innocent. I got so many wolves killed!”

“Did you want to?” Ash asks, and Jaime’s head snaps to him. “Because the marks on your body tell a very different story.

“Stop it,” Jaime says. “Just—stop lying. What do you want? The baby? You could make me carry to term at this point—” His voice is shaking and he ignores it. “—so you don’t need to trick me into it. What do you want?”

“What do you want?” Lada asks him softly, and Jaime pulls back from her slightly.

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” he says, voice brittle. “So stop acting like it does.”

“Your baby doesn’t have to die,” she says, and Jaime realizes he’s wrapped his arms around his abdomen. 

“You can’t think I want the child to be raised here?” he spits at her. “To be blamed? He said half your pack is banished—but what about when they come back? If you protect the innocent, don’t put a child through that.”

“What if you were here to protect your child?” she asks.

“What if—” Jaime goes cold. “What do you want?” His voice is tired, colorless.

They always want something. If he gets to see his baby, maybe hold it, spend some time—what is the price?

“The hunters are dead.” Lada shrugs. “I’ll kill more if we find more. I want a healthy pack. I want my pack to feel safe. I want us to be warm and well-fed.”

“No,” Jaime says, feeling a flicker of frustration. “What do you want me to do?”

“I’d like you to raise your child,” Lada says. “Because I don’t think you really want either of you to die.”

Jaime knows better, he knows better, he had it beaten out of him, so he blames pregnancy hormones for the way his eyes immediately well with tears.

“Don’t be cruel,” he whispers, as though he doesn’t deserve it, as though he can stop her. “I know what I did.”

“What do you want to do now?” Lada asks. “If you could choose, would you choose to hurt me? My pack? Would you choose to have your child?”

Jaime doesn’t know when he ended up with his back pressed up against the wall, or when he started shivering. He doesn’t answer—he can’t answer—he’s tired of games.

The alpha reaches for him, and Jaime doesn’t even bother trying to move away. He closes his eyes, and tries to accept—whatever it is she does. What she does is reach up to his collar, fiddle with it for a moment, and then pull back, the leather in her hand. His hands fly up to his neck, his bare neck, and he stares at her.

“I could kill you,” he says, numbly, magic a storm inside him.

“Will you?” she asks.

For a wild moment, he wants to snatch the collar back and put it on himself, so he can die as he lived—trapped, in fear.

“We evacuated the den,” she tells him. “It’s just me and Ash. And you.”

“So you do think I’ll hurt you,” he says.

“I think I don’t take chances,” she says, pursing her lips. “I think you’ve been through a lot. I think you did some horrible things because you were forced to do so, and I don’t think you would hurt any of us.”

“She really doesn’t take chances with her pack, though,” Ash comments. “Always been a bossy one.”

“You’re supposed to kill me,” Jaime whispers. “You said you would.”

Lada sits on the foot of his bed. “I planned to kill a hunter,” she says softly. “But you’re not a hunter.”

“I am,” Jaime whispers.

“A hunter would’ve killed us both, by now,” Ash points out.

Jaime looks at him. “I don’t want—I wouldn’t—I—”

“A hunter would,” Lada says. “So, are you a hunter, or not?” 

Licking his lips, Jaime glances between the two of them. His child kicks inside of him, insistently, but Jaime doesn’t know what the babe wants. He opens his mouth, closing it when words fail him. 

“What’s your name?” Lada asks him.

“J—Jaime,” he says, body trembling.

“Jaime,” the healer says. “This stress isn’t good for the baby.”

“We’re going to die,” Jaime says through numb lips. “We’re both going to die.”

“Only by your hand, if that’s what you wish,” Ash says, and lays a soft hand on his shoulder. “But you have to breathe.”

Jaime sucks in air, tries to hold it in his lungs, but his shaking body can’t and he’s sucking in more before he realizes what he’s doing.

“Shhhh,” Ash murmurs, and holds a cup of warm tea up to Jaime’s mouth.

Teeth chattering, Jaime manages a few sips, focusing on the here and now, and trying to ground himself, trying not to feel the magic sliding through him, trying to not look at the pack alpha at the foot of his bed, trying not to think—not to think—not to think—

He doesn’t dare dream he’d hold his child, except he’s dreamt it every day since he came to this den. He was imagining maybe an hour, a mercy before his death, for the sake of the child.

And they are offering him—a lifetime? 

