To have and to Loathe

Liela stares at the test result in disbelief, her ears ring as Amanda’s voice comes as if through water–

“Congratulations Luna, the heir to the Blood Oak pack is five weeks old. In PERFECT condition. You are going to be a Mom!” 

The only thing going through Liela’s mind is: Thank God her gynaecologist also happens to be her best friend, otherwise she won’t even have a chance to keep this a secret.

She has to keep it a secret, at least until she can figure everything out.

How could she be pregnant? The Alpha doesn’t want one, and he has done all the precautions he could. So how could she be pregnant?!!! Liela can’t even pinpoint exactly which time went wrong because it happened many times more than usual recently. But that doesn’t matter now.

The question Liela needs to answer now is: what to tell Alpha Tarum.

Does she even tell him? If she just takes care of the abortion herself, then he doesn’t have to know.

After all, he is not in the pack right now. He is out there looking for HER, as always.

“You don’t look too happy,” Amanda cups Leila’s face worriedly, “are you alright?”

Is she alright? She hasn’t been, not a day since she married Tarum. More accurately, not a day since Carmela died for her. Carmela was supposed to be his Luna, not her. She was the one who the rogues took. If only she had died like fate wanted for her, but no, Carmela took her place, and her life has broken into pieces since that day.

She lost her best friend, the whole pack deems her stealing the Luna’s title from Carmela. And did she? The Alpha never believed that Carmela really died, and he spends all his spare time out there looking for Carmela.

Even if she stole, she stole only an empty title.

“I’m fine…” Leila forces a smile, “Too…exciting, the news is.”

“I totally understand!” Amanda squeezes Leila’s hand firmly, her eyes too genuine for Leila to look at, “You and the Alpha have been trying for over two years now! The whole pack was starting to worry! I know how much pressure you were under, I totally do.”

Yeah, Amanda doesn’t understand, at all. 

Leila smiles faintly at her innocent friend. It’s the Alpha’s responsibility to bring an heir to the pack, so they have been putting up the image of trying hard at it. Otherwise the pressure would be on him.

What sarcasm! She not only carries a problem in her womb, but also has to accept people congratulating her for it with a smile.

“The Alpha’s joy is going to be over the roof when he gets the news. After two years, he finally has a scion, now he can feel like a true Alpha,” Amanda replies, already daydreaming about the seven day banquet, customary to celebrate the birth of a new Alpha.

“Hmm, about that,” Leila takes a deep breath and cuts in before Amanda dreams all the way to when the baby is born, “I want to bring Alpha the news myself, so before that…”

“I understand!” Amanda laughs, patting Leila’s hand, “Not a word out of my office until you brief your dear husband! Trust me!”

Amanda is THE gossip of the pack, but Leila has to trust her this time. As if she has any other option.

“Amanda, we have been waiting for this for too long, and I just want it to be perfect, can you understand?” Leila takes a deep breath, saying the smooth lie she has been practising for the past two years, “Not just to the Alpha, okay? Not a word, to ANYONE–”

“Who’s in there? She has been talking forever!” A woman’s sharp voice comes through the closed door, obviously loud on purpose for them to hear.

Leila glances at Amanda worriedly before she stands up. This should just be a “routine check-up”, people would get suspicious if they take too long.

“Don’t shush me! The Luna title doesn’t give her the right to be a bitch!” The woman continues her sassy comments, “If she could get pregnant, she would have in the past two years!”

“The rumour is that the moon goddess sealed her womb because the title doesn’t belong to her.”

“That serves her right! She stole the title from her friend! One that saved her damn life! I’d be too ashamed to live if I were her–”

Leila opens the door calmly and the hallway falls into an awkward silence. The sassy woman halts her words, too, but not before she shoots Leila a mean glare. Leila glares back, and the woman bares her neck under the pressure of her Luna’s aura.

Leila normally avoids conflicts like this. She deems all her suffering the way to redemption because she knows she can never repay Carmela. But these people don’t get a say when they have little idea what happened. Even if she doesn’t care about her own reputation, Leila can’t allow them to discuss the Alpha like this behind his back.

“You do not–” Leila doesn’t get to finish.

“What’s going on here?!” A cold, dominant voice rises before echoing the hallway, attracting everyone’s attention.

Leila shoots her head up, frozen at the man striding over. Alpha Tatum. The youngest Alpha to have taken the title in the history of their pack. The man with a face that breaks every girl’s heart, and the body of a Greek god.

Leila's heart skips a beat.

The sassy woman already melts on the seat, legs shaking as well as her lips. Leila frowns at her before she walks up to the Alpha.

“What are you doing here–”

Before Leila could even finish, Alpha Tarum already passed as if not even noticing her. His rough shout piercing the hallway: “Where the hell are all the damn doctors?! Get me a doctor, now!”

Leila has never seen the man being this hasty. He is always calm, the living symbol of reason. Nothing makes him lose his cool.

Following the Alpha are four men carrying a stretcher, and on there lies a woman with a sickly beauty on her face. She is soundly sleeping and doesn’t seem to be in any critical situation.

And Leila understands it now. With her head buzzing for what she just seen, she understands only one thing now:

Carmela is back. Finally, he found her.