Mated to the Alpha and His Beta (Lanie Stanton) novel Chapter 71

Chapter 71
Lanie
“Who are you?” I managed to ask the strange woman.
She had short, dark hair that framed her soft face in waves. It seemed like she was around my age.
She held out her hand and pulled me up off the ground.
Tm Dr. Isolde’s assistant. An apprentice healer.”
I blinked slowly.
Was I supposed to know who Dr. Isolde was?
She clasped my hand in hers and shook it slightly.
“My name is Adele,” she said, a bright smile lighting up her face.
I nodded.
“My name is…” I trailed off, and panic rose in my throat again. “I don’t know.”
Adele grabbed my shoulders gently and held my gaze with hers.
“Your name is Katie,” she said evenly. “And you need to breathe.”
I took a deep breath through my nose and blew it out through my mouth.
“Good.” She smiled again. “Staying calm is essential Shifting wouldn’t be good for the baby.”
She glanced down then back up to me.
My hand flew instinctively to my belly.
Baby?
Shifting?
What the hell did all of this mean?
“I don’t…” I struggled to find where to begin. “What do you mean by shift?”
She stood back, studying me with a curious expression.
“You’re a wolf shifter,” she said. “A pregnant one, actually
I could strangely recall that wolf shifters existed, that I lived in their world, but for some reason, the fact that I was one seemed like news to me.
And if I was pregnant, then where was my mate?
And why was Adele looking after me?
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As if she could read my mind, she said, “You’re going to be staying
Katie.”
“Is that bad?” I asked her.
She smiled again, but this time her lips were tight.
“You were dropped off at our clinic. You’re perfectly healthy, but you might feel a little off for a while.”
And then she pulled me into a tight hug, squeezing me momentarily before letting go.
As she pulled away, I caught a strong whiff of her scent, I
my wolf had just been reawakened.
me
My nose crinkled involuntarily.
Something about her was off.
I shook my head. “I still don’t quite understand what all this is.”
“I know you must have a lot of questions,” Adele said sympathetically. “But that’s all they’ve really told
I bit my lip.
Something inside me stirred, an alarm bell going off telling me she was lying.
Zane
We didn’t know what to do with ourselves.
Right now we were standing by the pond in the woods behind the Constantine mansion, sk ipping stones mindlessly, sniffing the cold wind for any signs of Lanie.
The first sn wflakes were starting to fall, which meant tracking her would only get harder and harder.
Neither of us really believed she was gone, but the rest of our family was treating us like we were crazy
for thinking so
We couldn’t talk to her, but her presence, that piece of her that felt like it was always there in mys
that hadn’t gone away.
“Boys.” Gabriela’s voice called to us from the edge of the forest. “You need to eat something.”
Xander glanced over at me before chucking a stone into the water so hard it plopped straight down to the
bottom.
And then he stomped back up to the house.
I followed, sitting down at the table next to him.
But I had no appetite at all.
“At least drink some Moonshade tea,” Gabriela encouraged us. “You’ll be too weak to lead this pack if you
nut mathina in narr hedina ”
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We both sighed and took a sip from the steaming mugs Info Of US.
Gabriela eyed us intently as we did so.
Twished she would just leave us alone.
The tea tasted off, but no surprises there.
Everything seemed sour since Lanie had left.
Suddenly, I found myself jerking awake, still in the same place I’d been seconds before.
I shook my head and looked over at Xander.
His eyes were unfocused, his expression confused.
I could vaguely recall that I’d been worried about something, something important.
But I couldn’t remember what it was now.
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