Lycan Prince’s Secret Baby (Moonlit Forbidden Love #1)

Chapter 3

Leah

Only when the Moonlight patrol brought me back to my cabin did the guard release his iron grip. I knew I’d have finger-shaped bruises, but considering how hopeless I’d felt when I was dragged into the council, I counted myself lucky to escape with that injury alone.

“Be quick about it,” the soldier instructed tersely.

I didn’t need to be told twice; I hurried into the rickety cabin.

Despite having witnessed Kyle order treatment for Mary, the drumbeat of my heart echoed through me. I refused to believe it until I saw such a miracle with my own eyes.

As I crossed the threshold, my gaze locked onto the neat figure of Healer Maria in the flickering lantern light. The minty scent wafting through the air told me she was administering the same remedy I’d intended to give Mary earlier. The healer’s movements were poised and practiced, and her hands were steady as she worked. The fresh pomenta was mixed with a hint of citrus. My herbalist knowledge kicked in. I recognized the citrus as Lemonwood, known for its anti-microbial properties and often used to bolster the immune system. The tart aroma banished the odors of sweat and sickness.

A breath rushed out of me. I pressed my back against the rough wall, feeling as if my lungs were working at half their capacity. Mary was getting medicine. It seemed like such a momentous victory, and I allowed myself a moment of stillness.

But that silence erupted as my other two packmates, who shared our cabin, spotted me. “Leah!” they cried in unison.

Despite everything that had happened tonight, the corners of my lips lifted as both Lucy and Phoebe made a beeline for me.

“We were so worried,” Phoebe exclaimed. Her soft brown eyes drank me in, and her chestnut curls tumbled over her shoulders. Lucy beamed at me, nearly squealing. She was the youngest of us, only seventeen—the baby of our cabin. Her delicate frame and porcelain skin accentuated her youth.

Before they could reach me, Healer Maria snapped, “Silence! I’m trying to work.”

Lucy halted as if she’d run into a brick wall. Phoebe’s eyes widened, and she settled for patting my arm—the sore one. I fought back a grimace, but she noticed it all the same. Her gaze narrowed as she inspected me for other signs of mistreatment.

My friends retreated to their respective beds, taking the healer’s rebuke to heart. Like me, they were on edge, worried that if we so much as breathed too loudly, the healer would withdraw her precious care.

My bed was beside Mary’s. I stole a glance at my friend as I removed the few belongings from under my bed. I knew both Phoebe and Lucy’s attention was on me, but I walked on eggshells with the healer present. Thankfully, my friends took their cue from me and remained silent.

I had nothing to transport my belongings, so I used the bed sheet to bundle my clothes and meager possessions.

The healer’s footsteps sounded behind me, and my heart hammered as I realized she was leaving. I blurted out, “Healer Maria, will Mary be all right?”

She stopped and turned to look at me. Her hazel eyes swept over the bundle of my belongings in my arms. “Only Igaluk can know such things,” she said, and with that, she was out the door.

Her statement, devoid of warmth, had my throat tightening. I understood that she was a Moonlight—and her icy detachment was due to the bitter past between our packs—but surely the heart of a healer should be more compassionate? A pang of longing shot through me as I thought of my mother, who’d healed our pack with such love and care.

She’d been so passionate about herbalism that she’d studied it at the Silver Moon Pack’s University here in northern Alaska. While our lands were some of the most southern packlands, the Silver Moons lived in a mountainous region far to the north. The cold and snow made living conditions there some of the harshest, but some of the rarest herbs and minerals only existed within the ice. My mom had loved nothing better than to reminisce about her days spent there and the unique flora of the Silver Moon lands.

“What’s going on, Leah?” Lucy’s worried voice brought me back from my reverie. Her hazel eyes were wide with concern, and her youthful face was pale.

I knew the soldiers outside were unlikely to grant me much more time. If they knew how little I had to pack, they would have already marched me away.

“The patrol caught me harvesting the pomenta,” I explained.

“We figured,” Phoebe said seriously. “When the healer showed up, we knew you must have been caught.” There was a question in her tone. Why had my capture resulted in Mary getting treatment? After all, the Moonlights didn’t give a damn about us.

Except for Kyle.

My pulse spiked as I thought of the tall, muscular shifter: jet-black hair framing a face that was both handsome and fierce. But it was the feeling I’d experienced when our eyes met that sparked through me. Remembering the frisson of energy made me feel light-headed. A small, ridiculous part of me wondered whether he’d issued the order for Blood Moons to be treated because of how he felt about me .

I pushed the thought away.

Instead, I grasped onto the one thing he’d said in the council that explained his decision.

