His eyebrow rose. “Excited?” he hedged, and I shook my head.
Diesel turned to look down toward the trees again. It must have been a trick of the afternoon sun, because his shadow didn’t look like that of a man, but a wolf.Hiswolf. “That’s exactly what I feel now,” he said softly.
“Excited?” I whispered in confusion.
“Anticipatory,” he said with a smirk my way.
A shiver ran down my spine. “Is it them? The Pack Council?”
“I’d tell you if it was Council,” he said, brushing off my fear casually. “I would smell their stench a mile away. This? This feels like…a shadow.” He looked above us at the cloudless sky. “This is something…hovering. Just at the corner of my eye, stepping just out of sight.” His jaw locked. “A heartbeat but…but not a body.” His eyes narrowed to slits. “And it’s watching.”
I wanted to shift on instinct. Ready to fight. “It’s watching us?” I whispered.
“Us?” Diesel shook his head. “No.” His gaze cut to me. “Watchingyou.”
The Hollow surged under my boots—not violently, butsharply, like being yanked inside-out. My breath caught, and it was so strange to feel like I’d stumbled when I hadn’t moved at all. “Me?” I managed. “How do you figure?”
Diesel didn’t hesitate. “Because you’re opening up to your power. Because you’re pregnant. Because you’re Wolfe’s mate. Pick a reason. They all suck.”
I pressed a hand to my stomach—not even a bump yet, nothing to show for it—but my wolf curled around the place instinctively.
Diesel watched me with a patience I suspected most people never got from him. “Rowen. Stop thinking the worst. Start thinking the real.”
“What’s the real?”
“That whatever is watching you isn’t touching you,” he said. “Not crossing the wards. Not stepping closer. Not pushing. That means the Hollow isn’t letting it.”
My heart thudded. “You’re sure?”
“Rowen, I don’t lie about things that could kill us.” He gently nudged my shoulder. “But we need to get you back down the mountain. Now.”
I startled. “That’s a little dramatic.”
“Dramatic?” He let out a wild, humorless laugh. “Rowen, you are pregnant with the Hollow’s next alpha?—”
“Diesel,” I hissed.
“And your mate is too far away, surrounded by wolves who need him, and the land is vibrating like it just woke up with a hangover, and there is somethingancientstaring at you like you’re the last page of a fucking prophecy, so when I say get down the mountain, I mean move your curvy ass and get down the fucking mountain.”
“You really are a gigantic pain in my ass!”
Diesel laughed, but I noticed he was still watching the air around us as he began to shepherd me toward the trail. “Maybe,” he conceded. “But think of it this way, most of those things are still happening.”
I blinked. “How is that helping?” I whispered to him.
“Less talking,” he ordered, and grabbed my elbow. “Let’s move.”
We stepped off the ridge—quickly—and made our way down the mountain, and only once the ground leveled did Diesel finally exhale. But his wolf didn’t settle. Not even close. He looked back up the ridge, nostrils flaring again, shoulders rigid.
“What now?” I asked softly, scared he heard me, dreading the fact he’d tell me.
He shook his head. “I… It moved,” he said. “Whatever it is…it moved sideways. Not toward you. Not away either.”
My head hurt. “Sideways?”
“That’s not normal.” He looked at me as if this conversation was.
No. It wasn’t.Noneof this was normal. The Hollow pulsed again beneath us, and this time I knew what it was, a warning.
