Chapter 3: Pregnant.

I spend the rest of the morning making sure every member of the pack can get something to eat. 

I keep feeling the urge to vomit and as a new wave of nausea suddenly overcomes me I go upstairs to get one of the pills I keep in my bedside drawer. 

Instead, a ruby red lace pantie stares me back in the face, right at the door of our room.

Husky laughter, soft and erotic greets my ears, “Stop with the teasing, Nik and just fuck me.” 

Nikolai’s laughter runs through our mate bond like a skitter of alcohol in my bloodstream. I can almost see him smiling against her lips as he responds, “I have a meeting not long from now so i can’t, but that doesn’t mean one of us can’t get off.”

Nadia’s soft moans come next and a heavy wave of bile rushes up my throat. It burns like acid and I rush back down the hallway, dashing down the stairs.

I’m lucky to have gotten to one of the flower pots by the doors to the packhouse. I puke into it and some of the nausea retreats as I let it out but I know this isn’t the end of it. I can feel my stomach trying its best to dreg up more vomit as echoes of Nadia’s moans replay in my mind.

“Emery.”, I feel a pair of hands on my shoulder and I look up and see Greta, one of the nannies who works in the packhouse. She’s one of the older wolves, a mother of three with a daughter who’s probably my age. Her concern filled eyes roam my face for a second and in a soft but grim tone she speaks, “Follow me.”

I take a deep breath and i follow Greta but not before muttering to one of the guards on watch, “Take that flower pot out back and replace it.” 

Greta takes me to the omega quarters and there, I puke and cry. 

I’m glad I can use the puking as an excuse for the tears but I don't think that’s fooling anybody. I can see it in Greta’s eyes so when she places a hand on my shoulder again, I'm ready to tell her it’s nothing. That all this new Luna drama is just getting to me and my sister’s very sick.

Her question has nothing to do with any of that.

“Are you pregnant, Emery?”

I feel my heart threaten to stop.

Pregnant? I… No. That can’t be.

“You’re showing all the signs, and you know omegas have a kind of sixth sense for this thing.” I look up to see Greta smiling softly at me, probably in an attempt to make me feel better. 

I smile weakly in return because I don't know what to feel. I don’t know what I'm feeling.

I wash my mouth and thread my wet hands through my hair. Walking back to the living room, I pick my bag from where I hid it and head back out. The drive to the hospital doesn’t take long.

Speaking with Lyla takes even less time. 

I wring my fingers while I sit on the hospital bed, waiting for her to come back. The facts running around in my head haunt me while i wait.

I haven’t seen my period for a while now. When Lyla arrives, she confirms what’s been running through my head ever since I heard about it, “Congratulations, Emery. 

You’re pregnant!”

Lyla tries to sound excited because of me, I know she does.

She also knows if the way she had to be called in last night is an indicator of anything, then it’s that things aren’t so good between me and Nikolai right now.

I’m pregnant, at the worst possible time.

Lyla sits on the bed beside me and asks softly, “Do you want to hear the rest of the report?”

I hesitate but still i nod. She looks at the report while she speaks, “You’re two months gone, but the fetus isn’t stable. We suspect it might have something to do with your blood heritage.”

I groan internally as tears sting my eyes. Not this again. 

Will my blood stop me from having a wolf and having a child?

“You need to be extremely careful, Emery. Stay off any hard labor and avoid things that might lead to stress.”

I chuckle bitterly at that and Lyla places a hand behind my back, rubbing encouragingly as she speaks, “Don’t look so down. I’m sure Nikolai will be thrilled when you tell him about the baby.”

I don’t believe that but I don't tell Lyla. I only smile back and take a deep breath, thinking about what she said while I'm in the car driving back to the pack.

It’s obvious I've already lost whatever position I had in Nikolai’s heart. He has his Luna now and she’s more than I ever will be. I’m not even sure i ever occupied a space in his heart… Maybe I was just something to pass the time, and things to pass the time shouldn’t be getting pregnant.

The moment I come down from the car I'm ambushed by cooks and maids and repairmen who want to know where this goes or how this is made. I attend to all of that but only one thought rolls round and round in my mind.

What am I going to do?

I watch Nikolai and Nadia cuddle later at night in the garden while I stay back, hiding in the shadows. I hear them kissing. I see how he dotes on her, his brilliant blue eyes shining as he calls her name and she calls his.

I go to bed and wake to a day that’s like fresh hell.

