Chapter 39 39
Lena’s POV
The cramping began past midnight, and it yanked me up from fitful sleep, blinking into the darkness as I struggled to understand what was coursing through my body. For a beat, I tried to talk myself out of it — that it was nothing, just the normal aches and pains from pregnancy, the kind every mother has.
Then I felt the dampness between my thighs, and for what seemed like a bone-deep certainty something was terribly wrong.
"No, no, no," I murmured, my hand pressing against my stomach as fear coursed through me. "Please, not my baby. Please."
Lucien was at the territorial negotiations, he wouldn’t be back before tomorrow night. And Selena had withdrawn to her bedroom hours ago, citing being tired from dealing with a sick omega pup.
I was there alone with whatever was happening to my body and my child and my future.
The pain grew stronger, so bad that it felt like I just might cry. I shook my hands working the bedside lamp on, then regretted it at once when I saw the bloody mark coloring up in the sheets.
“Someone,” I attempted to yell, but it was only a mumble. "Someone please help me."
I had to make myself stand up, holding onto the bedpost as another cramp nearly sank me back down. The hallway stretched to an impossible length as I lurched my way toward the door, leaving a sickening trail of blood that sent my heart into panicky pounding.
“Please,” I wailed, and suddenly didn’t even know whom I was pleading with. “Please God, don’t let me lose this baby.”
The world lurched dangerously, and I clutched the door frame to keep from falling. Then through the haze of pain and fear I heard footsteps racing in my direction.
"Luna!" Mira’s young voice was urgent. "Oh gods, Luna, what's wrong?"
"The baby," I managed. "Something's wrong with the baby."
She pinned me there, finally just before my legs gave way, her thin frame working hard trying to hold my weight. "HELP!" she screamed with impressive volume. "SOMEONE GET THE HEALER! THE LUNA NEEDS HELP!"
"Is the baby...?" I couldn’t ask more of the question, too frightened by what I feared was the answer.
“The heart is still good,’’ she comforted me, her hand on my abdomen. “Whatever is causing this, the baby is fighting. But we have to stop the blood and cramping now.”
“I want this baby,” I heard myself say between sobs. “I know I was afraid at first, and confused, and in doubt of everything. But I want this child. I want this life. Don't take it away from me, please.’ ”
The healer halted a moment in her ministrations to grasp my hand. "Then you fight, Luna. Fight for that baby with every fiber of your being.”
And as I lay on that examination table, bleeding and shaking and more alone than I had ever felt in my life, I pledged to the life growing inside me. A promise that I would fight. That I wouldn’t abandon us, the family we had the potential to become.
Not without a fight that would rock the world to its timbers.
I was half-awake when Selena arrived, a look of tender concern etched onto her face that would have been believable to anyone who didn’t know what to look for.
"Dear, dear one," she exclaimed, hurrying to the old healer's side. "What happened?"
"Cramps and heavy bleeding my Lady Selena," the healer looked visibly relieved to see someone she viewed as more informed. “I have given herbs to calm her and a tincture with the idea of stopping the contractions in her uterus, but the bleeding has not stopped completely.”
"May I examine her?" Selena asked with professional courtesy.
My healer got out of the way right away, and I wished to complain but couldn’t. Selena was touching my stomach with her hands, and it felt wrong somehow being so warm physically but feeling cold at the same time.
“How long has this been happening?” she asked me directly.
"Started around midnight," I whispered. “The cramping was first, then the bleeding.
“And did you eat or drink anything out of the ordinary last night?”
The question felt strange, but I was too tired to think about it. "Just tea. You brought it to me, remember? Said it would help me sleep."
Something flashed in her eyes, too fast to make out. "Of course. Well, let’s figure out what we have here.”
Her hands were all over me, her touch every inch how you’d expect a healer to go, I should emphasise. The words she murmured while doing these things made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, despite their seeming kindly purpose.
“We have a slight abnormality in the fetal positioning,” she remarked, sounding serious. "Not a threat in and of itself but troublesome due to mixed bloodlines. You never know what a Lycan bred Derek child might throw at us.”
“Is my baby going to be O.K.?” I asked desperately.
"For now, yes. But episodes of bleeding like these point to underlying problems.” She stood up, rubbing her hands together as if to wash them. “You must be on total bed rest for at least a week. No stress, no visitors besides medical staff, complete quiet and isolation.”
"Isolation?" The term caused my stomach to cinch with more than physical pain.
“It’s for the baby’s safety,” she went on, sounding genuinely concerned. "I might bleed again if I got emotionally upset. “And in the Alpha’s place you have to concentrate all on your power to keep that child alive.”
The old healer nodded mutely in acceptance, obviously recognizing the latter as an expert on something involving Selena. “Lady Selena’s handled more feelthy supernatural pregnancies than anybody in Sonic Creek. If she says it’s isolation, let the rest of us do isolation.
