Fated to the Warrior Wolf (The Hunted Omegas #3)

46. Leigh

FORTY-SIX

Leigh

A two-hour run through the forest had left me ravenous, but feeling about a hundred pounds lighter. The problems weren’t gone, and I knew that, but somehow, everything felt a little less overwhelming after a heart-pounding, sweat-drenching workout. I kicked off my shoes inside the bedroom door and flicked on the shower before stepping out of the bathroom to ditch my drenched clothes in the hamper.

Nugget was purring from his favorite position on my pillow, so I stopped to give him an ear scratch when I noticed an envelope on my nightstand. I blinked at it for a second, then turned to the end of the bed where the first one still waited from this morning.

The second one, however, had a friend along. A shiny, black, unlimited credit card with my name emblazoned on it in tidy silver letters.

I sank onto the bed, picking up the card and note. That answered the question of who the notes were from, at least. Nobody but Gael was bringing me a credit card.

A very intimidating, limitless one that came along with the sort of affluence that was mind melting to me. I was a broke, pregnant woman who’d been raised by an alcoholic single mother.

I wasn’t sure what fairy ring I’d walked through to end up in a castle with this card clutched in my hot little hands, but… it felt wrong to take his money when we weren’t even really talking.

Granted, I hadn’t seen the fiancée again. Gael had explained about her, and I believed him that she wasn’t someone he loved or wanted a relationship with. But her existence was enough. He’d hidden everything from me. I set the card back on the nightstand with a shaky hand, then picked up the letter.

I gnawed on my bottom lip as I turned it over and over in my hands, the envelope heavy and thick, made of good-quality paper, just like the first one.

Was I ready to open it?

I shook my head as I stood, picking up the one from the foot of the bed. I walked across to my small desk and yanked open the top drawer where I’d stashed the contract outlining the details of his engagement. He’d given it to me, just like he promised. And I’d promptly shoved it away and locked that shit up tight.

It was all too much.

The longer I stood there, the more I could feel the Zen I’d achieved with my run slipping away. Nausea crept up the back of my throat, my earlier hunger vanishing too.

I carefully set the two letters on top of the contract, unopened, and slid the drawer closed.

“Hey, Leigh?” Brielle called through the door, knocking lightly. “Are you awake?”

I snorted. Goddess love my bestie, but she was not a morning person. The number of mornings she’d been awake before me was zero.

To be fair, I was curled up in my chair by my big window and billowy curtains, snuggling a kitten and listening to music instead of doing anything productive.

I was trying not to puke. Did that count as productive?

“Come in,” I called, not even having the energy to lift myself off the chair. Besides, Nuggie was purring. I couldn’t disturb a sleeping kitten. He was already starting to plump up and had a little roly-poly belly from all the food he’d eaten this morning.

Bri let herself in, smiling when she spotted me and Nugget.

“Well, hello there, little fella. Where did you find him?” she asked, leaning in and giving him a tiny one-finger pet on the head so as not to wake him.

“He found me in the hallway,” I said.

“He’s darling. So, you look comfy and may not want to come, but Lucien has requested a meeting with all of us this afternoon.” She paused, watching for my reaction. When I kept my face pointedly neutral, she continued. “They’re expecting a result from the council any day now on our investigation into the ODL. Well, no. They’re expecting a ‘too bad about your luck, they did nothing wrong,’ from the council. We want to have our rebuttal ready. And the guys want all of us in on it because we’re the ones most impacted.”

Her smile was gentle, the words soft-spoken, yet somehow, each one hit me like a bullet to the chest. They had no hope the council would do the right thing and deal with the ODL’s overstepping boundaries. Gael had asked me to wait, not to talk to Karissma about the curse, but here we were, waiting on a rejection. No change, no chance at safety for our daughter.