“I want to go,” Jaime says suddenly, pushing the rest of the bitter tea away. “I want to go outside.”

He stands, and when he wavers, Lada and Ash are supporting him on either side. 

“I want to die outside,” he tells them, and neither of them argue with him.

The journey through the unfamiliar den feels like it takes a lifetime, and it also feels like he blinks and Jaime is outside. The sun is shining, the sky is blue with clouds scudding across, and Jaime walks to the nearest tree. He lays his cheek against the sun-warmed bark, and closes his eyes.

The tree whispers to him. Jaime had closed his ears to songs of nature for so, so long. It was too painful with a collar around his neck, too painful to hear the cries and feel the pain that deeply. Without his active bidding, some of his magic snakes out to meet the tree, greets the tree, spreads itself through the web of life.

And then his magic spreads throughout himself, his tight control on it falling away, and he knows he’s carrying a girl. He’s carrying a girl, and the wind is blowing fresh scents to his nose, and the tree tells him its secrets, and the sun is warm on his back. He doesn’t realize he’s crying until the tree questions the unexpected wetness on its bark. A twist of magic, and he banishes the salt from the bark but leaves the moisture. 

His childhood was spent in a forest much like this, until—until—

“I can help your pack,” Jaime says, cheek still on the tree. “I can be useful. Just let me have my daughter.”

“You don’t have to be useful,” Lada says.

Jaime can feel her magic, deep and earth-rooted, shifter and alpha. The healer is a brighter pulse behind her, and from the roots of the tree his magic spreads up and through the forest and he can feel the pack further in the woods.

Waiting to see if Jaime will hurt them. 

With the strength of nature running through him, Jaime turns to face Lada.

“You took off my collar,” he says quietly, toes curling into the dirt. 

“I did,” she agrees. 

There’s another wolf coming up through the trees, but Jaime doesn’t think she’s a threat. 

“What do you want?” Jaime asks her again.

“You were a tool the hunters used. They hurt you and used you to hurt us.”

With a tight throat, Jaime nods. 

“I don’t use people,” Lada tells him. “And I don’t blame you for being used.”

The wolf steps into the clearing around the den—Khali. Lada must scent her, but she doesn’t take her eyes off Jaime. 

“Bossy,” Ash murmurs, and Khali’s mouth curves up on one side. 

“I don’t want to hurt your pack,” Jaime says. “I can, almost, accept what you’re saying.” It’s easier with nature whispering through him, with the plants curling towards him, with the sun reminding him not all is broken and ruined. “But I don’t think your pack can.”

“Oh, they can,” Khali says, and Jaime can see Lada’s mouth tighten very slightly. “I took care of it.”

“Took care of it?” Jaime echoes, and it feels like his daughter is doing somersaults inside of him. 

“It was mostly the young ones,” Khali says, standing next to Lada. Ash is still at the den entrance, and Jaime has the feeling he’s monitoring Jaime for the sake of Jaime himself and the baby, not because he thinks Jaime is a threat. “They just need to grow up a bit.”

“They’re not wrong to hate me,” Jaime says.

Khali snorts. “Well, that is where you are wrong. And if any of them can’t get their heads out of their asses, they wouldn’t have a place in our pack anyways.”

Lada nods, short and sharp. 

Jaime can’t be the reason more wolves are hurt.

“I should go,” he says, making no move to do so.

“If you prefer,” Lada says. “We can get you supplies for a trip, perhaps escort you part of the way.”

Ash clears his throat. “Not until after the baby is born.”

Jaime looks at him.

“You can’t travel safely this far along,” Ash says, crossing his arms. “I won’t allow it. Especially after this nonsense of not eating and all this stress. After, you can take your child and go.”

“Not right away,” Khali adds. “You’ll need to recover after birth, also.”

Jaime looks between them. “But your pack—”

“They’ll get used to it,” Lada says firmly. “Or they’ll deal with me.”

“I’m not worth this,” Jaime tells them. 

“Every life is worth something,” Lada says quietly. 

“But after what I did—”

“What you were forced to do,” Khali interjects, and Jaime scrunches his nose. 

“What was done to you,” Lada says.

He likes these woods. He did want to have his daughter here. Winter is coming, he can sense it in the faint currents moving through the forest, so she’ll likely be born when snow covers the ground, and Jaime won’t be able to travel again until spring. 

Months with the pack.

Or he could leave now. Escape now. They couldn’t stop him.

But is it escaping when he is freed and given a choice?