"But—"
"No argumen”, Selena interrupted me brusquely. “This is not about what you want, Lena. This is a case of keeping your baby alive. Or would you rather gamble on another attack that might even be a miscarriage?".
“I will find a way to do it,” I murmured.
"Good girl." Selena patted my hand with motherly affection any normal human would have interpreted. "I will prepare the room for long-term use. You remain here in the healer's quarters where we can keep a close eye on you."
I looked up at Mira as she left to make preparations. Young omega had lingered through the exam, holding my hand when it got too painful to bear.
"Something isn't right," I murmured after we were in the relatively privacy as the old healer had gone back to her office to work on med reports.
"The bleeding?" Mira asked with concern.
"No. I mean yes, but...” I faltered, searching for an expression of wrongness. "Selena. Something about this feels... orchestrated."
"You believe it was Lady Selena who did this?" Mira's shock was obvious. "But why would she—"
"To isolate me. To remove me from witnesses and help.” I gripped her hand tighter. "Promise me something. And you’ll send word to Lucien of what has happened. And don’t let them tell you he’s unwakeable, Make sure he knows."
"I promise, Luna. But you need to rest now. The baby—"
“The baby is the only thing that’s keeping me alive right now,” I said somberly. “If I lose this child, there’s nothing left for me to fight for.”
Lucien had been in town eighteen hours after me; he bad forced his horse extremely once the tidings reached him. I had dozed off with fitful sleeps when he suddenly came bursting into the healers' quarters, his face pinched in worry.
"Lena," he whispered and fell to his knees next to the bed I was held captive in. "Are you alright? Is the baby—"
“A lot more than that, when you come right down to it.” I squeezed his hand: still alive. “The bleeding has stopped, but Selena is saying I need full on bedrest.”
"Selena." Something dark crossed his features. "Where is she now?"
"I don't know. I asked her to come here earlier, pat me down.” I gripped his hand, needing him to hear what was going to come next. “Lucien, I believe she did it. I believe she poisoned me to make me bleed.”
I assumed I would be summarily dismissed, a mild scolding likely indicating pregnancy paranoia rather than legitimate moaning. But instead, his jaw clenched in furious restraint.
"Tell me everything," he commanded. "From the beginning. Don't leave anything out."
So I did. Selena had brought me the tea the night before that I was sick. They asked strange questions about what I’d eaten. The immediate advice to isolate, which would mean separating myself from the pack’s protection. All the little things that seemed insignificant at the time but had become hugely damning later.
“She inquired about the tea, specifically,” I replied. “Like she was seeing that I had drunk it.”
“Bastard,” Lucien whispered. "I was blind. I allowed her back into our lives, and she’s been plotting this all along.”
"You believe me?" I inquired, half-dreading the response.
I should have listened to you weeks ago," he said, his thumb caressing the back of my hand. “You tried to tell me something was going on, and I blamed your insecurities I failed you, Lena. And I didn’t protect you from someone I should have known was a threat.”
The admission, the validation that all of that was real brought me even more tears. "What do we do now?"
"Now?" His smile was chilling, dangerous, the look of a predator who’d finally spotted his prey. “Now we turn the other way around her own game. If Selena believes that she has isolated you, exposed you to anything she might have planned for you, then we will let her believe it.”
"I don't understand."
“You wait here, just as she said. And we make it seem like you are precisely following her medical advice.” He leaned in, speaking more quietly. “But I am having guards put up who you can trust—those loyal to you and no one else, not the pack’s customs or its history. And I’m getting every meal, all my drinks and all my medicines tested before it gets to you.”
"You think she'll try again."
“I believe that she is working with somebody,” he said grimly. “Somebody wants you captured or killed. And I don’t think there’s much life left in the candle before whatever it is they have planned comes to fruition.”
"The Luna ceremony," I realized. "Once I'm formally recognized—"
“Kidnapping you is an act of war instead.” Exactly." He kissed my forehead. "So we set a trap. We'll let Selena think her plan is working, and we have some time to catch whoever comes for you.”
“That involves using me as bait.”
“If you want,” he said, earnestly. “I’m not taking chances if you or the baby will risk without your consent.”
And I thought of the alternative — running and hiding, living in fear of when the next attack would occur. Thought about the child growing in my stomach, who deserved to be brought into a world of safety rather than constant danger.
"I'm willing," I said firmly. "But Lucien? When they come to get me, I want Selena there. I want her to see me push back. That she didn’t break me, only made me stronger.”
His smile was fierce, prideful and so full of this form of savage love that I found my heart racing despite the blood at our feet.
“That’s my Luna,” he whispered. "Now rest. Build your strength. Because when they do, we’re going to remind the entire Democratic Party why they should have stayed away.”