Tears prickled at my eyes, and I let them fall closed. Damn it. I didn’t want to cry, but it was hard not to when I felt like my sweet baby had every odd stacked against her, and she wasn’t even born yet. And the worst part was, I couldn’t do anything to change that. I was completely powerless. I was bringing her into this cruel world to die, and it was about the worst possible thing I could imagine.

If they took her, it wouldn’t just kill her. It would kill me .

A sob broke free from my chest, and Brielle was there in an instant, wrapping me up in a hug. Nugget stirred on my chest, but he seemed to like Bri and didn’t run off. He just started purring in the middle of the hug sandwich.

“I know, Leigh, I know. Just let it all out.” She smoothed a hand over my hair and held me until I’d cried all the tears I had.

By the time the tears stopped, my eyes felt like they were full of gravel and my chest felt completely hollow. Someone had carved all the feeling out of me, leaving behind an empty shell of a person.

I was a walking jack-o’-lantern.

But crying it all out had left one thing behind.

Resolve.

There was one way I could protect my baby. I would not give her up. Not now, not six months from now, not ever .

I would protect her with my dying breath.

I swiped at my face, trying to dry off as Brielle leaned back, smiling sadly down at me from her perch on the arm of my chair.

“When does your aunt get here?” I blurted the question with all the grace of a drunken elephant.

“What, Kari?” Brielle scrunched up her nose.

“Yes, Aunt Kari. She’s coming soon, right?”

“I think next week, why?”

“I need her to put a curse on me.”

Brielle paled, head already shaking as if she was about to argue. I held up a hand, stopping her before she could start.

“I’ve thought this through, Bri. It’s the only option. The council isn’t going to do shit to protect her or you. It’s on us. And I’m not giving her up. Your mom got seventeen years with you. If that’s all I get, I’ll take them and savor every fucking second. But I’m not sentencing her to die for her designation.”

She bit her lip, ducking her head as if she was holding back a flood of words under duress. I reached down and peeled the latest, sticky nightmare of a bandage off my palm where it covered the omega seal. I flexed my hand happily, enjoying the freedom.

I held up my palm, letting the soft light shine in the space between us.

“Look at this, Bri.”

She acquiesced, cupping my hand between hers.

“Do you know what this means?”

“It means your daughter is going to be born omega.” She traced her fingertip over the lines of the mark, following the dot pattern of the beautiful stars.

“No, that’s not what it means. It means I’ve been called . The Goddess herself chose me to bring this baby into the world. I’m not even mated. My mother? She was shitty. Her life was hard, and she couldn’t handle it. She used alcohol to drown the pain. And for a lot of years, I was scared I would be exactly like her.”

“Leigh, no. You could never .”

“Thank you for saying that, but I didn’t know. I really didn’t. But I do now . Because now that little Petal is on the way? There is no mountain I wouldn’t climb for her. There is no enemy I wouldn’t face, and there is no sacrifice I wouldn’t make to protect her.”

Brielle sniffled, and I knew she was holding back her own tears for me. But she didn’t need to. Because all that emptiness in my chest? It was filling back up with certainty. Purpose, direction.

The Goddess had given me a great blessing, and I was going to grab on to it with both hands. Nine months, plus seventeen years of joy, give or take .

It was more than I ever dreamed I’d have. Me, the mutt child of an absentee shifter father and an alcoholic human mother.

Another knock came at the door. “Leigh? Are you in there?” Shay called. “We need to head to Bri’s suite for a meeting, but I’ve got to find her too. Oli already walked over.”

I closed my eyes, sucking in a deep breath through my nose and letting it out slowly. When I opened them again, Bri was staring at me, her wolf’s eyes shining bright with the same white light that shone from my palm.

“Are you sure ?” she asked me, and I knew in that moment that she was hoping I would say no.

“I’m surer than I’ve ever been about anything,” I told her. “Let’s get to this meeting. But can we keep this between us for now? I have a few months until we need to do it, and I don’t want to deal with the arguments in the meantime.”

“Doctor-patient confidentiality,” she whispered, then got up to go tell Shay she’d found both of us.