“I…I just need a moment.” I respond, clutching at my stomach, excruciating pain cramping at me.
“Here take some of this?” The old woman hands her hip flask out to me, a groan escaping me as I bend over…I was going to hurl at any second.
“What is it?”
“It will help, it will take the pain away.”
I take the hip flask off her, sniffing at it only to push it away from me…the potent smell of wolfsbane burning at my nostrils.
“It’s wolfsbane.” My pain is too intense to really sound how horrified I am that not only she was willingly sipping on this but she was offering it to a pregnant woman.
“Yes.”
“Why would you think I would want that?”
“It will stop the calling to the pack, to the baby’s father.”
“It will kill the baby.”
“No, I’ve been taking it for decades and I’m still standing.” I’m torn between crying and laughing at her comment, the severity of my current situation hitting me like a ton of bricks.
My blood turns cold when I hear a scream coming from the beta household, a female scream.
“Freya?” My feet are already moving, all nausea leaving me…now replaced with concern for the female beta.
“Freya?” I knock on the front door, only for another scream to echo out.
“Freya!” Enough of ignoring this inner sense that something was wrong, enough of being polite…I may not be part of the pack link yet but I knew she needed help.
I kick the door in, a gasp coming from behind as I hear both Than and Luna Medea exit the alpha house.
“Cleo?” Than roars out to me, but I don’t wait, I cross the threshold of the beta house…following
the sound of whimpering.
I move with speed, my eyes searching the living space to find it empty…I head to the stairs where I listen intently, my wolf letting me use her enhanced hearing even though she was still ploughing all of her energy into growing our child.
The noise wasn’t coming from upstairs, it was coming from downstairs.
“Freya? Zane?” I call out with urgency at a door that must lead downstairs to a basement.
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