Chapter 3

I opened my eyes in a sterile white room and the first splash of colour I saw was a mop of sandy blonde hair.

“Jackson –“ I croaked, my throat burning as I did.

“Luna, you are awake.” The owner of the mop of sandy blonde hair similar to my mate’s gave me an awkward smile. The woman beside him mirrored his smile. “I am Doctor Fabian. We have met before, if you remember,” he said.

“My mate?” I looked around the room that was empty save for the doctor and nurse giving me awkward smiles.

“We’ve contacted the Alpha. He will be here as soon as he can,” the doctor assured me. “We contacted him a few hours ago so he should be here soon,” he added.

“How long was I out?” I asked.

“About four hours now. You seem to be suffering from both fatigue and food poisoning. May I ask what you have eaten in the past twenty-four hours? Can you remember? Has there been any change in your diet?” I avoided his gaze and swallowed.

Heat crept up my neck as I thought back to the previous day. My hands curled at my side as if to squash my mortification. How could I tell a doctor the shenanigans I engaged in yesterday? How would he look at me if he knew I drank the blood of an animal I killed myself? That may not even be the cause of my food poisoning considering the concoctions I had been taking for the past week.

“I’ve just been taking this and that,” I muttered in a small voice.

“I need you to be a bit more specific, please,” the doctor insisted so with a small voice and gritted teeth, I confessed all the mindless things I had done in the past week.

I chanced a glance at the doctor when I finished speaking and met an expressionless face but the nurse was not as skilled as he was in maintaining a blank face. Her lips were rounded and her eyes conveyed incredulity that made me redden further.  

After my confession, the doctor placed me on watch for the next forty-eight hours. Since I did not know what went into the concoctions I had taken, there was a chance some of the substances were dangerous so I had to be monitored.

When the doctor left, I scrolled through my phone while waiting for a call or text from my mate. A part of me knew he would not come but the other part of me – the bigger part of me that was in love with him, the part that still believed our relationship was salvageable – waited for him to arrive with worry painted on his face.

The first twenty-four hours passed with me hooked on drips and my bedside empty. No one called. No one texted and no one came to see me. I never felt more alone in my life than I did then. I was not an orphan. I had a family, a mate, a best friend, a pack, yet I lived like someone who was all alone in the world.

To distract myself from my misery, I scrolled through social media. As I scrolled, I stumbled upon a post about Alpha Valens and shuddered. He had taken over yet another pack and the picture underneath the post made me wince. If murderous had a poster image, it would be of the prince, a man often described as a shadow of evil. Sometimes, I doubted he was real. How could one man continually conquer so many packs in such a short time without anyone stopping him? It didn’t help that there were only two or three pictures of him on the web and all the pictures looked doctored to make him look as ferocious as possible.

The more I scrolled, the more posts of the cursed prince I saw. No one knew how a curse supposed to have been broken resurfaced in the prince – maybe the royal family knew but they kept their lips tightly sealed about the prince’s curse.

I touched my stomach.

“Aren’t you cursed, yourself?” I muttered. “Everyone says everything is fine, still, there’s no baby,” I laughed with no joy.

The next day, I was free to leave the hospital. Although I was grateful to be well again, I felt dread pool in my guts as I got into my car. The last forty-eight hours passed with relative peace. No one called to check on me but no one called to insult me either. I didn’t have to deal with the mocking or sympathetic looks of the pack members nor did I have to deal with the disgust in my mate’s eyes.

I drove myself back home in a hospital gown, a grim smile on my lips and a tightness in my chest. Going back to the real world filled me with anxiety. I didn’t know what to say to Jackson anymore. Should I confront him about abandoning me in the hospital? Should I say nothing to him? How long would I have to deal with his building hatred?

‘Leave him,’ a voice whispered to me and I pressed my lips together.

What would life without my mate be like? I could not think of who I was outside of Jackson’s Luna. If I broke our flimsy mate bond, I would no longer be the Luna of Blood Moon pack. Who then would I be?

I sat in my car for over twenty minutes after I pulled up at our home. My entire body felt too heavy to exit the car. A place which used to fill me with so much pride and joy now filled me with dread and anxiety as I stared at it.

Pushing my tired legs, I got out of the car and dragged myself to the house. The closer I got to the door, the faster my heart beat. I put in my keys to open the front door but met it unlocked. Why was Jackson home so early? My heart raced faster.

 Pushing the door open like a criminal breaking in, I entered my home with shaky hands and feet, my breath hitching.

As an omega, I did not have the sharpest senses but I perceived an overwhelmingly foul odour as soon as I opened the door to the house. It took all of my willpower to drag myself up the stairs to our room and the closer I got to the room, the faster my heart beat and the harder it got to breathe.  

My chest constricted when the obscene sounds floated into my ears. The door to my room – the room I shared with my mate – was slightly ajar and the sound and scent assailing my senses meant only one thing but I found it impossible to believe. I did not want to believe.

I peeked into the room before pushing the door ajar and stepping inside. My blood boiled. My hands were clenched at my side. My teeth gnashed hard against each other but when I opened my mouth, I could only make a small sound.

“Oh,” I muttered, the sound getting lost in the loud moans coming from my sister.

She noticed me first. Her eyes caught mine and the side of her lips rose in a smirk before she scrunched up her face and let out a loud moan. It sounded like a drowning dog.

“Yes – Ahh – yes – just like that – just like that, Jackie!” She moaned, wrapping her legs around my mate’s waist. My mate groaned, moving his hips faster as he pumped into my sister and my senses returned.

“What is this?” I found my voice and I shouted, feeling a rush of blood in my head. