Chapter 5 - My terms

~ Moxie ~

He may have banished me from the hospital, but he can’t banish me from my parent’s house.

It sits on the northern edge of our territory, shrouded in mist and silent pines. This is where I grew up, long before my parents disappeared.

My parents were the best doctors of their generation, if there was any hint of mutated wolves then they would have discovered it, and documented it. I know my eye for detail isn’t pure chance, I inherited it from the both of them.

I spend the next day and a half locked in my father’s study, surrounded by dusty ledgers and stacks of hand-annotated parchment.

Near midnight on the second night, beneath a pile of routine medical logs from a decade ago, I find an unmarked leather binder. The pages inside are stained with dried dark ink.

Subject: Unknown canine strain, my father’s precise cursive reads. Symptoms resemble advanced rabies, but cellular decay occurs at triple the normal rate. Sedatives rendered useless within forty-eight hours.

My throat tightens. The symptoms match the warrior in the isolation chamber word for word.

I read through the list of findings until a photograph drops out…Dad’s face staring back at the camera with his hand held high…my heart stops when I notice the visible fang marks upon his skin.

I don’t remember him having any marks on his hand...

My attention returns to the document where the patient’s results abruptly finish…a solid black line drawn across the line, the letter d at the end.

Before a new set of data is recorded, the heartbreaking realisation that Dad was now marking down his own results.

The last entry is unreadable, a squiggle…the date tallies with them going away suddenly…never returning to me.

I never knew their cause of death; Anton’s father had reported that they had died in the field…victims of a calculated attack against the Moon River pack.

But now I understand…they caught the virus and fled before they could spread it here…onto me. Their last attempt to protect me.

I didn’t think it possible, but I hate the mutant wolves even more now. They took my only family from me…mauled me to death in my past life.

A tear falls onto the parchment, smudging my father’s last inked mark.

I don't allow myself to weep. Tears will not stop what is coming.

I am in the middle of sealing a dark glass vial when a violent shockwave hits my mate bond, shattering my concentration.

“Moxie, where the fuck are you? The hospital needs you!” Anton’s roar echoes inside my skull, laced with uncharacteristic panic, before he abruptly severs the link.

His abrupt communication serves at a time to give me a break. I haven’t stepped outside of this cottage for days, haven’t seen the daylight. I securely lock my findings and experiments away before heading to the hospital.

As I cut through the lower loading dock behind the medical wing, a shadowy figure steps out from behind a supply truck, blocking my path.

It is Beta Randall, our Chief of Intelligence.

When Anton banished me from the hospital, I secretly assigned the beta with a task to investigate any abnormalities among the pack members or any irregularities at the borders.

“Luna,” Randall breathes, his voice strained as he rushes to my window handing me a report. Dark circles have formed under his eyes, that youth disappearing from him…the harsh reality of what must be happening with the patient clear in his eyes.

“They said a mysterious alpha wolf chased down a mutant wolf to our border…”

“He killed him?” I look up from the written words to Randall.

“The opposite, the guards swear blindly that the mutated wolf was beyond saving…yet the alpha wolf through his command forced the infected wolf to regain consciousness.”

An Alpha who can command the infected?

In my past life, the mutated wolves were mindless, ravenous beasts. If an unknown Alpha can force an infected wolf to submit, then the outbreak may not be as mindless…or as accidental…as I once believed.

“Does Anton know about this?”

“I reported it, but he waved it off as overtiredness…the guards daydreaming.”

“Daydreaming at night…and the same dream?”

“You know how he can be…” Randall sighs, his unwavering loyalty to Anton never truly appreciated.

The success of the Moon River pack has not been down to Anton’s management but the excellent unwavering service from Randall, doctors, warriors and omegas. People that I watched die in my previous life due to Anton’s negligence and inability to look past his own ego.

“I want this investigated further Randall, if this alpha exists…I need to know more about him.”

“Yes Luna!”

I head towards the hospital, Anton’s boiling anger though the mate bond towards me no longer avoidable.

Besides, I need to see the two patients for myself, I need to cross reference to Dad’s data to find out how long they have left until the mutation fully takes them.

Dad’s research might have just given the werewolf species the lifeline that it needs.

As I reach the entrance of the hospital, irritation washes over me as I come across Chloe and Anton’s mother standing in reception. Anton’s mother despises me and she makes no effort in hiding it.

She thinks I should have provided the pack with an heir by now, she thinks my success as the pack’s head doctor is the reason Anton is without a child. She never liked the idea of me working, she always said it was common for a luna to continue in a career after marrying an alpha. That it belittles the luna title.

“There you are…Anton said you should have been here ages ago.” Her nose crinkles as it always does

when she lowers herself to talk to me.

“Luna Ivy,” I say, stopping in my tracks. “I didn't realize you frequented the emergency ward.”

“Chloe informed me of your absurd decree,” Ivy says, taking a step forward. “You expect her to be sent off to the maternity house with common unmated mothers under omega supervision? I would have thought the Head Doctor would have jumped at the opportunity to take care of her best friend during her time in need.”

