Filed to story: Owned by the Alphas Novel
“Mom and I were coming to see if you’d like some company. We could have some tea?” I asked, and she nodded, her smile wobbling again.
My brother stayed at the door, putting the torch in the holder there. Ryleigh’s eyes flickered to him, but I grabbed her hand and gave it a light squeeze.
“He’s okay. He’s just here since my alphas can’t be. Mom said your pains have come back?” I asked, and she nodded.
Mom went to the small bench along the wall with a kettle and filled it with water as Vaughn stoked the fire.
“Yeah. They stopped for a bit, but now they’re back and won’t go away,” she said, her voice weak as she rubbed her stomach.
I looked down at it, not sure if I could help but wondering if my magic could. My magic stirred in me at the idea.
“I can try to help?” I asked, and she nodded eagerly.
“Anything. I’ll try anything. I don’t know what else to do, and I hate lying in this bed not knowing whether I will have this child or not,” she said, tears slipping down her cheeks.
Vaughn left my mom to hang the kettle over the fire and came over. “Wait. Ryleigh is human. Your magic is not safe for her,” he said, and I frowned.
“I’m not going to use it on her. I’m only going to see if it can find out what is wrong,” I said, but Vaughn shook his head.
“No, it’s too dangerous. You could make it worse.”
I could, it was a possibility, but I trusted my magic not to do that. It was up to Ryleigh to decide.
I turned to her and she blushed, looking between me and Vaughn before swallowing hard.
“I think… I think it’ll probably be fine without checking anything,” she whispered.
I frowned at the lie. I felt it in me, but she looked down at her fingers and didn’t change her mind, so I nodded.
Vaughn gave Ryleigh’s hand a squeeze, then went to sit in the chair next to the door, right next to my brother.
34. The Witches
LORELAI
“Mom, is that tea ready?” I asked, and she nodded, pouring the freshly-boiled water in the cups.
“Boys, as much as we love you being here to protect us weak little females, we are about to talk childbirth, blood, and the afterbirth care that Ryleigh and Lorelai will need.
“How about you give us some privacy?” she ordered, and both of the men frowned at her request.
“The alphas will have my fangs if I leave her alone,” Lucas said, and I laughed.
“My alphas will have those anyway if I am talking about my privates with you in the room. You decide, brother,” I urged, and his eyes widened before he shook his head and opened the door.
Vaughn stood up, eyeing Ryleigh intently. “I’ll go and get some food for you from the human dining hall. You’ve got that long before Ryleigh needs her rest,” he said.
I bristled at the commanding tone. I didn’t like it, and I wasn’t used to it from Vaughn.
I frowned after him, watching as he walked through the door, leaving with my brother, talking about women being unreasonably hard to deal with when pregnant. That did not sound like a mate.
Even my brother nodding irked me. He was to marry Ryleigh, and he didn’t look concerned at all.
Or I was reading too much into it and they were being a vampire and a male with no clue how things worked when it came to women and childbirth.
“He’s different,” I whispered out loud, accepting my tea from Mom, who sat in the chair next to the bed.
I looked to Ryleigh, who shrugged.
“He is stressed about the baby.” She gave an excuse, but the lie was still acid on my tongue.
“You don’t believe that any more than I do. What happened?” I asked.
She shrugged again. “I’m not sure. He was fine, and then the pains started and everything changed.”
“How?” I pushed.
She blushed like she was betraying him, and maybe she felt like she was, but if something was wrong, I had to know. That wasn’t the Vaughn who saved me from the human cells.
“I can’t say for sure. He just changed. He was my mate, sweet and loving, and I truly felt our connection, but now? We’re not connected. We haven’t touched in…so long.”
She let out a breath, and I nodded along.
“Well, that could be why the pains are there. When I am not with my mates for extended periods of time, I feel pain,” I tried.
“Maybe, but I am with him. He sleeps next to me, he holds me, he feeds me, all the things he is supposed to do, but I just don’t feel the same with him. Like there is something blocking our connection.
“I wondered whether it was the baby,” she admitted, her hand rubbing her stomach again, tears falling, but I shook my head.
“No, it can’t be that. Surely the mating bond creating something like this would not put a barrier on it. If anything, it should strengthen things,” I said, then chewed my lip, looking over my shoulder.
“Mom, lock the door,” I said, and she didn’t hesitate.
Ryleigh frowned. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to check the baby. Is that okay?” I asked, and she gasped.
“I can’t. I told him I wouldn’t.”
“And he isn’t here. This is not the same rules as the village, Rye. This is your body, and you have control over what happens to it. He does not,” I said firmly.
She hesitated a second before finally nodding.
“Hurry,” she said, then lay back with our help.
I pulled her shirt up to her breasts. Then I listened to my magic.
I let it out, just a little, enough to cover her stomach. It brushed over the curve, tenderly touching her before seeping beneath her skin.
It flooded feelings back to me so fast it overwhelmed me, and I yanked my magic back, running for the bathroom.
I dropped to the toilet, throwing up, Mom rushing to hold my hair back.
I finished being sick, waiting for the nausea to pass and the cramps in my own stomach to stop.
“Sweetie?” Mom asked, then pushed some water toward me.
I took it and gulped it down before wiping my damp forehead and standing on unsteady legs.
I tried to filter through the feelings my magic was giving me, slower this time, like they were sorry for overwhelming me. As I did, I sat back down next to Ryleigh, who looked miserable.
“That means it’s bad, right?” she cried, and I shook my head, swallowing to stop the nausea again.
“Your baby is alive and well, I felt that,” I said, still not sure what the rest of it meant.
Nausea, pain, fear, wariness. Ryleigh was full of it, and there was something else in there, a taint inside her that my magic had sought out immediately.
It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to have me worried.
“I’m getting you moved back into the rooms with the humans,” I said, and she frowned.
“But–“
“You need to be around the other humans. It’ll make it harder for whatever is happening to happen with so many witnesses.”
“Is it Vaughn? Is he doing this?” she asked, horrified, like the words were almost choking her to ask, but I couldn’t answer it with specifics.
“I don’t know. You say he’s changed, and I can see he has, but enough to hurt you or the baby? I can’t say.
“All I know is that there is something inside you, a darkness that is faint and not enough to kill but enough to make me sure that something is making sure you are bedridden.
“It’s the reason for the connection not happening with Vaughn. And that is where I am confused,” I admitted.
“Confused?” my mother prompted, and I nodded.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?