Chasing The Lost Winter Heiress

CH 3 - Helena

HELENA POV

I spent the last month pretending I was fine, pretending the decision I had made was logical and adult and perfectly reasonable, when in reality every night I lay awake replaying the same moment in the forest like a scene carved into my eyelids. I told myself that moving on was the mature thing to do, that shifting my future was bravery, not cowardice, and that choosing a different life meant I was taking control rather than running. It felt like a lie, and maybe it was, but it was the only way I could make myself breathe without drowning.

I was not going to be an Alpha or lead Winter Pack. My brothers would. Everyone knew the triplets were better suited anyway.

I was a human girl in a world full of beasts and ancient souls, and it was past time I accepted it. So I spent the entire month planning a life that actually belonged to me. A human life. No wolves staring, no expectations pressed tight against my ribs, no destiny I kept failing to meet. Just me.

Convincing my mother had taken hours, days, almost a week of arguments so intense I had cried in my room every night afterward. She insisted I stay, insisted I would find my place here, maybe become a doctor like her, she insisted there was some secret strength waiting inside me. I almost believed her once or twice, until Sekhmeth, one of her beasts, surfaced during one of our fights and said in that terrible double-toned voice that echoed through the whole kitchen, “She is destined to walk a different path.”

That shut everything down and my mother finally stepped back.
 She looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time, and it hurt both of us.

I filled out the college application the same night.
 New York School of Art. Late admission. Painting program. A compromise. On a plane, only a few hours from home, but in a world that had nothing to do with wolves or dragons or Alpha expectations. A world where I could figure out who I was without silently comparing myself to every powerful creature around me.

They accepted me right away and my family sucked it up. Yep, everyone congratulated me, even Pops Kingsley, and he didn't try to murder anyone afterward. My grandmother was even planning a farewell party, proud of me for following her steps in art school.

I smiled when she told me, pretending to be excited.
 Inside, I was just relieved. Relieved to have something forward, something that didn’t involve Silas’s hands on my skin or the way he whispered my name like it meant something more.

My brothers played with him online almost daily, as usual. Their friendship had huge roots, hockey, videogames and sparring. And every call that drifted through the house made my chest tighten. I tried to ignore it, but every time I heard his voice in the distance, my heart reacted before my mind could shut it down. It could have been my mind playing tricks, but I got the impression his tone was sad. Each single time.

He reached out twice. Two texts that had been deleted without ever being opened, because reading them would have shattered whatever thin wall I had managed to build.

Only Robbie knew the truth.


 She was the only one who knew why I refused to accompany my brothers when they visited Hopeland last week. She knew everything, the whole truth, and she never judged me. She simply stayed at my side and made sure I had the right excuse every single time.

I was surviving. Barely, but surviving.

Then this morning my phone buzzed with a notification.
 The kind you don’t pay attention to until something feels wrong.

Did your period begin?

At first I didn’t understand. I blinked at the screen, confused, and then opened the app. The blood drained from my face so fast I felt dizzy.

Late.
 Late by too many days.
 Late in a way that wasn’t normal for me, or for anyone not in menopause for that matter. Two weeks late.

A cold weight formed in my stomach. I almost dropped my phone. My fingers trembled while I scrolled the dates again, hoping I had misread something, but nope. Everything was right. Freaking everything.

I sat on the edge of the bed for a few seconds, breathing too fast, the room spinning in slow circles. Then I did the only thing I could think of: I texted Robbie, with hands that barely worked.

She burst into my room without knocking, took one look at me, and pulled a pregnancy test out of her bag. She didn’t even speak while I opened it, because she already knew.

We waited together in the bathroom, sitting on the cold tile floor, her hand wrapped around mine, keeping me steady through the longest three minutes of my life.

Two pink lines.

That was it.
 Pregnant.

The word hit me like a physical strike. My throat closed and I barely made it to the toilet before everything inside me came back up. I gagged until my stomach felt hollow and my ribs hurt, but the nausea stayed.

I sat on the floor with my head against the cabinet, gasping, shaking, unable to understand how this could be possible. I had taken the morning-after pill. I had done everything right. Everything.

But none of that mattered now.

I was pregnant with Silas’s child.

Robbie brushed my hair away from my face.
 “You have to tell him,” she whispered gently.

I looked at her like she had just suggested I walk into a fire.