“The council has decreed that from now on, Blood Moons will be given treatment when they are ill. They talked about how it was a more cost-effective strategy for a healthy workforce.”

Phoebe’s forehead wrinkled. “Still sounds too bloody enlightened for the Moonlight Council.”

“There was a new member on the council,” I explained. I swallowed the lump in my throat. “The Alpha heir.”

Phoebe’s face lengthened in shock. “Leah,” she gasped, her hands covering her mouth. “You mean Kyle?”

Hearing his name squeaked with such dread made my head swim.

“But Kyle hates Blood Moons,” Phoebe said, distress creasing her olive skin as she tried to make sense of the situation.

Like me, they’d heard the whispers about how the Alpha heir hated us. My stomach twisted as I wondered why he’d ordered me to serve him.

My wolf rose within me. Because he wants us close.

I wrestled her down, quashing such a ridiculous interpretation of his actions.

“He’s overseeing my punishment for stealing,” I explained. “I’m to serve as his personal maid.”

“Oh, Leah, I’m sorry.” Lucy grimaced.

“Be careful, Leah,” Phoebe cautioned. “He’s got more reason to hate us than the rest of these Moonlights put together.”

I nodded, knowing she was talking about the death of Kyle’s mother on our lands during peace negotiations—the catalyst for the war between our packs.

Yet, Phoebe’s worried gaze lingered on me. “Did he do that to you?” She stared at my arm.

I realized she’d noticed my flinch earlier when she’d touched the area the guard had gripped. I shook my head. “One of the guards.”

Something deep within me rose up, wanting to defend Kyle. I wanted to say that he wouldn’t hurt me. But my cheeks flushed as I buried the truth from my friends; I couldn’t tell them that Kyle was my fated mate.

After all, I didn’t understand why he’d decided to make me his personal maid. The memory of his voice from the council echoed in my mind. “If she’s a threat, it’s better that I keep an eye on her, isn’t it?” His expression had been taut and serious, and his gaze was heavy with mistrust. Yet I had sensed something deeper beneath the surface—an undeniable heat of attraction that had coursed between us.

The forceful pull tethering us had almost washed away all thought of how I had been on trial before the council. My throat tightened. I’d heard stories about the moon goddess surfacing within us shifters when we found our mate. But nothing had prepared me for the overwhelming sensation flooding me. Had what Kyle felt been as intense? Trepidation churned within me. How would we survive being under the same roof while grappling with these emotions? For a moment, I wavered on whether to share more with my friends, but the guards barged in. “Time’s up.”

I managed to hug Phoebe and Lucy goodbye before the guards thought it prudent to manhandle me again. My friends promised to find a way to send word about Mary’s condition, and then I was once again escorted through the night.

When I arrived at Kyle’s house—a neat, two-story concrete cabin—my heart zipped with a mixture of panic and unwelcome excitement. I couldn’t discern if I was more worried about seeing that strained expression on Kyle’s face again or feeling the fire simmering in his eyes. My chest deflated when Mark opened the front door.

Mark was serious but civil as he instructed me on my duties. “Kyle expects you to be up at 6 a.m. every morning to cook breakfast. You’ll have a list of chores left for you on the counter.”

His cool, professional tone was a welcome change to the usual barked orders I’d received from the Moonlights in the kitchens.

Mark led me up to the attic. I was surprised by the warmth of the small bedroom he left me in. It had a bed, a chest of drawers, and a washbasin. Gone was the damp, drafty shack I was accustomed to. He left me to unpack and rest for what little remained of the night.

I unpacked my meager possessions—clothes, a worn-out book, and a dog-eared photograph of my parents and me. Fragments of a life that seemed so distant now. My fingers grazed the worn spine of my book on herbal remedies and ancient pack lore passed down to me from my mother. Despite the warmth and cleanliness of the space, I folded my arms around myself, yearning to be back in our cabin, watching over Mary.

Forcing myself to make the best of this new situation, I unpacked. I put my jeans, linen shirts, vest tops, underwear, and gray overalls away. Most of my personal clothing had worn out in the three years we’d been enslaved. The Moonlights issued us new overalls whenever we needed replacements. Consequently, I only had a couple of linen shirts and jeans left.

A glimmer of hope unfurled in my chest as I undressed and slipped into the soft sheets of my new bed. Perhaps tomorrow, once I’d completed all the chores Kyle assigned me, I’d have more opportunity to wear my own clothes. I envisioned curling up on the bed, dressed in jeans and a shirt, reading as if I were back before the war—before my parents were gone and I was safe.

Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad.

Yet, the morning brought my first encounter with Kyle, and any secret belief I had that his compassion toward us Blood Moons had been influenced by his feelings for me was instantly shattered. His demeanor was as frigid as our brutal Alaskan winters.

