“What do you want?” I demand from him.
“You’re in the beta room and Tash wants to lay down before we head to dinner.” Julien’s eyes were pleading with me and I can see him for who he really is. Weak. I’m pleased to see that Natasha didn’t come with him to beg for the room that was rightfully mine anyway. Other than hopping in the golf cart with Linc and I, Natasha was really taking my threat to heart. I’m glad someone still believed that I was capable of being a leader, even when I didn’t feel like it at the moment.
"What's wrong with the other room?” I peek my head in the hallway and see Ryan and Theo walking into their bedroom.
“It’s not a single bed. It’s just two twins.”
“So, push them together. Problem solved.” I try to close the door, but I should have known that Julien wasn’t going to let me get away with that. He shoves his foot in between the door and forces his way into the room. Excuse you!” I cry out.
“You don’t need the big bed Kairi. It’s just you.” I flinch at his words but I’m thankful I don’t feel the need to expel any tears in front of him. I will never let him, or Natasha see me cry. Not if I can help it. Julien has the decency to look like he regrets the words that vomit out of his mouth.
“You’re right,” I walk over to my bag and finish pulling out my dress. “How about this, I’ll leave this room when you tell Lincoln why I don’t have a right to this room.” I smirk at the look of defeat that overpowers his face. We both know he won’t say a word about how he marked Natasha knowing that I was his true mate. If he thought Lincoln’s punishment was bad, he’d hate to deal with Lincoln the big brother.
“Tell me what?” I challenged Julien to say something as Lincoln came up behind him. I’m only holding eye contact with Julien for five seconds before he looks down, unconsciously bending his neck to me. Like I thought, weak. “Natasha said you took over the second master bedroom, Kai. Grab your things and move to the other room.”
“No. I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here.” I challenge Lincoln this time, forcing myself to keep my eyes on him. I can feel his wolf rising to the challenge. I know it it’s stupid to even attempt to go up against his wolf. But I can’t help but feel a craving to have some sort of power over my life. And if I can only do the small battles for now, I’m going to be in this bedroom for the full weekend. Just as Lincoln’s eyes change color to the darker amber color of his wolf, my own wolf betrays me and I bend my neck to Lincoln, my alpha.
“Kairi, pack up your…” I hear the alpha command in his voice, and I’m so not here for this. For the first time in my life, I punch my brother in the jaw outside of a sparring circle. I’m livid that he thought he would command me to do something. I don’t even care that I’m being petty about the room. I’ll sleep on the couch if I damn well pleased. But Lincoln, my brother, my alpha was not going to tell me what to do. Nope.
“Don’t you dare even think of finishing that sentence without knowing that if you command this of me. I will hate you, and never speak to you again.” I heave like I was a human that ran ten miles out of shape. I’ve never ever not spoken to my brother for a long period of time. We’ve had our moments where we get mad at each other, but never to the point that we’ve said that we hated each other.
“Kairi, pack up your bags and stay in the other bedroom.” My eyes burn with vitriol for my brother and the situation that Julien’s hurt has put me in. I know my brother would never have commanded me of this if he knew the whole story. Hell, I was sure that if he knew what happened between Julien and I, Julien wouldn’t even be here right now. But that doesn’t take the sting of betrayal away from my heart.
Begrudgingly, I walk over to the bed to gather my bags when Julien speaks up.
“It’s okay, Linc. She’s already settled in here. Tash and I will just take the other room. No big deal.”
“You sure?” Lincoln asks, and Julien simply nods. “Alright I want to have a quick meeting in thirty minutes with everyone before we head to dinner,” says Lincoln. Julien walks out the room, presumably to tell Natasha that they won’t be in this room after all. Lincoln takes two steps into the room but because he’s so tall, those two steps have him right in front of me in less than five seconds.
“You want to tell me what that power play was all about?”
I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I repeat in my head over and over as I look Lincoln over with disdain clearly showing on my face.
“You’re really not going to speak to me? Look, I’m sorry I commanded you. But there’s no reason for you to be in this room. If it was about the hot tub, you can use the one in my room.” Lincoln moves to hug me to him, but I sidestep his arms and sit on the bed.
"Okay, fine. Don’t speak. But don’t be a brat this weekend and embarrass me.” My brother walks out of the room to finally leave me to myself.
I find myself closing my eyes and trying to think of just about anything that will calm me down. When I can no longer feel my heart beating in my throat, I crawl on the bed to my duffel bag and search for the item that I stole from the infirmary back home.
It’s only been two weeks, but werewolves can feel the symptoms of pregnancy a lot earlier than our human counterparts. We also only have a gestation period of four and a half months. My prayer is that I’m not pregnant since I wasn't in heat, and we didn’t finish. But it isn’t unheard of a female were getting pregnant outside of the heat cycle if it was with her true mate.
