Noted To Myself

Blurb. Our passion burned hot and bright, at least that is what I thought until I realized I was his second option. The one he really wanted was my sister and since she couldn’t have children I was used as the sacrificial lamb to bear him an heir. So when it became painfully clear, I was just a surrogate, I made myself disappear. But now he is haunting me down after he realized I left with his child in my womb..

My girlfriend called me frantically out of the blue, saying her mother's water had broken. She begged me to take them to the hospital. But I lazily hung up the phone and turned away, buying myself an ice cream bar instead. In my previous life, her mother had also gone into labor late in life. I had risked everything to rush her to the hospital, running twelve red lights, pushing my car to the limit until the fuel gauge nearly burst. Yet, despite all that, her mother had lost the baby. Worse still, she turned around and accused me of killing the baby. My girlfriend had hated me for it, blaming me for her mother's inability to have children again. That very night, she and her shameless relatives took over my family's house, forcing my parents into such anger and despair that they ended up in the hospital. My company went bankrupt, and as if that weren't enough, I was beaten so severely that both my legs were broken. In the end, I fell into a deep depression and took my own life. But when I opened my eyes again, I found myself reborn. This time, I uncovered the secret her mother had been hiding.

On my fiftieth birthday, my grandson pouted when he saw the present I had given him and complained, “Grandma Cecil at the Emerald Manor has a cooler present for me. It was a Transformer toy that flies.” I was confused by this remark. Emerald Manor was one of the wedding gifts offered when I got married. My husband was not fond of this place because it was too far away from the city, so I have rarely been here as well, and it has been vacant ever since. As we stood outside the manor, I could hear the cheery voices coming from inside the house. My husband and my adopted son were inside celebrating the birthday of the owner of the manor. The Grandma Cecil my grandson referred to was the childhood sweetheart of my husband, Cecil Houston, who was married off far away a long time ago. She remained as beautiful as she once was and was snuggled in my husband’s arms, surrounded by my children. I have dedicated myself to the Blightwells for two decades. This entire time, Cade has taken my commitment as nothing but a joke. When I was reincarnated, I found myself on the wedding day. I listened to the clamoring noises and lifted the veil to see the commotion. It was time to start over.

He said he loved me. He said I was everything. Then he stood at that altar, slid a ring onto another woman's finger, and walked out of my life like I was nothing, like our baby growing inside me was nothing. I was poor, powerless, and foolish enough to believe that love could beat a family like his. It couldn't. He let them win, and I paid for it in ways he'll never know. So I disappeared. I buried the girl who cried over Sebastian Hale and built something harder in her place. I raised my daughter, I built my life, and I told myself the only reason I'd ever say his name again was if I was making him hurt the way he made me hurt. Now I'm back, and Sebastian looks at me like he's seen a ghost, like he's been waiting, like he's “sorry”. But, sorry doesn't give me back what I lost. Sorry doesn't undo the years I spent alone, piecing myself together in the dark. He has his regrets. I have mine too. Mine just look a lot more like revenge.

His hot breath fanned my ear and I nearly died the moment the straps of my dress fell away. Revealing a part of myself that left me vulnerable to his hungry gaze that moved over me. I pride myself on decency, to always be appropriate but the way he clenched his jaw and ran his large hands on my thighs made me go. . . to hell with decency. Reaching out, the need to touch him no longer bearable, I traced the outline of his torso through the fabric of his shirt. But even that wasn't enough as my hands moved underneath the fabric to trace the muscles there. He shifted slightly away triggering a fear in me that I had done something wrong. However, the fear diminished when he removed the fabric- granting my eyes the chance to feast on seeing more of his skin. He moved forward peppering light kisses all over my neck and torso only to latch onto my nipple tugging gently on the hard nub. I cried out at the movement of his teeth and tongue as his hands kept me close hindering any chance to reduce the contact to damn near impossible. Reducing the contact was the last thing I wanted, especially considering how far we had come. . .

