Knotting His Rejected Breeder

Sonia’s POV

I felt it before I saw anything.

It started as a small pressure at the back of my neck while I walked the lower courtyard path, the kind of awareness that made my shoulders tighten without a clear reason.

The morning was ordinary. Warriors trained in the distance. Two maids carried baskets toward the kitchens. A pair of young wolves argued quietly near the well. Nothing looked wrong.

Still, the feeling stayed.

I stopped near the edge of the herb garden and adjusted the shawl around my shoulders, using the movement to glance behind me. The path was empty. Only the wind moved through the leaves.

"My lady?" Lydia’s voice came from my left. "Is something wrong?"

"No," I said, after a moment. "Just tired."

She didn’t look convinced, but she nodded and continued walking with me toward the nursery wing. My son shifted under my hand as if he could sense the tension in my body. I rubbed slow circles over the place where his foot pressed outward and tried to steady my breathing.

By midday, the feeling returned twice more.

Once near the main stairs. Once while I stood outside the nursery speaking with one of the younger caretakers. Each time, the air seemed to thin around me. My wolf rose closer to the surface than usual, alert and quiet, the way she had been during the worst days of the war. Luna instincts, the elders had called them. Stronger during pregnancy. Stronger still when something threatened what was ours.

I hated how easily they made the world feel unsafe again.

In the afternoon, I sat near the open doors of the children’s hall while several of the younger pack children played under the watch of two older girls. Wooden toys clicked against the stone floor. Someone laughed. For a while, the sound loosened something in my chest.

Then one of the boys, no more than five, wandered too close to the side steps that led down toward the storage passage. The drop was not high, but the stones were uneven. He was still looking back toward his friends when his foot caught the edge.

I was moving before I finished thinking.

My hand closed around his arm and pulled him back hard enough that he stumbled into my side. He blinked up at me, startled more than hurt. The wooden horse in his other hand knocked against my knee.

"Careful," I said, softer than my pulse. "Those steps are not kind."

He nodded quickly.

"Yes, Luna."

The title still sat strangely in my ears, but the children used it without hesitation. One of the older girls hurried over, apologizing, and guided him back toward the others. I stayed where I was for a moment longer, one hand braced against the doorframe, waiting for my heartbeat to slow.

Across the hall, another child nearly knocked a clay water jug from a low table. I reached it first and set it back in place. A third nearly backed into the sharp corner of a wooden shelf while chasing his brother. I caught his shoulder and turned him gently away.

None of the moments were dramatic.

Together, they left me unsettled.

Something in me had drawn tight, watching every angle, every possible fall, every place harm could come from. It was not only fear. It was instinct, sharp and constant, as if my body had decided that stillness itself was a risk.

When Ramon found me later in the corridor outside the nursery, he took one look at my face and stopped walking.

"What happened?"

"Nothing serious."

"Sonia."

I exhaled and leaned my shoulder lightly against the wall.

"I keep feeling like someone is watching me. And the children... I can’t stop checking every corner around them."

His expression darkened at once.

"You’re not leaving the main wings alone anymore."

"I’ve already been careful."

"Then you’ll be more careful." He stepped closer, lowering his voice. "Until we know who is behind the tea and the rest of it, you don’t walk these halls without me or a guard."

Frustration flared hot and immediate in my chest.

"I am not made of glass, Ramon."

"I know that."

"I can still walk from one room to another without being treated like a prisoner in my own home."

His jaw tightened.

"This is not about treating you like a prisoner. It’s about keeping you and our child alive."

"And I want that too," I said, harder than I meant to. "But I also want to breathe without someone measuring every step I take."

For a moment neither of us spoke. A pair of warriors passed at the far end of the corridor and nodded respectfully before continuing on. The ordinary sound of their boots only made the tension between us feel sharper.

Ramon lifted a hand and rested it gently against the side of my neck, his thumb brushing the edge of my jaw.

"I lost too much already," he said quietly. "I will not pretend calm if something in this house is hunting you."

Some of the anger in me thinned at the honesty in his voice. I covered his hand with mine.

"I know. I’m just... tired of feeling cornered."

"Then let me stand in the way for a while."

I nodded once. It was not full agreement, but it was enough for him. He pressed a brief kiss to my forehead and promised to finish one meeting before returning. I watched him go, then turned back toward the nursery.

Lydia was already inside when I entered, folding small blankets with neat, practiced movements. She looked up at once.

"You should sit."

"I’ve been sitting half the day."

"Then sit again."

Despite myself, a small smile pulled at my mouth. I lowered myself into the chair near the window and stretched my sore feet against the cool floor. Outside, the light had begun to soften toward evening. Shadows stretched longer across the courtyard stones.

"Any news?" I asked.

Lydia’s hands slowed over the blanket in her lap.

"Ivy is still looking. She’s careful about it. If someone is hiding here, they already know how to stay unseen."

"That’s what worries me."

"It should."

The honesty in her voice was oddly comforting. I rested both hands over my stomach and felt our son push weakly against my palm. The movement steadied me more than anything else had all day.

Later, after the children had been taken back to their families and the nursery quieted, I stayed behind to put away the last of the toys. Ramon had not returned yet. A young guard waited outside the door as promised, close enough to hear me if I called.

I told myself that was enough.

I placed the final wooden block into its box and closed the lid. When I straightened, the ache in my lower back made me pause. The room smelled of clean cloth and faint soap. Ordinary things. Safe things.

Then the awareness returned.

Stronger this time.

The fine hair along my arms lifted. My wolf rose hard and fast, no longer only watchful but braced. I turned toward the open doorway that led into the side passage near the nursery stores.

A figure stood there.

For half a second, in the dimming light, she looked like any other servant—plain cloak, head slightly lowered, body angled as if she had only stopped in passing. Then she lifted her face enough for the shadows to slip back.

The scar.

The eyes.

The familiar shape of a woman who should not have been breathing inside these walls.

My blood went cold.

"Lorena."

Her name left my mouth before I could stop it.

She did not run.

She only looked at me across the quiet nursery threshold, the corner of her mouth curving in something too thin to be called a smile, as if she had been waiting for this exact moment all along.

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