“Are you out of your mind? You know exactly what that means.” My voice wasn’t steady. It came out sharp and panicked. “Either they force me to marry him or he takes my pup away the minute he realizes what it is. And what if the baby is like me? What if it’s human? What then? Do you think his future mate will be thrilled about some human child showing up out of nowhere? She’ll hate it. She’ll hate me. And they’ll hate him for it.”

“Helena, listen to me,” Robbie said softly. “Silas isn’t like that. You know he isn’t. And he doesn’t have a mate yet. It’s the right thing to do.”

I put my head in my hands.
 I knew she was right.
 I hated that she was right.

So an hour later I was driving through thick, swirling snow toward Hopeland Pack, gripping the wheel so tightly my knuckles ached.

The whole way there, my chest hurt. The air felt too thin. I kept imagining every possible awful reaction he’d have, how he’d look at me once he realized what I carried. How he might deny it. Or accept it. Or regret everything that happened between us.

The guard at the gate recognized me immediately. He smiled and waved me through, telling me he was linking Alpha Silas to let him know I was there. I swallowed the urge to beg him not to. Too late for second thoughts.

As I drove deeper into Hopeland territory, the packhouse came into view, glowing with warm yellow lights. Christmas decorations covered everything, strands of lights twined around railings and pillars, wreaths hanging from every door. It looked beautiful. Festive. Exactly the kind of place where people shared joy instead of drama.

Two days before Christmas.


 Perfect timing for the universe to ruin my life.

I parked before I could convince myself to turn around. My stomach twisted as I stepped out of the car, adjusting my coat and wiping my sweaty palms on my jeans. The cold air bit at my skin, but it didn’t calm me.

Then I saw him.

Silas stood on the front porch, right under a massive mistletoe wreath, barefoot and dressed only in a pair of shorts. His chest was bare, muscles defined in the cold light, steam rising faintly from his skin like he’d just shifted back moments ago.

His warm brown eyes locked on mine, and a flick of blue passed through them. I blinked, and his mask was back on, sharp and unreadable, but it hit me so hard I forgot how to breathe.

He took one step forward, like he was about to say something.

And then she appeared.

A girl stepped into the doorway behind him. Tall. Blond. Gorgeous. Wearing only an oversized shirt that barely reached mid-thigh. She jogged lightly across the porch as if she owned it and then threw her arms around his neck before I could even understand what I was looking at.

She kissed him.
 Full-on.
 Deep.
 Moaning into his mouth like she had done it a hundred times before.

My body reacted before my mind could. I stepped back, hitting the car door, breath knocked out of me like I had been punched.

Silas froze, hands half-lifted, clearly caught off guard by her, but I didn’t wait to see what he would do next. I couldn’t. The damage was already done.

Whatever I had come here to say, whatever fragile courage had pushed me all the way to Hopeland, shattered instantly.

I turned away so fast I almost slipped on the icy steps. My hands shook violently as I yanked the car door open and collapsed into the seat. I didn’t even buckle the belt before I slammed my foot on the gas.

The tires spun on the ice, skidding, catching, and then I shot forward into the snow-covered road, branches whipping past as I aimed straight for the forest.

I drove without thinking, without breathing, without anything except the single thought pounding through my skull.

He had a girl.
 A beautiful, perfect, probably wolf-born girl. Probably his new-found mate.

A girl who wasn’t me.

And the worst part wasn’t even that he kissed her.
 It was that I wasn’t surprised.

I was never meant to be part of his life. I was a mistake, a moment of weakness in the snow and moonlight, and now I carried the consequence.

I pressed harder on the gas, speeding through the forest as tears blurred my vision. I had to get away. I wasn’t going to be responsible for a war between the two strongest packs in Canada. I wasn’t going to ruin my brothers’ future or bring bloodshed to Winter Pack.

He didn’t need to know.


 I refused to be the homewrecker. I refused to be responsible for the end of my brothers’ and Silas’s friendship, for the end of decades of alliances. And I was strong enough to live by myself. It was what I was trying to do anyway. A human life. A new life.

My child would be safer far away from here, far away from everything that connected us.

I just needed to disappear.
 Somewhere nobody knew my name.
 Somewhere nobody would come looking for me.
 Somewhere I could raise this pup without dragging anyone down.

And Christmas, once my favorite time of the year, would forever be the memory of the moment everything I had left crumbled in front of me.

So I pressed the gas again and threw my phone out the window, just like my mother once did, I wasn’t Helena Savage anymore. But I wasn’t running away like her. I was choosing myself and my pup, even if it terrified me.