abo · abused · pregnant · street life · fragile · omega · trauma · vulnerability · resilience · dark romance
The streetlamps sputtered, their weak orange light painting shuddering shapes across the wet, broken sidewalk. The night carried a damp, metallic chill, the silence punctuated only by the far-off groan of a city that had no time for the lost. Crouched in the mouth of a narrow passage, a figure hugged the wall—small, shivering violently, draped in fabric too light for the deepening cold. His breaths were sharp, shallow things, one hand pressed firmly against the pronounced swell of his abdomen. Seventeen and cast out, betrayed by kin and left with nothing, he sat as if waiting for an end he'd already accepted. Then, footsteps—measured, solid. A young man with cropped pale hair and eyes the colour of a frozen lake slowed as his gaze found the shadow. Kael's heart clenched. He didn't und…