Bonus Chapter

Bonus Chapter: Natalie's POV

I knew something was wrong when I didn't get my period for two months. I never had a smooth cycle so I wasn't troubled when they didn't happen the first time but their absence in the second consecutive month got me worried. My body had undergone certain changes I knew weren't normal and I was worrying myself to death, thinking about some kind of deadly disease that would kill me in a few months. Even though I knew that my immunity system was way better than a normal human's, I couldn't help but entertain such thoughts. 

I didn't tell anyone of my concerns as I didn't want anyone to worry because of my baseless concerns. Nonetheless, I booked the first possible appointment with the pack gynaecologist. I had prepared myself for everything, a tumour in my ovary, internal hemorrhaging of my uterus that would result in an immediate hysterectomy, or even breast cancer which would again lead to a complete mammectomy. But as I sat in front of the doctor and she explained my symptoms, I wanted to smash her framed doctorate on her head. 

Because to be pregnant, you have to have sex. With a boy. Which I stopped having after I discovered that I wasn't interested in them in any way. So, my being pregnant was impossible. I suddenly wished that Samantha was by my side and listening to this quack's diagnosis because she was the only one who knew I was more interested in a vagina than a pair of balls. I didn't exactly tell Samantha about my sexual preferences, she found out when she walked into my room while I was experimenting with this human girl over five months ago. I came clean to her and then, told her all about my attraction to a woman passing by, and as expected, she supported me and promised me that this small factor wouldn't change anything between us. I wanted to tell Zara about me being a lesbian by myself, primarily because I still exactly accepted the fact myself and I wanted to get used to it. So, as soon as I came to know I liked girls better than boys, I stopped fooling around with the male wolves and focused on the better and more sophisticated gender. 

"But that isn't possible. I haven't had sex in months," I replied straight-faced, not letting the doctor know how unsettling her words seemed to me. 

Her expression remained unchanged though as if she wasn't surprised by my answer. Then she slightly leaned forward, looked me in the eyes, and said, "Think harder, Natalie. Maybe you were at a party, got drunk, and didn't remember it the next day." She said it so casually if this kind of thing happened every day to a lot of women. Even if I were to forget getting in bed with a guy, I sure as hell wouldn't forget getting out of bed the next morning, and neither would he. "you're two months pregnant, so that gives you a strict timeline to think about, where you were, who you were with during that time."

Two months ago, life was drastically different from the present one because two months ago the alpha of our pack, Harper had found his mate, Zara my best friend in the whole world, and rejected her, on some ridiculous grounds only he was able to understand. Now, they were happy and so much in love, I got sick from just watching them from afar. Even as I think these words, I can't help but admit how happy I was when things worked out between Harper and Zara because now I and Samantha weren't bound by pack rules to keep our werewolf side from her. Now, we could look upon her as our Luna and I had no doubts that she would be up to the task even though she was a human and didn't know werewolves existed a few months ago. I was happy that she was happy, in love, and was being accepted by Harper and the pack. 

It was only when I woke up the next morning and lay in bed that I remembered what had happened two months ago at a pack party and bile rose in my throat. It felt like the memory was locked in my brain, far away from my reach, and being told yesterday that I was pregnant and my determination to unearth how it was possible had led me to remember it all. I had read about blackouts but had never experienced them; by accounts of several people, you perform some acts but don't have any recollection of your doing them and have no memory of the aftermath. This incident felt like a blackout, me sleeping with Harper because for two whole months, I didn't remember anything about it, not going to the party with Samantha, not going to confront Harper in his room about rejecting, not having sex with him, and certainly not walking out of the room next morning. I was sure I only went back to my home the next morning because I was pretty disgusted with the stench of my clothes from the night before. 

The very next thought that entered my mind was: If I forgot such an important detail, what else have I forgotten and can't seem to remember?  The very next second I couldn't breathe as different visions of being doing things, and committing acts came to mind and my heart thudded painfully as I realized that I couldn't probably remember them. Maybe instead of going to a gynecologist, I should have gone to a neurologist to check if I have some sort of brain cancer where I seem to have constant blackouts and not remember even having them. The thought scared me to death, it felt as if a third person was living in my body who had started gearing my body and my life while I had been forced to watch my life pass me from the sidelines. 

When all the tests came back negative, I felt I was going mad or my brain was cooking up some insane story and I couldn't make head or tails about my life. I felt I was being crazy because there was no possible way that this was happening to me. If I was indeed pregnant with Harper's baby, he deserved to be known. Maybe if I tell him, everything will be okay, the parental tests will come back negative and everything will be alright with the world. I wasn't even able to trust my memories but if I did have sex with Harper, I just might have ended my lifelong friendship with Zara and created a deep rift in their relationship, and I wasn't ready to lose either of them. I was spiraling out of control and felt like I was living in an alternate reality and the best decision I could think of was to tell my alpha, Harper about it all. 

