Chapter 110 - LUNA'S BAGGAGE

Alison

"Why isn't she waking up? Please, don't say it is because she still needs to rest. She has been sleeping for hours now." Asher's voice was the first thing heard. He was worried I wasn't walking up, yet his voice was barely above a whisper. Did he want me awake or did he want me to get more sleep? I couldn't clearly hear what the other person said but I heard Asher's reply, "Didn't she wake up a while ago?"

I do remember waking up earlier to a congratulatory message from Jeremy. It was Asher's words that sent me blacking out. "We are having a baby Alison." A baby! I wasn't ready to have another baby, we hadn't even talked about having babies! My only consolation right now was that he sounded excited when he told me about it. That was a good sign, right?

Haven't we been careful every time though? Then I remembered, it had to have been that day, right? The day I marked him. Having been used to Asher always thinking of contraception methods for us, I failed to realize that we hadn't used any that day. This wasn't the right to have a baby! There was so much to be done and I would just be dragging everyone down. This mission needed our utmost concentration, it was already hard enough to do it with Joe and Jayden but they were a little older and could be hidden. A baby on the way was a whole different level of inconvenience and postponing was out of the question.

Thompson Springs Pack had fallen out with the others because of me. If I hadn't come here all those years ago, none of this would have happened. The king hated us, the werewolf council was constantly breathing down our necks, and no other packs wanted to associate with us. My baggage had turned a thriving pack into outcasts. That would always be my biggest regret. What if I had left like they wanted back then?

I felt tears flow down the side of my face but my hands felt too weak to move. I might have sniffled or something because the next moment I felt someone, probably Asher, wiping my tears. "Shhh, I'm here with you," he whispered while running his hands through my hair. He hadn't realized that I had woken up already.

"Asher." My voice sounded scratchy, my tongue was dry and my throat was in great need of some water. After debating with myself for a moment, I decided to let him know I was awake rather than pretend to be asleep like I really wanted to do. One sip from the straw that appeared at the side of my face and I was looking away. Who even drank warm water while thirsty? Oh, I'm thirsty, let me just heat this glass of water real quick. Yeah no!

Of course, he knew what I was thinking. "You can't drink cold water, you will get sick." I wanted to argue that wolves never get sick, but what came out was a tear-jerking cough. What a moment to choke. How was I to argue my case now? Now I had no right to refuse the warm water, bummer. The straw was shoved back into my mouth, I couldn't help but make a face when the water touched my mouth. Did anyone else hate warm water? I couldn't even drink previously boiled and cooled water. I don't care what anyone says, it had a taste.

Can you believe I had to stay in the hospital for another hour? Asher had Jeremy do a full body check-up on me, despite my protests. He couldn't relent even when Jeremy told him that I was fine and that he had already done all of that before he got there earlier. That's when I learned that I had fainted on my way to see Mary. I was carried to the hospital by good Samaritans who found me lying unconscious at the side of the road. I have no recollection of these events, and I barely remember leaving the house.

I added a mental note to thank Mary for sending Joe and Jayden to the hospital. It was their clamoring about being hungry that eventually led to Asher agreeing to let me go home. I knew why his worrywart tendencies increased, but since he hadn't brought it up, I wasn't going to either.

You know what? Maybe staying in the hospital would have been better! What in the world was all this? He was beside me all this while. When had he gotten all this done? Whose front door was this? The two little steps at the front had been replaced with a ramp, the beautiful hardwood door frame had been covered with a soft cushiony material and the worst of it all was my wooden floor! My beautiful flooring was gone! Replaced by some hideous wall to wall carpet, OK, the carpet was in my favorite color but that did not make a difference. Who in their right mind installed a purple wall to wall carpet? The house looked like something from a witch movie. The color didn't even match our furniture.

"What did you do to the house?" My voice was a little sharper than I would have liked. All the sharp corners, including the tables, had been either rounded or covered using some rubbery material. "What is the meaning of this Asher?" Not even when the triplets were younger had we done this. It wasn't just me surprised by the new setup, the boys were looking around in awe too before they started looking for their toys that were missing from their usual corner. I could already feel a headache coming.

