Strange

Freya’s POV:

I stumbled back in shock the moment my eyes landed on them, but I caught myself before the gasp could escape. Years of training, years of hiding, years of pretending to be someone else kicked in so I straightened my spine, smoothed the front of my white lab coat, and forced my voice into the calm, professional tone I had perfected long ago.

“Hello, Alpha Mason. Hello, Luna Selene.” I said, the words sliding out evenly. My gaze, however, refused to leave the small boy resting weakly against his mother’s hip.

His cheeks were flushed with fever, his little chest rising and falling too quickly, his eyes half-closed in exhaustion. I kept my focus locked on him, using the child as an anchor so I wouldn’t have to look too long at the man who had once been my husband or the woman who had once been my best friend.

A few days ago, when I had learned that Dante had a cousin coming to the Northern Region, I had been so stunned that I had pulled Gideon aside in the middle of the training field and demanded answers.

He had told me the cousin was from the southern region, that years earlier, to seal an alliance between the Northern and Southern packs, the Alpha King of the North had ordered Dante’s grandfather to give one of his daughters in marriage to a powerful southern Alpha.

Though Dante and this cousin of his had never been close, Dante still loved and respected his mother deeply. Knowing how much his mother cherished her own sister, he had agreed to let me assist the cousin during his stay but never in my wildest nightmares could I have imagined that the cousin would turn out to be my husband.

Yes, my husband, because technically, the papers had never been signed to dissolve our bond so we were still legally married.

Suddenly I realized I had been standing there in silence far too long. The quiet could give me away even behind the thin surgical mask I wore. I blinked once, hard, and composed myself again, tilting my head politely as though I had merely been thinking.

But I noticed the way Mason’s eyes narrowed on me, the way his nostrils flared subtly, the way he kept tilting his head as though trying to catch a scent that refused to come and I knew exactly why he was struggling.

Because I had spent over a week locked inside the laboratory, my meals were delivered on trays, and I took showers in the tiny stall beside the autoclave, until yesterday when exhaustion had finally forced me to collapse into bed so my natural scent was completely buried beneath layers of antiseptic, herbal tinctures, chemical stabilizers, and blood samples.

The mixture would throw off even the most sensitive nose so he could not possibly recognize me unless he somehow recognized my eyes above the mask or the particular set of my shoulders. And that was something I had not expected from a man who had not laid eyes on me in five full years.

Letting out a sigh through the mask, I spoke again. “What symptoms has Ethan been showing? Fever? Lethargy? Any vomiting or loss of appetite?”

Selene answered first with the same voice that used to laugh with me over late-night cups of tea. “He’s been burning up for three days now and nothing we give him seems to help. He won’t eat more than a few bites, and he just… lies there, like all his strength is gone.”

“He whimpers in his sleep, and sometimes he cries out for no reason. We thought it was a simple virus at first, but it’s getting worse.” Mason added.

I nodded, making mental notes. “May I examine him, please?”

They both agreed at once, and Selene shifted Ethan gently so I could step closer. As I crouched down, Mason said. “We’ll be staying at the packhouse for as long as it takes.”

“Very well.” I replied, keeping my eyes on the child. “I’ll go prepare the clinic room right now, a nurse will come for Ethan shortly.”

I excused myself with a slight bow of my head and walked out of the receiving hall. The moment the double doors closed behind me, I exhaled and hurried across the sunlit compound where I saw a young maid was on her knees pulling weeds from between the flagstones so I stopped beside her.

“Excuse me, have you seen Fiona?” She looked up, brushing dirt from her cheek. “Yes, ma’am. I saw her heading to the garden with little Aya about thirty seconds ago.”

Hearing her, I felt so relieved because it meant that Aya had been found. “Thank you.” I said quickly, already moving.

I rushed down the stone path that wound between blooming rose bushes and tall hedges until I reached the garden. Aya spotted me first so she broke into a run, her dark curls bouncing, her small face scrunched in a dramatic pout.

“Mummy!” She cried, throwing her arms around my legs. I dropped to one knee and ruffled her hair, the strands sliding through my fingers like silk. “There you are, my love.”

Fiona stood a few paces away, watching with concern as I straightened and said. “Fiona, take Aya to her room using the back door and no matter what, do not let her come out.”

Fiona’s brows drew together. “Is there a problem, my lady?”

“There is no problem.” I said, forcing a reassuring smile. “But do exactly as I say and keep her inside even if she throws tantrums, even if she cries until she’s hoarse. Do not open that door for anyone but me.”