Unlike in the council, he refused to make eye contact with me. As Kyle ground out his orders in a tone as harsh as the Moonlight supervisors I’d worked with back in the kitchens, hope died in my chest.

“I expect my breakfast served at 6:30 sharp,” Kyle ordered. “Lunch at 13:00 and dinner at 19:00. You will ensure it’s on the table before I arrive.”

“I understand,” I replied, battling the painful realization that I was nothing more than a slave to him.

After that first meeting, Kyle made sure my instructions were left for me in written form or relayed indirectly through his assistant. The endless chores consumed my days, yet no matter how hard I worked, it felt as if nothing was ever good enough. Every time I completed something, an almost identical list appeared the next day: clean the fridge, scrub the oven, dig over the vegetable patch, chop the firewood, and much more.

Still, my wolf yearned for Kyle, seeming to treat his contempt as a personal challenge. Each time he was close, my wolf’s spirit rose instinctively. One afternoon, as I descended the stairs with the vacuum in tow, my hips swayed exaggeratedly. On reaching the bottom, I stripped down to my vest top, slinging my shirt over the railing. I blinked confusedly, realizing I wasn’t even hot. The air, which was filled with the first hint of Fall, had a chill to it. I felt my arms pebbling with goosebumps, and my nipples went hard through the thin fabric of my vest.

It was only then I realized Kyle had emerged from his study. He stood frozen—his vibrant eyes locked onto me, smoldering with intensity. His jaw tightened, and a mix of surprise and something dangerously close to longing flickered across his features before he turned away, slamming the office door behind him.

My wolf basked as if to say, “Some reaction’s better than none . ”

Bad wolf. Bad.

Still, nothing I did seemed to deter my wolf from rising up and seeking the connection she sensed we both craved. One evening, as I approached to clear Kyle’s plate, my usually steady feet tripped. I teetered forward, and just as I was about to fall, Kyle leaped up, grasping me—one hand on my waist, the other pressed to the small of my back. He was so close I could feel the heat radiating from his body.

With our height difference, my eyeline was level with his chest. And I couldn't help noticing the way the material of his shirt strained across his chest with each of his breaths. At that moment, time became suspended, the world faded, and our surroundings melted away. We were caught in a thrall. My heart thundered wildly, and I looked up to see my excitement mirrored in his emerald stare.

But then, Kyle jumped away as if I were Devil’s Club and had stung him.

A chilling look cloaked his face. “Let me make one thing clear: I loathe Blood Moons. I could never be with one. Not in a million years.” His words burrowed into my heart like thorns, and I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. The longer he regarded me, the more poisonous his look became. Never mind Devil’s Club; to him, I might as well be Hemlock or Deadly Nightshade.

His voice dropped low, thick with warning, “Do your job to my satisfaction, or I will be forced to punish you severely.”

He stalked out of the room, his footsteps heavy. My heart tripped over itself. Shame washed over me as I felt myself drowning in this desperate need. Each of his words had been coated in hatred, and I shouldn’t be feeling this way about anyone who spoke to me like that. Nausea churned in the pit of my stomach.

I reminded myself that I was a slave—one whom the moon goddess had seen fit to chain to this man.Kyle’s pack had already made my people and me slaves. Igaluk giving me to Kyle as a fated mate felt as if I were being enslaved all over again. What had I done for Igaluk to curse me like this?

As the word curse lingered in my head, my thoughts drifted to tales I’d heard as a kid. Now and then, whispers about the Black Moon Pack had reached us here in southern Alaska. It was rumored that they worked with dark witches. The Black Moon lands lay farther west, consisting of swamps and wastelands. But as I brooded on my fate, I couldn’t help feeling as if I’d wandered into their lands and caught the evil eye of a dark witch.

After these run-ins with Kyle, I tried to maintain my distance and satisfy his exacting demands by upping my game in the cooking department. After all, I’d worked in the kitchens for the last three years and knew how to prepare a killer steak.

So, despite my growing hunger, I crafted each dish with extra care. I hadn’t tasted a complete meal in ages; even as my body begged for sustenance, I denied it, convincing myself I could win Kyle over through my culinary skills. Yet, even that failed to impress him. Day after day, without fail, he left a sizable portion of meat untouched for me to dispose of.

At first, I worried that I was dishing up too much, but I’d served a lot of male Moonlights while cooking in the kitchens, and what he was eating wasn’t much for a male shifter. I continued to blame my cooking skills, which had been honed in enslavement. Perhaps my skills weren’t refined enough to satisfy his discerning palate. But as time wore on, a nagging suspicion bloomed in my chest. Was Kyle, who loathed me, who said he could never be with me in a million years intentionally leaving food for me?