I wanted to prove myself to my gold digging two faced boyfriend that I wasn’t the boring, naive nerd he described who was only obsessed with work. I knew how to have fun, I knew how to be desirable. So I accepted my best friend's offer to go on a thirty days cruise in a ship in the middle of the ocean. I had it all planned out. I was going to be a different person. Find a hot man to be with until my ex boyfriend regretted ever saying all those demeaning things about me BUT, there was a mistake. I boarded the wrong ship and that was where my nightmare began. Werewolves were real. They weren’t myths or fiction and if they find out there’s a human in their midst, I’d become toast. So I must blend in, play the long game until my thirty days are over and I could get the hell out of there. But my plan is not all so perfect. I’ve caught the eyes of a powerful, dangerously beautiful Alpha who’s made it his mission to break me until everyone finds out what I truly am. Filth. And I find myself unable to resist his wicked charms. I’m treading on dangerous territory and I’m unable to stop the waves from drowning me.

All I ever wanted was to be accepted, but being a female born from Alpha warrior's blood gave me no chance in my pack that didn't allow their female wolves to train. My younger twin sister was my parent's favorite, due to the fact that she was the pretty, prim and proper daughter. I, on the other hand, was the rebellious, free-spirited daughter, that did my own thing, knowing there was no way I would ever please my parents like my sister could. The future Alpha of our pack took a liking to me, and in the darkness of the night, we would meet in a clearing deep within our territory to secretly train. With the upcoming Mating Ceremony approaching, Zane confesses to me that he has intentions of making me his Luna, and it felt too good to be true, which later to find out it was. My father announces at breakfast, that Zane intends to take my twin sister, Aira, as his mate and the next Luna of our pack. My heart is shattered once again, and I find myself not able to cope with all the pain I have endured over the years. It was at that moment that I let my wolf take over to take all the pain away, but when I woke up, I found myself without my memories of my past life and on foreign pack lands.

On the night before Match Day, it's 2:17 am when I find myself staring at the screenshot on my phone. For a long while, my heart refuses to calm down at all. Ethan Blake: "Let's have a bet, guys. If Leah doesn't get a spot at Redwood General Hospital tomorrow, this will mark the end of our relationship. The starting bet is two thousand dollars. Is anyone following up on this bet?" Already, more than a dozen people have responded to the message with various emojis. Someone even comments, "Count me in!" I feel my nails digging into my palms. "The end of our relationship", he says. To think that Ethan actually used this phrase. We've been dating for four years. This is the very same man who once told me that he wanted to marry me. Is it this easy for him to end a relationship? I take a deep breath and force myself to calm down. There are still other medical interns in the staff room with me. I mustn't lose my composure around them. I know that Ethan is waiting for me to react how I did in the previous times. I'd either spam his phone with missed calls, beg him to delete the message while crying, or apologize to him in an extremely humble manner. But now… Now, I'm really done with this relationship.

"I, Torey Black, Alpha of the Black Moon reject you." His rejection hit me instantly. I couldn't breathe, unable to catch my breath as my chest heaved up and down, my stomach churning, unable to hold myself together as I watched his car speed down the driveway and away from me. I couldn't even comfort my wolf, she immediately retreated to the back of my mind, prohibiting me from speaking to her. I felt my lips wobble, my face scrunching up as I attempted to hold myself together but failing miserably. Weeks had passed since I last saw Torey my heart seeming to break a little bit more as the days went by. But lately, I found that I was pregnant. Werewolves pregnancies were much shorter than a human's. With Torey being an Alpha, it cut the time down to four months, whereas a Beta would be five, Third in Command would be six and a regular wolf would be between seven and eight. As suggested, I headed to bed, my mind full of questions and wonders. Tomorrow was going to be intense, there were a lot of decisions to be made. *Only for ages 18 and older.*---Two teenagers, a party and the unmistakable mate.

I could kill every wolf in my pack with what I grow in my greenhouse. That’s the only reason they let me live. No wolf. No rank. Just a healer’s hands that can save a life or stop one. Then the Alpha dies. And his son comes to claim the pack. Tarn. Scarred. Cold. Brutal. The blood heir of the man who murdered my mother. He walks past every ranked she-wolf in the territory. He points at me. “That one.” I can’t refuse a blood claim. But I can use it. He needs a healer because something is killing him from the inside. I need answers because his father destroyed my family and I’ve spent five years starving for the truth. Every time I heal him, the bond between us deepens. Every time it deepens, I hate him a little less. That’s the most dangerous part. His enforcer watches me like he’s waiting for something I haven’t figured out yet. The son of my mother’s killer. The man whose touch makes my greenhouse bloom in winter. The Alpha I was never supposed to want. I told myself I’d let him die. I told myself a lot of things.