I don't even want to think of the implications of being pregnant with the pup of someone who was no longer my mate. I walk into the bathroom and find a cup in the medicine cabinet. The thought of peeing on a small target of a skinny stick isn't too appealing to me and I hope that I'll have better luck with the wide rim of the cup. I take care of my business and relieve myself, before pouring the cup over the pregnancy test. Now, let the waiting commence. The box said that I would have the results in as little as three minutes, but for accurate results, to wait for five. Hell no, I'm not waiting that long.
I leave the test on the countertop while I wash my hands. For some reason, I had it in my head that I could wash my hands for three minutes, but just being in the same room as the damn thing is giving me anxiety. I exit from the en suite and change out of my jeans and swap the rest of my clothes for the maxi dress.
I reapply some lip gloss and take my hair down from the messy bun I threw it in. Surely three minutes had passed by now, right? Right, I tell myself and begin my creep back into the bathroom. I pause in the threshold before swallowing my nerves back down to the pit of my stomach. What's done is done, and there's nothing I can do but accept the results whatever they may be. I pull my lip between my teeth as I reach for the tiny, fragile piece of plastic. There are definitely two lines perpendicular of each other in the little window. I don't need to double check the box to know what this means.
My butt meets the floor, since I slid down the wall without even realizing it, and I just continue to stare at the test. "How could I be so stupid?" I ask myself as I rub my chest above my heart. Tears slide down my face as I realize that Julien and Natasha are having sex again. What the hell did I do to deserve this hand dealt to me. As my former mate is blowing out my former best friend's back, I find out I'm pregnant with his pup.
I can't cry. I have to stop these tears. One thing is for certain, I determine while I pick my body up from the floor, I can't stay at Willowhaven. I won't tell Julien about the baby, which means I need to keep it from my brother as well. I hate the idea of keeping Julien away from his kid, but there's a part of me that knows that Natasha will try to harm my baby if it meant she didn't have his kid first. I don't even think that that's theory, and that scares me to death.
No after the summit, I'm going to make arrangements for an apartment off campus. No, I'm going to need a house with a large backyard so that I'll be able to shift and let my wolf out every once in a while. It wouldn't be the ideal solution, but for the short term it would work. It has to.
The more plans I'm making about the future of my child and I, the more defiant I feel. Besides, it's clear to me that no one in this cabin has any semblance of loyalty to me. I feel bad for pushing Mark and Derek in that category, but push comes to shove, and they'll fight to protect their alpha before his sister. And with that conclusion, I'm going to dinner. Forget my brother and his brief meeting. I'm pregnant and eating for two. From now on my loyalty will only be dedicated to this little one.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Round tables are peppered the cafeteria, and about seven long rectangular tables that held a beautiful buffet of food. The room smelled heavenly of all of the savory meats and sweet breads that littered the tables for serving. There was no keeping me from partaking in any of this.
I loaded up my plate with two steaks cooked to a perfect medium rare. For health sake I also plated some broccoli and spooned some fruit into a bowl. After grabbing my silverware and some napkins, I look for a seat that’s open. The cafeteria isn’t crowded but there are still a lot of pack leaders in the room. Some are openly discussing business with other packs, while others are simply enjoying the company of their own pack. From the looks of things, I’m the only one that entered the room solo.
With my fork and knife in hand, I’m ready to dig into my steak except a voice I haven’t heard in a while speaks up from behind me.
“Look at little miss Kai. You’re not so little anymore are you?” The smile on my face can’t be contained as I turn around and face my favorite cousin Reed. He’s the alpha of the Blood Moon Pack up in Boston and used to be known as the richest pack in North America, but in recent years Reed hasn’t focused on growing his pack beyond what it is. Nowadays, he focuses on maintaining what he has now instead of conquering smaller packs. Evony, his mate, helped him see that there was little need to keep forcing his control on other packs. She also proposed that with all of the land that he assimilated into Blood Moon, he should build up other wolves to be alphas and give them some of the land once their training was complete. Evony was really good for him.
In the meantime, alphas like my brother and Wesley Thorne rose to the top of the short list of the richest packs. No matter how angry I am with my brother, I will always remain proud of what he’s accomplished.
“Hey Reed! I wasn’t sure if I’d see you this weekend, what with Evony and all!”
“No, against my better judgement, she wanted to be here. She already had a tough pregnancy with RJ, and now she’s in her last month with the twins. I practically begged her to stay home, but she wanted no parts of it.” I smile at the concern I can hear in his voice. Her pregnancy with Reed Jr., wasn’t as tough as he was making it seem. She was in no danger of losing her life bringing him to term. RJ just didn’t put himself in position in time, so their pack doctor had to physically turn him. My precious baby cousin is three now and is anxiously waiting to be a big brother to the twins that Evony was carrying now.
“Is it alright if I stop by your cabin later to see her?”
“Yeah of course. She’ll love to see you again.” Reed patted my shoulder before pulling away. “But let me go. I promised her I’d bring her some food from the dinner spread. And I’m sure you want to start eating.”
We quickly hug and say a quick goodbye after Reed tells me which cabin they’re staying in this weekend. When I sit down, I finally get to taste the steak that has been calling my name since Reed found me. It’s still hot and juicy when the first bite goes in my mouth and it’s seasoned so well that I almost want to eat it like a savage and just pick it up with both hands.
