The Alpha's Betrayal: Pregnant And Accused のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 111 - チャプター 119

Alisha's POVThe nursery was being renovated. Alexander held a paintbrush he definitely shouldn't have had. Ella supervised from the doorway, arms folded and wearing the expression she'd inherited from Joshua, one she used on everyone, no matter their age or rank.Diana and Lydia stood on ladders with paintbrushes, working in the easy rhythm of those who no longer need to fill silence.James was in the driveway unloading furniture from a truck with the unhurried energy of a man who had built something with his hands and was bringing it home.Today we were literally doing it.I stood in the nursery doorway at seven months pregnant with Eliza pressing against my ribs and felt something I didn't have a clean word for.*Almost,* I thought. *Almost there.*"Alexander." Joshua appeared beside me, looked at the small handprint Alexander had already deposited on the lower half of the wall, before turning to me."He's helping," I said."He's helping," Joshua agreed. In the tone that meant we w

Alisha's POVAt thirty-eight weeks, everything hurt. Everyone hovered. And I had approximately zero patience left for either.The morning started with Joshua adjusting my pillows for the third time."They were fine," I said."You were shifting.""I shift. I'm thirty-eight weeks pregnant. Shifting is what I do now."He adjusted them again.I looked at him.He looked at me with the expression of someone who knew he was doing the wrong thing and couldn't stop himself.Diana appeared in the doorway.She looked at Joshua, me, and at the pillows."Give her space," she said. "Now."Joshua opened his mouth.Diana looked at him.He closed his mouth and put the pillow down. Left the room with the quiet dignity of a man who had just been correctly managed and knew it.I exhaled."Thank you," I said.Diana sat in the chair by the window. Picked up her tea and said nothing.That was enough. That was exactly right.Joshua found Diana in the corridor an hour later.I wasn't supposed to hear this. Bu

Alisha's POVWe brought Eliza home on a Saturday.The twins had been prepared weeks before *baby sister, Eliza. I taught them how to say Eliza.Alexander had been pointing at my stomach for a month saying *baby* with the authority of someone who had been fully briefed and considered himself essential to the operation.Theory and practice turned out to be different things.When Joshua carried Eliza through the door, and Alexander saw them and stopped everything, the blocks, the system, the morning's project, and stared at her.Twenty-two months old, and something ancient moved through him. He crossed the room, stood between Eliza and the door with his arms slightly out at his sides.Not threatening or anxious. Just between. His sister and everything else. 'Guardian' before he had the language for it.Joshua crouched down. "Come meet her properly."Alexander considered this and decided it was acceptable.He looked at Eliza's face for a long time. Then he put one very careful hand on her

Alisha's POVTwo years since I sat in a Blue Moon packhouse with two newborn babies and a mate bond I didn't know what to do with, and I made the choice that felt like the last option available.The twins were almost two now. Eliza was four months old. And tonight, eight hundred wolves were in the same space, celebrating what two years of choosing the same thing every day had built.Eight hundred.Wolves from Black Gold were two hundred and forty when I arrived. The Blue Moon was a hundred and ten. The rest had come from the orphan program run by the Omega Council, as well as two other reputable packs.Eight hundred wolves in the merged territory's main grounds. Thomas was at the perimeter with six of his people and two of Val's, the security running quietly underneath the celebration, the way it always did now. Irene's network was still out there, and the witch was still watching. Tonight we celebrated anyway.Joshua and I walked out together, the hum of conversation fading behind us

Alisha's POVThe twins were seven, and so was Silvermoon Gifts, arriving in full and causing the kind of problems that came with power that had outgrown any framework built to contain it.Last Tuesday, Alexander had accidentally broadcast Joshua's grief to every pack member within a mile. Thirty-two wolves stopped what they were doing simultaneously and felt a loss that wasn't theirs.The week before, Ella had amplified my joy until wolves two territories away called to ask why they'd felt inexplicably happy at seven in the evening.Yesterday, Dr. Blake had sat across from us with her notebook and seven years of documentation, bridging our concerns from last week's chaos into a new conversation."They need training specific to what they are," she said. "Nothing like this has existed before.""What do we do?" I said."We build a framework," she said. "Together. The way you build everything."A shift in energy followed as we turned to Eliza, who was five and furiously impatient to shift