Even though I knew I would sound crazy and hard to believe, I approached Harper in his alpha's office. I had specifically chosen this spot because the conversation I was about to have with him would be easier if I was talking to my alpha and not to my best friend's boyfriend. In the past two months, he had not given me a single sign of us having been intimate in any kind but again I couldn't be sure if he was experiencing something I was or if it was some classic player move, so I was uncertain where I stood with him which made me and my wolf all the antsier. 

Outrage. Disbelief. Shock. Horror. Rage. These are some of the emotions I could see reflected in Harper's face. He laughed at me when he first heard me recall my reason for being here, that I was pregnant with my baby. He said the one sentence I was ardently hoping he would say: "I don't think I ever had sex with you. Plus, I haven't exactly had sex with anyone since I was with Zara and Natalie. Even though I'm sure Amanda would like to boast otherwise, from the moment I saw her, I haven't been with anyone. I rejected her because of my demons but even though she accepted me months later, I was celibate all those months, so you can't possibly be pregnant because of me."

As I sat in front of Harper, my alpha who my wolf respected for his virtues and at the same time disliked because of the way he treated women, I found myself believing him. I and my wolf both believed that he was telling the truth, that he hadn't slept with anyone else since the moment he recognized Zara as his mate. Which made everything I was about to say so much harder. I braved my heart, stashed away my guilt, gathered my senses, stacked my facts, and told Harper everything that had been happening to me since the moment I found out I was pregnant. 

I was extremely pleased that he didn't remember anything about our night together because it proved that I wasn't going mad. So, I told him everything I could remember from that hateful party that would go on to change all of our lives. As I recounted word by word, I watched as Harper grew still and tense as time passed. The next second I realized that he was remembering everything too like I had pulled those deeply embedded memories from my brain. 

"I don't want you to tell this piece of fact to anyone right now, Natalie." Harper groaned out loud and looked stricken, shaken off his equilibrium. "How is it possible that I don't even remember that night, anything about that night? Right now, I don't know what to make of it. The best thing we can do is to solve it practically. God knows how I'm going to explain all of this to Zara because even I can't understand what you are saying even though I know it's true." He slumped back in his chair and I gulped back painful tears at the thought of standing in front of Zara and explaining how I slept with Harper, her boyfriend, and mate whom she loved. How am I ever going to explain what happened when I don't understand it myself?

"I want to gather all the facts first, Natalie, and then deal with the situation." He raised his hand to hold a pen and I watched as his hand trembled and he let it rest on the table. "I will phone the pack doctor and I want you to have the pregnancy test again and let me know as soon as possible. The tests will reach you the very next morning." He fumbled with the papers on his desk for a minute and I could see how rattled with this news he was and I couldn't blame him. I had a few days to get used to the idea and he hadn't. 

"In a few hours, Aiden's birthday party is going to start in the pack house and Zara is going to come here. It doesn't matter what the results of your tests are, I plan to tell her everything tomorrow and explain to her that it meant nothing to us, even though it is such a crap excuse!" Harper fisted his hair and let out an expletive. "My wolf doesn't understand what happened or how it even happened. I want you to go right now and have your tests and let me know as soon as possible." I nodded in agreement and went off towards the pack hospital. 

As he said, I got my pregnancy test results the very next morning and I simultaneously messaged him the result. What I hadn't expected was for Zara to pick up his phone or read his messages. I could only imagine the kind of things that must be rushing through her mind, so I rushed through the pack house as fast as I possibly could and barged into Harper's room, hoping to contain the drama and resolve the issue. I didn't know at that time that nothing I could have done at that moment would have mattered to Zara and my gut clenched as I realized that I might have lost her forever. 

The days that followed were horrible. None of us could come to terms with me being pregnant with Harper's child, least of all me. I had thought about aborting the child because I wasn't sure I was up to the task of being a mother right now and surely a child deserved a better mother than the one I could be right now but Zara told all of us how the baby inside me was meant to be the next prodigal alpha and I felt myself break a little. I wasn't ready to be a mother to a child when I hadn't planned the pregnancy, didn't exactly like the father, and was secretly hoping for my mate to barge into my life and whisk me away in romance. 

Everything turned chaotic the moment Zara left to be away from Harper, me, and all the rest of us who could remind her of our betrayal. Did it count as a betrayal though when we hardly understood it ourselves? My heart hurt and my wolf whimpered at the possibility of never talking to Zara again, of never being close to her again because I loved her like I lived my sister. 

In her absence, I watched Harper deteriorate under the pack's pressure his want, and his helpless situation for Zara. I watched as he struggled every day, wanting to go after her, to find her and bring her back home. I watched him rule the pack even though I could see all he wanted to do was be with his mate. 