“Lemonade?” A voice cut through my hunger haze and I look up to see a face I hadn’t seen since my birthday. Alpha Wesley Thorne, the alpha that all of a sudden wants to become allies with my brother. In his hand, he held out a bottle of lemonade to me, while his other hand held a glass of wine.
Alpha Thorne sits himself at the table, without even consulting with me if it was okay. Strike one.
As soon as he sits down, another wolf comes up from behind him and sets a plate of food down along with the cutlery. Using his wolves as his personal servants? Strike two.
“Lemonade? Why couldn’t you bring me wine as well?” I take the bottle while indicating towards his glass. A small part of me wants to be rude back, but it’s not a bone I have in my body when. He hasn’t outright offended me. Besides, I was thirsty since I forgot to grab something from the beverage stand. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” Thorne waited until I cracked open the bottle before he spoke again. “I was at your eighteenth birthday party, remember? As I recall, that makes it illegal of me to offer you alcohol. Law of the land and all that.”
“We’re werewolves. Alcohol doesn’t affect us the way it does humans.” The lemonade is refreshing going down my throat so I’m thankful that he didn’t commandeer my table empty handed. I look him over thoughtfully and try to figure out what it was about Willowhaven that would suddenly make us appealing for him to want to make a deal with. His pack, Stoneforest, excels in every category you could think of for a pack. They have the most money, resources, land, and their warriors are top notch. His pack is a well-tuned machine.
Then again, he’s a well-tuned machine. Just sitting still at the table in front of me, I can see his chest and arms muscles rippling through the suit he was wearing. If the rumors are true of how he trains his wolves, and he himself looks like that? Then I can only imagine what the rest of his pack looks like.
“This is true. But you seem like you're someone who would appreciate a sealed container, rather than something where anything could be slipped in.” Gosh darn it, he’s right. I’ve read too many articles about human girls who accepted drinks from people, sometimes their friends, and a drug was slipped in their drink without even knowing it. I’m not sure how those drugs would or could affect a werewolf, but I wasn’t willing to test that scenario out.
But that didn’t mean I was going to play by his rules either.
I reach across the table and pilfer his wine glass from the surface. My eyes stay locked on his as I lift the glass to my lips and drink the wine, a red, down. I prefer white wine since often times I find reds to be dry, but this one, whatever he chose, tasted delicious; especially paired with the steak.
Thorne’s smirk turns into a smile as he watches me. When the glass is empty, he calls for the wolf that set his plate down. “Bring me another glass please, and the same bottle. It seems the lady and I have much to discuss.” I narrow my eyes at his remark, but don’t say anything until the young wolf walks away. I have no intentions of sharing another drink with Thorne. While alcohol did not affect wolves the same way it did with humans, I did not want to add to the risk of drinking more than one glass of wine. One glass in the early stages of my pregnancy was more than enough.
“What exactly do we have to talk about Thorne? Other than saying hi to you at my birthday party, we don’t know each other.” I return to eating my dinner, the second steak is almost gone, and I only have my fruit and veggies left.
“Your birthday, let’s talk about that, shall we?” I shrug and wait for him to continue. However, the wolf is back with a clean glass for Thorne. He then proceeds to pour the contents of the bottle into both of our glasses. Once the bottle is placed on the table, Wesley turns to him and says, “That will be all for now. Go ahead and get something to eat Jordan.”
“You know treating your young wolves like servants is somewhat rude.” I tell him
A low but booming laugh sounds from Thorne’s broad chest. “A servant? He’s my little brother and I caught him bullying one of the females in his school. This was his punishment, to learn that even the greatest of alphas are servants to their pack. I thought I was being creative with his punishment.” Thorne stares at me amused as he waits for what, I don’t know.
I think about his idea of punishment for his little brother and I have to admit that not only was it creative, but it was a teaching punishment. One where his brother can actually
grow from and apply what he learned from getting caught to real life application. It was good. It was genius.
“Okay, so back to my birthday. What did you want to talk about?”
Thorne tapped his fork against the plate, one, two, three, every second for about twenty beats before he answered me. “You found your mate.”
I had no intention of reacting to anything he could possibly say to me, but that was when I thought he would never say that to me. I’m too busy counting my breaths to keep me from having a panic attack in the middle of the cafeteria. No one seemed to be paying attention to our conversation, they were too preoccupied with their own business to listen into ours.
"No, I haven't."
"You did, and that night he was having sex with someone who wasn't you. I saw the pain on your face, no use in trying to deny it. Not from me."
I couldn't look at him in the face and look everywhere else but his vicinity. Of course, that was when I caught the eye of my brother who just walks in with a dark cloud of anger over his head that's directed for me. Dammit, I had hoped that I would be done eating by the time he found me. I finally look back at Thorne and plead him with my eyes. "Please don't tell him," I whisper.
The Rejection (Luna of the Pack Series) Page 6