“Emery?”

I look up from the luggage I have been ordered to move to see Nadia standing in the doorway, a cruel smile on her face. Two maids drop baskets full of clothes in one corner of the room and leave while Nadia gives the order, “I need you to wash these. 

I’m not sure if I can trust anyone with them and since you’ve always washed Nikolai’s clothes, you’re good enough to wash mine. I won’t be happy if I find out you used a machine. I like my things hand washed.”

Every cruel trick in the book is pulled out and thrown at me.

Fresh sauce from today’s dinner smeared on clothes she didn’t even wear. 

Refuse from the pack kitchens scattered all over the rooms in the packhouse. 

Unoccupied rooms suddenly need thorough cleaning, and I have to be the one to do it. It’s clear as day that Nadia is trying to make things difficult for me.

My ears perk when I hear a familiar deep scratchy voice ask, “Does she really have to clean every room in the packhouse?” My heart lightens as I hear Nikolai from behind the closed door. 

Nadia’s nectar sweet chuckles float through the hair and I hear the sound of a kiss before she responds, “I have great plans for this pack as it's Luna, and I need someone who can help me. The journey won’t be easy, I'm difficult to work with. 

If she can survive this, then she can survive anything.”

More kissing follows and I move farther down the hall, shoulders drooped and a heavy cloud of frustration hanging over me.

I’m picking up refuse tucked beneath the stairs when I sense Nikolai’s footfalls. I would know him in a room even if I was blind.

He barely spares me a glance. He holds eye contact for half a second then walks off.

Nadia turns up the heat after that.

I’m asked to retrieve a ring she lost. 

It’s in the incinerator. 

The only thing worse than the smell, heat, and ashes is knowing someone must have been forced in here before me to place the ring in the farthest reaches of this place.

She orders me to be hosed down before coming back into the packhouse.

A dozen guards watch. 

Though some leer at me while the water soaks through my dress and makes it cling to my skin, I see pity in the eyes of some, anger in others.

I’m not allowed to change into another dress. Instead I'm made to wait outside and dry naturally.

By the time I'm dry it’s dinner time and I'm needed because dinner doesn’t affect just me. It affects the whole packhouse so she can’t punish me with it.

I hear servants and maids mutter, “She can’t treat her that way.” 

“Emery isn’t just anybody, she’s the Alpha King’s fated mate.” 

“The Alphas fated mate can’t be treated like some slave.”

A stray tear rolls down my cheeks when I hear Nadia call for me again, “Emery!”

I wipe the tear away and catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror panel as I walk to respond to her. 

My eyes are bloodshot. My face is drawn and my hair is rough. I rake my fingers through it and blink back further tears as I approach her. The first thing I notice is the mess on the ground. 

Broken china.

There was no crash so it must have been manually broken, and into very tiny, probably sharp pieces. My heart starts pounding hard in my chest and a painful lump grows in my throat.

I look around to see there’s an audience. 

Maids. Guards. Some members of the packhouse and some of the wolves that came with Nadia’s envoy last night. I see mixed expressions on each of their faces. Most of the maids I'm close with have anger written boldly on theirs. The others have pity and Nadia sees it too. 

A flash of spite runs across her eyes as she looks at me and speaks.

“I lost a pin under that table. It’s very important to me. Kneel, look for it, and bring it back to me.”

“What’s going on here?”Nikolai's voice booms through the room and my body releases an involuntary shudder.

Nadia glares at me before turning to Nikolai with a smile curling around her lips, “I lost a pin. Emery is going to help me retrieve it.”

Nikolai’s gaze shifts from the floor to me, and then to Nadia before he asks. “Does she have to do so while kneeling on pieces of broken china?”

Nadia’s eyes harden as she replies bluntly, “It’s a very important pin.”

Every limb in my body is cold as the suspense numbs me. 

Nikolai won’t allow this. 

At this point, he should also see this is being done out of spite right? I’ve endured more humiliation today than I ever have in a lifetime. He…. he can’t allow this.

His footfalls, so known to me, alert me to the fact that he’s made his decision. Nikolai is walking away.

Nadia chuckles before turning to me, “What else are you waiting for?”

As I kneel, I can't help the tears that come. The sharp stings of from the broken shards and the smell of my blood make me want to cry more but I reduce them to mere trembling.

I won’t break down in front of her.

And a man who’d let me kneel on pieces of broken dishware doesn’t have to know I'm carrying his child.