Chapter 14
Everly POV
It always comes out of nowhere. One minute I am sleeping; the next, I am awoken by agonizing pain. I feel my heart pumping in my chest erratically and my stomach cramping terribly. I clutch my stomach and bite down on my lip to stop from screaming. I don’t want to wake Zoe. I know I keep her up at night, and she always hovers worriedly. Usually, it wasn’t too bad, but tonight it is the worst it has been in two months.
I know he is sleeping with someone. I can tell by the pain ratio. Usually, it’s just like an upset tummy, but tonight I feel like my heart is being pulverized and my stomach twists in knots. I cry out in pain. I can’t help it. I toss and turn until the lights flick on. Zoe isn’t going to keep believing it was just period pain. Not after tonight.
“Everly, Everly,” she shrieks, shaking me, but all I can do is cry out and grit my teeth while clutching my stomach. The pain is crippling.
“Should I call an ambulance? I don’t know what to do. I will get Valarie.”
“No, I am fine,” I gasp before sweat starts beading on my forehead. I feel a draft hit me, and cold air sweeps into the room. Please don’t last long; please stop. I beg the Moon Goddess to make it go away.
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How am I expected to handle this for the rest of my life? Would it always be this bad? I start sobbing, big fat tears rolling down my cheeks. I hate that Zoe would have to see me this way, hate that he made me feel this, hate him for what he made me endure nearly every night on some level, but this is worse because I know he is actually having sex this time, not just fooling around. He is with another woman, and that woman isn’t me. Why did I have to be punished for his actions?
Warm hands rub up and down my arms before Valarie’s scent wafts to me; the pain grows worse with each second that goes past, making me scream. How did Valarie survive this shit for decades?
“I know sweetie, Just breathe, Everly,” Valarie tells me, and I try to focus on her voice to distract from the intense pain.
“I think we should call an ambulance. Her pain is worse this time. What if something is seriously wrong with her?” Zoe asks Valarie.
“She will be fine; it will be over soon.”
“What will be over soon?” Zoe stutters, and I can hear the concern in her voice as I writhe in pain.
“The mate bond, he is with someone, and it is causing her pain,” Valarie explains to her. I would usually be mad if anyone else spilled my secrets without asking, but I can’t be mad at
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Valarie after everything she has done to help us.
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“She met her mate?” Zoe says, her voice soft as a murmur.
“Who do you think Valarian’s father is? He is her mate.”
“But why is she a rogue whore then, and why would he do that?” Zoe says, and I see her cringe over the word we all hated so much. I blink back tears, nausea bubbling in my stomach.
“She didn’t know when she fell pregnant, and I am afraid her parents would hate her more if they knew who the father was,” Valarie explains.
Valarie and I have no secrets; she knows everything now. I trust her more than anyone. She has become like a mother to me. She supported us through everything, and she never turned me away in the two months I have been here. I am closer to her than I ever was with my own mother.
“Breathe, Everly, deep breaths, and try to sit up for me,” Valarie says. I groan, and she helps me up. She hands me my bottle of water off the nightstand, cracking the lid for me before thrusting pills in my hands.
“They will take the edge off,” she tells me, and I rock back and forth. My hands are shaking, and I spill water all over me. Zoe grabs the bottle from my hands, and I shove the pills in my mouth, not even questioning what they are. I trust Valarie
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with my life. Zoe brings the bottle to my lips, and I sip it, swallowing the pills down. Tears brim in her eyes as she looks. at me sadly.
“Go find a hot water bottle; there should be one under my kitchen sink,” Valarie tells Zoe, and she darts out of the room.
“I can’t do this, I can’t keep living like this,” I cry to Valarie.
“I wish I could take it from you, sweetie, I do. I know how hard it is, but you will get through this, you have got through so much by yourself already, just remember who you are, you are better than him, better than what he makes you feel,” Valarie says softly.
“I wouldn’t be where I am without you,” I tell her.
“The Moon Goddess brought us together for a reason. She won’t let history repeat itself; you will find happiness, Everly. She won’t turn her back on you too,” Valarie says. I find her words strange but can’t make sense of much and figure I misheard her as another wave of crippling pain washes over
- me.
Zoe returns with a hot water bottle and places it on my
stomach. The pain eases off again, and I pray it stays away. Please be finished, please be done, I pray, sucking in a deep breath.
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The following day, I wake up later than usual. Zoe and Valarie let me sleep in after last night. Sitting up, I spot Zoe sitting on the floor on the rug with Valarian and Casey, her daughter. She has one in each arm while she feeds them a bottle.
“Tandem feeding,” I chuckle, and she nods, looking up at me before smiling sadly.
“Why didn’t you tell me? It makes so much sense now,” she says.
“I didn’t want to talk about it; I don’t like talking about his father. He didn’t recognize me and tossed me away,” I tell her, feeling pain at the very memory. I tried going back to tell him a couple of weeks ago. Valarie told me to try to speak with him again, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I just kept remembering the look on his face.
The way he screamed at me combined with Valarie’s story scared me even more. What if he tried to take Valarian from me like her mate did to her? I have no title anymore, my wolf pathetically weak and so small compared to what I should be. I am a rogue, hardly Luna material now.
Valarie said the longer she went without her mate, the harder it became to shift before she no longer could. Being rogue also didn’t help, it makes us weaker prey and easy pickings to rob and attack.
I don’t know how she has endured this torture for years. One
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day, I finally saw the man she called her mate. I never caught a glimpse of his face, but last week I saw his BMW pull up and watched him sneak into the office with his own key. Then the next morning, I watched him leave again; I hated what he did to her. I saw her heartbreak as he left again, and for three days afterward, she could barely get out of bed. She was depressed, and the only thing that worked was me asking her to help with Valarian.