"I just covered everything that could hurt you. We can't take any risks during this period." Why did he make it sound like it was something obvious? Risks? What could the corner of a table do to me? This was so over the top. Who even did things like this? I was beginning to think that were it up to him, I would probably be put on bed rest. He hadn't said anything to me about the pregnancy and yet he had gone ahead and done all of this.

Then I exploded, "I am pregnant, not invalid! What next? Will you remove all the knives in the kitchen so we will cut onions using our teeth? In case you don't remember, I have been pregnant before and they came out just fine. If the house is not back to the way it was before by tomorrow morning, I will find myself somewhere else to live." I was out of breath at the end of my speech. Then I did the classical storming out after an argument, but my storming was stomping upstairs to go to the bathroom.

I regretted a lot of the things I said after calming down. Why had I been so angry? I have never raised my voice at him in all the years I've known him. I don't even think I have ever been angry at him. Maybe I have, but I don't remember. In his own weird way, he just wanted to protect me only for me to blow up on him. The urge to blame it on pregnancy hormones was very high.

I sat alone in the room waiting for him to come upstairs for me to apologize, but he never showed up even after several minutes went by. He was supposed to run after me, isn't that what those stupid movies said? Maybe I should wait for him some more? I even pulled a book off the nightstand to make sure I looked busy when he came in. He never did and I had slammed our bedroom door shut so I couldn't really hear what was going on downstairs. I waited for almost an hour.

He was sitting on the floor in the middle of the room surrounded by a huge pile of carpet. "What are you..." He was partially shifted and he used his claw to tear the carpet before pulling it. My nails hurt from just looking at him. "Asher," silence. It was as if he couldn't hear me.

Tearing sounds filled the room, "I am sorry that I overreacted, I have no idea what came over me." I decided to go ahead with my apology even though he refused to acknowledge my presence. "I know you only did all of this to protect me and I am sorry." Relief filled me when I realized the tearing stopped when I was talking. At least I was sure he was listening to me.

He observed for a hot minute before giving me his hand and me being the idiot that I am, I simply held his hand and stood there. "Pull me up, Alison." the laughter he had tried to suppress came bubbling out. Were there holes to hide in for sale? I need one for at least a few hours to hide in. Why did I think he wanted to hold hands? "I should apologize too. You were right, this was a little too much. I just wanted to protect you and I didn't know the best way to do it." He sheepishly looked away, the tips of his ears were flushed red.

"You do realize you could have just asked Jeremy, right?" He and Mary just had children the other day.

He blushed! Full on blushed before looking away "I didn't think about that." Of course, he didn't. I moved here when Mary was still pregnant and her house was nowhere near this monstrosity. There were so many scratch marks on the wooden floor that he had removed the carpet from it.

"Leave it, we will find someone to do it tomorrow. We need to talk." It was time to face the elephant in the room. Halfway to the bedroom, I was already having cold feet. Abort mission! I hadn't prepared what I wanted to say yet.

"Why did you pass out when I told you we were having a baby? You don't want to have one with me?" I could tell how much my answer meant to him.

Why did I pass out? "You are happy about the baby? But I thou..." I trailed off when I saw the look on his face. I had said something wrong, hadn't I?

Did I have something on my face? Why was he looking at me like that? "What? That I would blow a gasket?"

"Not exactly. We have never talked about having children and I didn't know how you would react to it. Besides, the timing is really bad." I subconsciously rubbed my belly while talking, I only realized it when he put his hand on top of mine, halting my action.

That night, Asher and I talked about anything and everything, our plans for the future, the number of children he wanted, and what he hoped to achieve.

For the first time in a long time, Dr. Hann and his actions weren't our topics of discussion. I even got him to admit how hideous the carpet he had picked was. His excuse was that he figured that if he went with my favorite color then the probability of me getting angry with him would be greatly reduced. How did that work out?

His phone rang just when I was drifting to sleep and the next thing I knew he was out of bed and calling for an emergency pack meeting.