Fiona searched my face for a moment, then nodded. “As you wish.”

I watched as she took Aya’s hand, but the little girl immediately began to fuss, stomping her feet and pulling back. “No! I want to stay with Mummy!”

My chest tightened as I turned to her, crouching again so we were eye to eye. “Sweetheart, please go with Fiona. I promise that I’m going to take a whole week off work soon so that we can bake cookies, read stories, and play in the garden every single day.”

Aya’s pout wobbled, she studied me with those big, trusting eyes, then gave a small nod. “Promise?”

“Promise.” I whispered, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

Only then did she let Fiona lead her away while I stood there, heart aching, until they disappeared through the back entrance. I knew I had mountains of work waiting, but nothing mattered more than keeping Aya hidden from Mason and Selene because if he discovered her existence, he would try to take her away and I could not let that happen.

I hissed through my teeth, spun on my heel, and strode toward the laboratory wing. The moment I reached my private office, I went straight to the tall metal cabinet that held the experimental pharmaceuticals. My fingers closed around the small blue bottle I had finished developing only last month for Dante’s elite warriors.

It was a scent suppressant that was strong enough to last forty-eight hours even under stress. I shook one pill into my palm, swallowed it dry, and chased it with a gulp of water from the sink. I needed to be certain that once the chemical stench of the lab wore off, nothing of my natural scent would leak through.

When the pill was safely down, I headed to the clinic, and found a nurse in the hallway. “Prepare the private examination room with the full monitoring setup. Then go collect the young patient from the main hall.”

The nurse hurried off, and ten minutes later she returned, guiding Selene who carried Ethan in her arms so I held the door open for them. “Set him on the table, please.” I said, and Selene obeyed, her hands trembling slightly as she laid her son down.

Then I pulled on fresh gloves and began checking his temperature, listening to his lungs, and palpating his abdomen. All the while I stole quick glances at Selene who looked exactly the same. She still looked beautiful, polished, and untouched by the years that had nearly broken me.

“How has his appetite been today?” I asked, fighting back the tears that wanted to spill. “He took half a bowl of broth this morning.” Selene answered. “But he pushed the rest away.”

I nodded and continued working. When the physical exam was complete, I drew a vial of blood from his small arm, collected urine, stool, and saliva samples, labeling each of them carefully.

“That’s all for now.” I turned to her. “I’ll run the tests immediately and I’ll send word as soon as I have answers.”

Selene thanked me and Mason, who had been waiting just outside the door, gave me one last lingering look before they left. While I spent the next two days in the laboratory like a woman possessed.

I ran test after test from microscopic slides, to gene sequencing, blood panels, and metabolic scans. I drank cold coffee at three in the morning, scribbled notes until my fingers cramped, and paced the tiled floor when the results refused to make sense. On the evening of the second day, the final analysis clicked into place on the glowing screen.

Ethan’s illness was a genetic disorder I had only recently identified and begun researching with a small team of scientists scattered across the realm. It was one of several new conditions appearing because werewolves were still evolving.

Sometimes a single cell would mutate while trying to adjust to a shift in climate, a new food source, or a change in altitude, creating disorders that had never existed before.

This particular disorder could only manifest in a child if inherited directly from a parent. Yet Aya had never shown a single symptom, so it could not possibly have come from Mason.

And it could not have come from Selene either; we had been close friends for years, sharing everything from childhood illnesses to family medical histories so I knew Selene carried no such mutation. So where had Ethan gotten it? The disorder had only been observed in lower-level werewolves so far because their weaker genes could not fight the mutation, allowing it to activate.

Alpha-level wolves were believed to be immune, their stronger blood simply suppressed it, leaving the disorder dormant.

But Ethan was undeniably Alpha, exactly like his father’s. An Alpha pup developing this condition was unprecedented. The only logical explanation was that Mason had somehow contracted the mutation recently and passed the active form to his son.

‘Or… I could have made a mistake somewhere.’ I asked myself, sitting back in my chair as I stared at the glowing screen until the letters blurred.

Selene had already been pregnant with Ethan when I was pregnant with Aya. If the disorder truly came from Mason, Aya should have shown at least some trace but she didn't which meant the mutation had to have come from Selene after all.

“Tch!” I scoffed because Mason and Selene were still happily living the life they had stolen from me, and now their child carried a disorder that should not have been possible.