AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“But what you’re going to share is going to be big, right?” he asks as he stands from the bed. He puts the bag over his shoulder and bends down to lift our daughter into his arms.
“Yes. I know Morgan, the woman in the photo,” I say, and he nods once as he gets Phoebe settled. “Kane, Seb, listen to me, we need to discuss this.” He cocks his head, waiting. “She’s not dead. Morgan’s not dead. I know her, and she’s alive.”
He freezes, and I can see his body tense up as he processes my words. I wish I could feel what he could because the expressions fly across his face too quickly for me to decipher. He gradually releases his breath and the tension he was carrying, letting my words wash over him.
He turns around fully, giving me a piercing stare with hazel eyes. “Later.”
And then he breezes out of the room with Phoebe in tow, completely compartmentalising the news I’ve shared. With a heavy sigh, I walk over to the big photo board and see so many photos spread out. She’s in numerous different ones, her age varying, but they’re always happy.
I pull another one down off the board, seeing my guys once more, but this time, there’s two other boys in the photo that I recognise just as easily. Ryan and Ethan are on either side of my mates, all six of them beaming at the camera.
I don’t know which is Ryan and which is Ethan, but I don’t think it truly matters.
“What happened to you all,” I whisper, tracing the boys in the photo, seeing their genuine happiness. The photo cuts off on the side, but the tinges of blonde hair belonging to another are clear to see. A pit forms in my stomach when I see it because I know exactly what happened.
Morgan. Her “death” happened, and it destroyed them all.
“Maia, it really shouldn’t take you this long to walk down the stairs. I know you’re slow, but we’re all waiting for you,” Ben shouts from the bottom of the stairs, and I roll my eyes, and pin the photo back up on the board. Casting a longing glance at the rest of the wall, and the secrets it may contain, I turn and head down the stairs to join the others.
Phoebe is in the back of the car with Iris and Seb in the front seats, and I’m hustled into the back. Iris surprisingly chats away to me. I don’t know what’s changed in her behaviour or if she’s only playing nice because Seb has forced her to, but it unsettles me more than what I’ve learnt about her parents.
All I can recall every time she talks is the vicious and nasty words she said about me, my daughter, and Ryan.
As she chats about the people we’re going to meet, and who she likes and who she doesn’t, it goes in one ear and out the other.
Gossip about people I don’t know means nothing to me.
Not when my head is full of important secrets.
***
“She’s gorgeous,” Cameron murmurs, twirling her long, dirty blonde hair around her fingers, as she looks down at Phoebe with a warm smile. “How are you finding being a mum?”
I grimace but feel my lips quirk up into a smile anyway. “Well, the werewolf world has been a huge shock, but parenting itself is amazing. She makes it so easy.”
She grins at me and nods. “I luckily met my mates before we had babies, so I didn’t have as big of a reality shock as you did, but, Artemis, mine were not easy. Terrors, the lot of them.”
“But you’re a wolf now, right?” I ask. She hasn’t outright said, but she’s got children, so I’m sort of making the assumption.
She nods. “We agreed I would turn, and I took their bite during our first time. All of us wanted children.” Cameron says it like having children was the reason she decided to turn, as if it was some foregone conclusion.
I frown. “Why do children make a difference in it?”
“It’s just the safer way. A werewolf baby is strong, and it would make the pregnancy really difficult for both the human and the pup,” she says, smiling at me as if this is all just standard. “It’s a blessing that both you and Phoebe were healthy.”
I nod, keeping a tight smile in place. Phoebe and I were healthy. There were no real issues with the pregnancy. My morning sickness was rough for the first few months but settled in the second trimester. There were no complications or true risk factors, despite the fact that everyone says there should have been.
Well, you know, other than the fact that, clearly, she was a werewolf.
Cameron is really lovely, and I’m very glad she was the first to approach me once we arrived at the pack gathering. Not only has she kept me company, but she’s also mostly kept everyone else away. There’s been no judgement from her, no rudeness, just true happiness that her Alphas have found their mate.
She’s not been weird around Phoebe, unlike a lot of the people I’ve met so far, and has a pleasant aura surrounding her. She’s just, overall, really nice.
Cameron is in her late thirties and very chatty, but she seems to mean well. She’s got one set of ten-year-old twin boys, and an eight-year-old girl who isn’t a wolf. Not that I think it matters, but she made that distinction clear when telling me about her kids.
I know without a doubt I’d love a human-born female just as much as a werewolf one. Phoebe is special, but any other children we have would be just as loved and just as special.
Children are a blessing. No matter what.