He had tried to leave even though a huge part of his being must have revolted against leaving all his responsibilities behind. It was then that Harper had gotten mercilessly shot down by an arrow laced with wolfsbane in his shoulder. He spent several weeks in the hospital and something in me, the child growing inside me pushed me to visit him in the hospital and make sure that he was alive. While I was sitting, Harper had groggily opened his green eyes and after making casual conversation for a few strained seconds asked me if I loved him. I had almost laughed out loud at the thought. If the most important people in life knew that I was more interested in Zara than in Harper, maybe all this drama and feelings of betrayal and loss and longing would have never existed. It was a sick thought, meant more to torment myself than to do any real justice to the universe. Not willing this chance to slip away, I looked him in the eyes and replied as sincerely as possible: "Harper, I am a lesbian." His eyes had widened and his shoulders slumped in relief. That made me feel good, I wanted to help in any way I could, even if it meant alleviating his mental stress by assuring him, I wasn't planning to create more rifts between him and Zara.  

I drifted away in the shadows because no pack member wanted to affiliate themselves with me. Why would they? I had single-handedly driven away from the rightful Luna and indirectly tortured their beloved alpha. I wanted to scream in their faces and scream and scream that I didn't want all this. It all just seemed so exhausting, living seemed so exhausting. I couldn't help but think about how my mate would react to being pregnant when my fellow pack members reacted like this. 

It was amid horror and anxiety that I finally gave birth to Mason, my beautiful baby boy, who at one point I had thought was worse than having terminal cancer. Even before I saw his little face, I knew that I would love him, more than anyone else in the world and I probably still do. 

After Mason's birth, I and Harper had formed a tenuous friendship where we could talk about one of the two things we had in common, our son. Even after all this time, it still felt weird to say that. In the early weeks, all of Mason's care was dependent on me and we rarely saw his father as he was pretty busy fighting the rogues. My position as the Luna of the pack was perfunctory and so my main focus during those days was looking after my son which I didn't mind because, in such a short time, he had become my world. 

So, imagine my surprise when Harper asked me to accompany him as the pack's Luna to the hostage exchange meeting. I knew that Zara had been kidnapped by the rogues and the fact was taking its toll on Harper as well as this Ethan guy Zara had come back home with. I hadn't interacted much with Ethan but he seemed like a nice guy and had pretty strong protective instincts towards Zara but as someone who has known her for a long time, he wasn't someone who I would associate Zara with. My wolf seemed unsettled by the possibility of Zara being in a relationship with Ethan but that could also be due to the loss of his true Luna. 

Some people may find it hard to believe, considering the way we parted, I had been worried sick about Zara. We all were and not because our wolves considered her as our true Luna. Despite this past year's upheaval in our lives because of the whims of power higher than us, we had been drifting drastically apart but it didn't mean we stopped caring about each other. Zara wouldn't have been this hurt if she didn't care this much about me or Harper. You can only hurt the people you love and naturally, I wanted to do anything in my power to make sure Zara returns home safe. 

Naturally, I had gone to the meeting hoping to play the part of the Luna as best as I possibly could but I should have understood nothing in my life would ever be as simple as that. As soon as I got down from the armored vehicle, I could feel my wolf prancing in my head, demanding my attention. My mind tugged me this way and that and my heart beat at a furious pace. I had an inkling of what was going to happen but I wasn't sure I wanted it to happen right then. Another second I wasn't sure what was even happening; my brain was maybe malfunctioning because of the added stress of attending this meeting. 

I completely froze when the intoxicating scent of raspberries reached me. I felt my wolf go crazy and I resisted the temptation to run around and check the source of the scent. Imagine my disappointment when I locked in with the most beautiful girl, I had ever seen standing on the other side of the hostage exchange, on the side of the rogues. I had deliberately slipped into the mind link to Harper that I had found my mate. I watched as the girl helped Aaron get inside the car and disappear from view. I turned around, not knowing what to make of everything, and ignored Harper's attempts at making conversation the whole way. 

It may sound cynical but after I had spotted my mate on the opposite side of the hostage exchange, I had left all hopes of us ever coming together and living like mates were destined to be. I had forced myself to resign to the fact that I may not get the happy ending that I wanted but may have to remain single till I mourned the loss of my mate, whom I would never get the chance to know and love because there was no way someone so cruel would ever be allowed to live in the pack, much less be a guardian to the next alpha.  

It was silly thinking on my part obviously because even though there were a lot of obstacles, I finally did get my happy ending. I smile wistfully and glance towards the petit figure sleeping beside me in bed. I scoot over to her plant a kiss on Addison's bare shoulder and hear her smile in the darkness. All was right in my world.