Reclaimed By My Alpha (Natalia and Andrei) novel Chapter 532

Natalia’s POV

After Damon left, the days passed interminably slow.

For the first day, I was still mostly bedridden. I tried to get up and move around as much as I could, but it wasn’t easy. My limbs were still heavy, barely responding to my orders at times. Other times, I was simply too exhausted to focus on much.

Grace was a saint, as usual. When she wasn’t helping me with my physical therapy, she was tending to all three children as if they were her own. She entertained the twins with games and arts and crafts, and changed Hope’s diapers. She brought me the baby when it was time to breastfeed and would sit next to me, reading or sewing.

If it weren’t for her, I might have gone insane.

By the second morning, I was able to move around some more. I woke up early and got dressed in something comfortable that wouldn’t make me feel restricted—a flowing skirt and that same sweater from before.

It barely smelled like Andrei anymore, my own perfume having taken over the scent. But the warmth of it and the way it hung loosely on my frame, coming nearly down to my knees, was comforting. Even if it looked like I was drowning in the fabric in an almost comical way, I wouldn’t take it off.

I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

If Andrei had returned to the mountain, then I hardly dared to think what he had planned. I kept ruminating on what Isaac had said. Something about a ritual. Something that was supposed to give him the same power that the Winter King had possessed. The ability to control the rubies with no effort at all.

And most of all… The ability to communicate with some otherworldly creature through that pool of sulfuric water.

At the time, when the Winter King had made those claims, I’d thought he was just insane. That the fumes and the rubies had made him go crazy, and he was having delusions.

But then I would think about the hunger I would feel coming from those rubies whenever I wielded them. The way that they would almost egg me toward violence. The way they only seemed to feel sated with blood.

The thoughts made me shudder for reasons I hadn’t considered before.

What if the Winter King had been right? What if the legends were true? What if the rubies had been created by the fires of hell, and someone—or something—was in control of all of it?

What if Andrei was now a part of something bigger and darker than we had ever anticipated?

I tried to avoid these thoughts by focusing on what I could control. Taking care of the twins. Going through my morning exercises. Tending to Hope. Assisting Grace with some work in the garden and the infirmary.

Around midday, I stopped for lunch. I was in the kitchen, making some cold cut sandwiches and lemonade for everyone, when my phone rang.

I pulled it out of my pocket so abruptly that I nearly dropped it on the floor. With trembling fingers, I answered before I even checked the caller ID.

“Damon?” I breathed. I prayed he’d found Andrei before anything bad had happened. I hoped that he would tell me that everything would be okay, and that they were coming home.

But it wasn’t Damon’s voice on the other end. It was Andrei’s Beta’s.

“Luna Natalia?” He sounded concerned.

My heart sank. “Sorry. I thought…” I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see me. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes. Well… For the most part. There’s been some unrest in the pack since Andrei left. I know you’re still recovering, but I wanted to ask if you would consider coming home. The pack needs to see that their Luna is still present, even if their Alpha is… missing.”

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