Coldsnap: The Billionaire Alpha's Fated Pregnant Princess (GL)
Chapter 163 - Movements Being Monitored

Chapter 163: Chapter 163 - Movements Being Monitored

My hands were still shaking slightly as I climbed the stairs to room 217 at the Oak Knot. My backpack sat exactly where I’d left it. I wasted no time grabbing for it and looking around in one final sweep.

Because if I stopped too long, Vrika would stir in agitation. Restless in my mindscape because... my mind was also restless. My wolf kept replaying the moment Kyrie had pinned that rogue and the moment I brushed close to her.

The deadly promise in her voice that I fully believed she’d make good on if needed. The way she’d frozen completely when I’d commanded her not to move. How it made me feel wrong and powerful all at once.

> Just let me cool off, you can bring it up later. But also - don’t bring it up later! <

Walking here tonight... and now walking back after dropping off the room key a final time... felt different after what happened. The confidence I’d felt after securing my new apartment had been shaken and leaves me looking over my shoulder more than usual.

An attempt to track down Chad was stupid. But at least now I know what sort of lengths he is going to for... himself? Or is he acting because of something Jace said. Perhaps even the Alpha of the Duskpaw.

He was not a kind man, exactly, from what Helene knew of him. But the way I look back at all of his actions from her viewpoint... they at least had a sort of consistency of morals.

"No, he may be coming for me because of the rumors, but he never would have sent rogues after me. He hates dealing with non-pack. This has smirking, jeering, smartphone wielding manipulator all over it."

The question almost answers itself, too. He is one of the few in the pack... who gets away with using technology so much. Son of the Beta and ’friend’ of two of the stronger youths.

> He must have connections here. Someone who told him what I was up to... but who? <

My wolf is still too busy whining for me to go back to Kyrie and not helping me think. Victoria knew something even if she wasn’t sure. She seems like she has a ’loud mouth’ too, when it comes to pushing rumors.

"But she doesn’t seem like the type to want to work with outside forces in pack territory. Also seems like the kind that has her own ’goons’ prepared."

The hunter’s app suddenly comes to mind, surely not because of the term I just used. The forum there is hardly the only one on the whole of the internet. It stands to reason that there might be a werewolf community specific one.

If so, I need to find my way on it. Full information control might not be possible - not in the way my father could pull off, but political warfare...

The question of what to do from here nagged at me as I made my way through increasingly upscale urban neighborhoods toward the Argent Quarter. But not as much as how, when, and why Kyrie started following me tonight.

> Yes, damn you. I’m thinking about her. I’m allowed to think what I want or don’t in my own soul! <

Anger should be my response not to Vrika, but to the Alpha’s behavior. Instead, the ways she has been acting continues to fill me with a confusing blend of playful irritation. It was only just recently that I was having thoughts about enjoying being chased and... pursued.

Only just recently that my heart felt like cold lead now turned molten once more. I’m not sure exactly if this all counts as the sort of stress I should be avoiding for the sake of the child, but it definitely feels like it cannot be helpful.

Perigee Residences, and the other buildings nearby, looked even more impressive in the evening. Its glass facade aglow with sections of interior lighting in the homes that were occupied.

The lobby was empty except for the security desk and after swiping my phone to get in, I nodded to the guard as I headed for the elevators. 15-02 welcomed me with a keypad beep, and I dropped my backpack by the door.

Immediately after, I went to press the button that would close the drapes. Mechanical parts whirred as they slide along a rail, blocking out the city lights and creating the enclosed feeling I craved.

This is what denning feels like in the human world. Four walls, a locked door... and the illusion of safety. All the ways that security could be broken - sudden explosions, a whole pack of werewolves beating down the door, even magical meteors... fade to unlikely probabilities.

I collapsed onto the sectional sofa in a boneless heap for about five seconds until I curl up tight. The rogues’ crude threats and what they meant by them processing as I hold in the desire to go throw up again.

And then there was Kyrie, who appeared again like some avenging angel in white. The attraction had developed its own rhythm, it felt like. My attempts to tell myself to ignore her disrupted by my desire to have someone to rely on.

Would she really reject me for carrying another wolf’s child, as Victoria had implied? The thought sent another wave of distress through me, pushing and tangling emotions even further in my head.

Suddenly, going back to that clinic at all felt like a mistake. Not just because the ones after me might use it to catch me, but because I don’t want to confirm anything to anyone. I don’t want her to have realized she lied and that I really am...

> Why do I even care? Whether I want her to keep her distance or want her to never give up, the apocalypse is still coming. The child is still on its way. Those things won’t change. And none of that is the fault of the baby inside me. <

It was then, whether a lifeline of a laughing joke, that familiar blue pulsing surged in my peripheral vision. While I stared at the backrest of the sofa, the system’s checkmark shimmered into view and sent text hovering before me.

| TASK: Seek Medical Verification |

| TASK COMPLETION ✓ |

| Matron’s Monitor |

"Now?"

I complained aloud over the sense of timing. It had been so many days since the Clinic that I’d nearly forgotten that I was ’owed’ something. That it had been holding it back because... I guess because I didn’t know what kind of thing I wanted relate to the completed task.

> At least if I understand how this has been working correctly. As if I understand anything around me lately... <

The Apocalypse System itself offered no easy explanation, of course. Instead, a new blue glowing hexagonal icon materialized in my interface next to the pack roster. With what looked like a ’heartbeat waveform’ running through the center.

No matter how suspiciously timed, I activated the icon just to stop thinking about other things. The new interface expanded before me, displaying a complex arrangement of unfilled sections. Most curious was the center where a three-dimensional rendering of a sphere spun slowly.

Its ’wire mesh’ look - 🌐 - reminded me of a symbol on the phone’s internet browser. Seeing something in the interface moving like that was strange and my fingertips reached toward it instinctively... activating a slightly green colored glow around my hand.