I refuse to become some side piece; I would rather die than live the torment Valarie does. I loved her, but I now understood why she couldn’t maintain this place. Him popping in and out of her life affected her more profoundly than she was willing to admit. Each time though, I noticed she grew weaker. Each time he left; her mind became fragile for days after. She even suffered nose bleeds and tremors. It was almost like watching someone suffer from withdrawals.
“I will make some coffee. Do you want some?” I ask, and Zoe nods her head, and I turn to our small kitchenette. Our room is now completely functional, floors are re–stained and polished, the room repainted, curtains removed, and blinds put in their place. Thanks to Macey’s brother, the rickety old pipes had been fixed, and in the last two months, we had stripped and fixed all the rooms on the top floor. We are far from done, but each passing day showed progress, and the smile on Valarie’s face was worth every ache, sprain, and splinter.
“Valarie said we could take the day off today if you don’t feel up to it,” Zoe tells me.
“No, I need to work to keep my mind off him,” I tell her. She
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nods her head, and I hate seeing the sadness in her eyes when she looks at me. I know she is worried, but it makes me feel even more weak and vulnerable than I already do.
“You have us; we have our village,” Zoe says. Valarie told Zoe the same thing, we were building our village. The more work we got done, I believed she was right. We were building something, a place to call home. A purpose. We just had to remember not to give up. But with the girls and Valarie, I knew I had found friends for life, created my own family.
Regardless, I miss my sister terribly, but not once has she called, and mum changed her number. I am the forgotten child, one who longer existed in their world, no longer had a place in their lives. I cried for a good hour when that realization hit. Valarie found me on the stairs after I tried for the hundredth time to contact my mother or sister; I just wanted to hear their voices, to know I wasn’t forgotten.
“Their loss if they can’t see how amazing you are,” Valarie says. She sits beside me on the steps, holding my hands.
“You don’t need them; they aren’t wasting tears on you, so don’t waste your tears on them; they don’t deserve them,” she tells me.
Hearing a knock on the door, I get up and open it. Macey walks in before reaching down and taking Valarian from Zoe. She looks at me smiling sadly, and I realize Zoe told her, yet I feel no anger at my secret being out. I should have told them already.
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“So, will you tell us now? I know Valarie knows, but she won’t spill no matter how many times we ask, we won’t judge, I swear,” Macey says, and I knew they wouldn’t, but it was me that wasn’t comfortable, me judging myself.
But they are right; I can trust them; they deserve to know. It kind of felt like a relief and made the following words leave my lips easier, and it felt freeing.
The girls have so many questions, all accumulated over the last two months. I kept my secrets close to my heart. Their biggest was what pack I came from. I knew all their secrets, but I was ashamed of mine for some reason. They noticed my Alpha aura dwindling, and now it is pretty much non–existent. Now they had another secret added to the list. I refuse to tell them the father of my child was my mate. I am ashamed and thought they would think less of me because my mate didn’t
want me.
“I am the oldest daughter of Alpha John of the Shadow Pack,” I tell them, and they both gasp.
“You’re Alpha John’s disgraced daughter?” Macey gasps.
“Wait, I thought he only had one daughter. She was due to be the next Alpha?” Zoe says.
“Nope, he is my father, and when he found I was pregnant, he told me to abort to cover it up; I said no obviously, so he shunned me and banished me, stripping me of my title, I was
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supposed to take over the pack when I turned eighteen.”
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“Well damn, I feel like I should bare my neck in submission. I knew you had Alpha genes but didn’t think you were from the second biggest pack. I thought you transferred into the rogue population from another city,” Macey admits. I chuckle at her as she bounces on the edge of the bed, burping Valarian.
“Glad I was sitting down for that news,” she mutters, nudging Zoe with her knee.
“Well, remain seated because if you find that scandalous, you are about to have a heart attack at what I tell you next,” I tell them.
“Scandalous? You come from one of the most influential families in the city. How would we not be shocked by that, and what could be more shocking?” Zoe says, shaking her head.
I suck in a deep breath. “Valarian’s father is Alpha Valen from Dark Blood Pack. He is also my mate,” I tell them, their jaws nearly hitting the floor. Macey’s head turns slowly, her mouth wide open as she stares at Valarian before holding him up in the air.
“You mean to say that I am holding the spawn of Satan
himself, that this cute little boy comes from the nutsack of the most vicious Alpha in the City and the notorious playboy of the town?” Macey says, holding Valarian like she expected him to turn into his father and rip her to pieces.
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“Yep, and that’s it. No other secrets, you know the rest.”
“That does explain the eyes. Doesn’t his family have some genetic thing with eyes? I think I read that somewhere?” Macey says.
“You’re worried about his eyes?” Zoe says, looking at Macey before turning back to me.
“Your mate and the father of your child is your father’s biggest rival. Damn girl, you really don’t do things half–assed; you go all in messing shit up, don’t ya?” Zoe laughs. I chuckle as she looks me up and down.
“Yep, the Moon Goddess definitely stuffed me over, that’s for sure; bad enough, he is my mate, but he also had to be my father’s biggest enemy.”
“Count yourself lucky your father banished you. Could you imagine if the Blood Alpha knew you were Alpha John’s daughter and had his son, it would start a war, the city would become a bloodbath, and your father probably would have killed you,” Macey says, and I have to agree, maybe things really are working out for the best.
Chapter 15
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Chapter 15
