Mated to the Alpha and His Beta (Lanie Stanton) novel Chapter 227

Chapter 227
Lanie
Gabriela and I had taken seats at the table with mugs of hot tea her one of us had touched. Xander paced. Mason stood at the counter, tipping a bottle of beer to his lips and not saying much, while Zane had taken up position in the doorway. All of us tried hard to keep from shouting, since the babies had all fallen asleep, but was hard not to raise my voice at what Gabriela was revealing.
“You can’t hold back, Gabriela. You have to tell us everything you know.”
“I wish I knew more. Rhiannon is a powerful witch, and there’s really no limit to how much stronger she can get, under the right circumstances.” Gabriela rubbed the spot between her eyes with a fingertip.
She looked tired. Worn out. That’s how we all seemed to feel.
When I sensed a surge of self-loathing swirling around in Zane, I countered it.
“We’ll figure all of this out together,” I sent to Zane. His tension and anxiety were like a swirling cloud of
darkness I was doing my best to dispel.
“Once she gets pregnant, she’ll be able to tap into the powers of her child,” Gabriela continued. “Or,
Goddess forbid, children, if she has twins.”
I thought of my own belly, swollen with Xander’s pup. Instinctively, I put my hands over the flatness, but
my palms remembered how it had felt when the baby kicked and squirmed inside me.
“The only power I had when I was pregnant with Stella was napping,” I said, trying to keep things light.
“And revisiting my lunch, sometimes.”
I was happy to hear Zane’s soft snort of laughter. Not that he was happy about any of this or that it was
funny or anything, just that he appreciated my efforts at keeping us all from losing our s hit.
His gaze flashed from across the room, and his voice nudged my mind. “You are a natural Luna.”
I didn’t feel much like it right then. I wanted to scream and yell, to throw things. The thought of Zane putting his hands on Rhiannon made me physically sick. The image of him naked with her, kissing her, was
even worse.
“It won’t be like t
that,” he shot back at me immediately. “I swear by the Moon Goddess, I won’t make love to
her. It’ll be utilitarian. That’s it.”
“Okay, so what does that mean?” Xander asked his mother. “A child doesn’t really have any powers, right?”
“Strengths. Talents. Abilities,” Gabriela said in a short, sharp tone. “That baby will be half wolf, which means Rhiannon will be able to access all of her child’s abilities, including those granted to us by the Moon Goddess, and only to us. Abilities and talents witches are traditionally never able to gain.”
We all fell silent at that. My throat clogged as I tried to think of what that all meant. It had been hard enough to figure out what being a hybrid meant for me, and of course knowing a baby created by Zane and
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mingled.”
“And it’s because witches can get their powers from their babies in the womb?” Xander shot at her. “That
seems like a pretty f ucking important thing to know, Ma.”
She gave him a look that should have made him take a step back, but Xander stood his ground.
“There is another war coming. That is something I am sure of. And if Rhiannon gets pregnant with Zane’s
child, she will be able to use that child’s blood to create spells.” She looked around at each one of us. “Spells against wolves.”
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