“Time in need? Is she dying?” I exasperate at her choice of words…in a hospital of all places.

“No, she’s pregnant.” Her eyes burn into mine, a hint of her luna aura trying to persuade my decision. I used to shrink under her aura, but I can feel mine shining brighter…stronger than it did before. I refuse to shrink for anyone again.

“I only suggested that Chloe join the other expectant mothers at the pack house where my team of omegas are better equipped to attend her every need. I believe it was pack policy introduced by yourself when you were Luna.” I raise an eyebrow at her, daring her to challenge me on this. She seems to notice the change in me, a silent knowing smirk forming in the corner of her mouth.

“Moxie, you can’t expect me to live with the unmated pregnant women…” Chloe takes a step forward, her hand moving to rest on Luna Ivy’s arm…a voice quivering with panic.

I suddenly take in their closeness, how they are standing side by side. Interesting…I’ve never knew they were quite so close. Luna Ivy has never stood so closely to me before, she barely ever greets me when she visits the alpha house.

Luna Ivy knows…she must know…why else has she come all the way to the hospital to try to persuade me otherwise. Who is Chloe to her…why would she go out of her way to help a friend of mine…pregnant or not. She knows that the baby growing in Chloe’s stomach is her grandchild.

“But Chloe you are a pregnant unmated woman. As I told you, we can then use the baby’s blood to perform a paternal check…to track down the father.

You must see how it is Luna Ivy, I can’t break pack law in showing preferential treatment to an unmated pregnant female just because she is my best friend.” I enjoy the words that come out of my mouth, full well knowing that Luna Ivy cannot admit to the child being Anton’s as it would put his position as alpha at risk.

He has broken the law in taking a lover, not just that…but getting a female pregnant that isn’t his luna. His control over the pack could be removed by the werewolf council.

Ivy’s fingers tighten around Chloe’s wrist. She cannot claim the child without exposing Anton’s actions to the medical staff listening nearby.

Before she can retort, heavy footsteps echo down the corridor. Anton rounds the corner, his tie loosened, his dark hair dishevelled. The composed Alpha looks rattled.

“Why have you been blocking my mind-link?” Anton demands out, looking completely dishevelled. He seems to quickly pick up on the tension between his mother and I, and the fact that Chloe is also present.

I imagine their rendezvous have been strictly limited to just nighttime, no conversing during the day and certainly not in front of me. Or, if they have been forced to…is the reason why they have always pretended to hate one another. Goddess, I feel such a blind fool.

“What is it, what’s wrong?” Slight panic registers on his expression as his eyes flicker between the three of us.

“Luna Ivy is questioning why Chloe is to be housed with the omega’s until she gives birth. Only an alpha born would be born in the alpha house…unless there is something I don’t know?” I hold Anton’s glare, wanting him to admit it all and with witnesses around us. The hospital is a busy place, the nurses might look like they are busy, but they are discreetly listening in on our conversation.

Word would be out before sunset in the wider community, the scandalous news known by all other alphas, that Anton has betrayed his luna for an omega born.

“That isn’t what I said.” Luna Ivy clicks her tongue out at me.

“That is what you are implying.” I hold my ground.

“Enough!” Anton’s Alpha command cracks through the lobby, silencing every conversation at once. The nurses behind the desk duck their heads. “All of you, quiet. Mother, take Chloe and leave the building immediately.”

Ivy opens her mouth to argue, but when she meets her son’s fierce, desperate glare, she snaps her mouth shut and ushers Chloe toward the exit.

Once they are gone, Anton turns to me, the heavy silence between us suffocating.

“Come upstairs,” he says, reaching out to grasp my arm.

I step back, letting his hand fall empty into the air. “Do not touch me, Anton.”

“Moxie, listen to me,” he says, dropping his voice into a low, strained whisper. “The quarantined worker broke through his restraints twenty minutes ago, biting another. The attending physicians cannot stabilize him. Every sedative has failed, and his neurological symptoms are progressing faster than biologically possible.”

He swallows hard, his arrogant composure cracking open. “You saw this coming before anyone else. I need you back upstairs.”

I look at my husband. He is the man who suspended me, who dismissed my warnings, and who led me to my death in another life. Now, he is out of his depth, terrified of losing control of his pack before his grand festival even begins.

“I will step back into that ward on one condition,” I say, my voice cold as iron. “I return only if you give me full operational command over outbreak containment. Quarantine, testing, medical staffing, and research fall under my sole authority. You will not countermand an outbreak-control order without an emergency review by the medical board, and you will approve my research funding.”

Anton bristles, his jaw tightening in fury. “You are using a medical emergency as an excuse to seize total control of my pack’s governance! I am allowing you to treat these patients, Moxie, but I will not hand over unlimited authority. You stay reactive, not proactive.”

“Reactive means people die, Anton!” I shoot back.

“Return to the ward and treat the patients, Moxie,” he orders, his Alpha command lacing his words as he points a stiff finger at me. “Or I’ll have to find someone else to research this case of the rabies.”

He turns on his heel, expecting me to toe the line as I have done so hundreds of times before.

Well not this time.

I do not follow him.