Chapter 5

Chapter 5

ANNALISA

I carried the warmth of it quietly for the rest of the afternoon.

That was the only word for it — warmth. The feeling of being held.

Not tenderly. I would not lie to myself about that. His arm had come around me the way a man picked up something he needed to use, deliberate and purposeful. I had known exactly what it was from the moment he said the words. Antonio did not do anything without a reason, and the reason he had pulled me close had nothing to do with wanting me there. He was looking for proof that I was lying.

But his scent had come down anyway.

That was the thing about Alpha scent. It did not care what the mind intended when it was released. My shoulders had come down before I made any decision to let them. My breathing had changed before I gave it permission. And beneath all of that, I had felt the flutter — small and barely there, a brush of something so faint I might have imagined it, except that I had not. My hand had wanted to go to my stomach. I had kept it pressed flat against my thigh instead, because I had not wanted him to see it. I had not wanted to give him anything else to dismiss.

The baby had felt him.

I sat with that all through the afternoon as I worked through the planning notebook, filling in the details of a ceremony designed to replace me, and the only thing I felt beneath the dull irony of it was gratitude. He had been so close. I had felt my own scent beginning to loosen, and I had known that if we had stayed in that room another five minutes, he would have had his answer — the same one I had been telling him from the beginning.

Then the door had opened, and Christiana had been hurt, and he had been on his feet before the silence finished settling.

I closed the notebook at half past six and stood, and headed toward the dining room.

The house was quiet.

I was at the top of the grand staircase when I heard her voice.

"Annalisa."

Christiana stood at the base of the stairs, looking up at me. I continued walking down without breaking stride.

"I wanted to talk to you," she said. "About this afternoon."

"I'm heading to dinner," I said, keeping my voice neutral.

"This won't take long." Her eyes moved over me, and the pleasant surface of her expression shifted into something that was not pleasant at all. "I could smell you on him. When he came to the garden. Your pheromones. All over him." The sweetness was completely gone now. "On my mate."

"He is not your mate," I said. "Not yet. He is still mine."

Something cracked open beneath her composure.

"You have thirty days," she said, her voice dropping. "Thirty days he gave you out of pity, because you threatened him and left him no choice. Don't mistake his scent on you for something it was never meant to be. He does not want you. He has never wanted you. Every moment he spends near you is a moment you are stealing from us."

"I know that he is my mate until the Moon Rite is complete," I said. "And until that moment, you do not get to tell me how to use the time that belongs to me."

Something flared in her eyes.

"You selfish, desperate—" She stepped up onto the first stair, her voice rising, the control she had been maintaining splintering entirely. "You are holding onto something that was never yours. You were placed here by a dead man who made a decision that was never right, and Antonio has spent four years suffering for it, and now you are using an unwanted child — a baby — to drag it out even further— I will make sure you never get to have that baby."

"Stop," I said.

Her hand came out.

I did not fully process it as it was happening. I saw her arm move, felt the pressure against my shoulder, and then there was nothing under my feet. The staircase tilted. Both my arms crossed over my stomach instinctively, curling inward, and I hit the stairs hard — my shoulder first, then my side — and tumbled down the remaining steps and landed at the bottom.

The world went white.

Then the sound came back. Christiana's voice, high and shaking. Footsteps running from somewhere in the house.

I lay at the bottom of the staircase and did not move. Not because I could not. Because I needed a moment to breathe through the pain and take stock of what had happened to my body, and more importantly, to the one inside it. My shoulder ached fiercely. 

The baby. That was the only thought I had. The baby.

Christiana was already crying, loud convincing sobs that brought the staff running from three directions. 

"She pushed me," Christiana wept. "I was just trying to talk to her and she — she pushed me, I barely caught myself—"

I said nothing.

I heard the front door, then footsteps, then Antonio's voice before I saw him. He read the room in a single sweep the way he always did, and landed on Christiana. He was at the stairs before anything else, his hand on her arm, her face, looking her over with an attention that made something in my chest tighten uselessly.

"She pushed me," Christiana said again, pressing her face briefly into his chest.

Antonio looked at me. I was still on the floor, both hands pressed over my abdomen.

"Antonio," I said, fear apparent in my voice as I felt the sharp pain course through my body making itself know that something was wrong.

 "I need to go to the hospital. The baby—"

"Get up off the floor, Annalisa." His voice was low and deliberate. "And stop performing."

Something cold moved through me. I looked at him and searched for anything — some flicker of doubt, some small hesitation — and found nothing.

"Please," I said, my voice cracking as I could feel panic bubbling, inside me, making it difficult to breathe properly.

“Annalisa, will you stop this already? I already told you, there is no need for you to put up this pretense, I already had someone investigate, you are not pregnant.” Hwe snapped bringing out a rumpled sheet and flung it at my face as it hit me and fell on the blood stained floor.

What? He had investigated and it turned out false. But that couldn't be, it was a fake.

“Antonio, it's fake, please just help me, help me, our child please, we are losing him, take me to the hospital, I swear, you will confirm it with the doctor yourself.” I yelled trying to reach out to grab his feet as he stepped back, disgust prominent in his face.

“The same doctor you had probably pad, to side with you and tell lies against his alpha, you should be grateful that I do not revoke his license for agreeing to go along with such a despicable act. You are disgusting Annalisa.” He said as he held Christaina who held a smug look before coquettishly speaking,

“Maybe she really is pregnant, you don’t have to stay here with me, take her, one of the maids will….’’

“No! Taking her means she wins and I am tired of watching her manipulate the story. Annalisa, I do not love you, I do not care for you, and if there is a baby, I hope it dies because it doesn't deserve to be mine. The only children I will have will come from Christiana.|’’ 

With this tone of finality, he turned and left with her, leaving me to my fate.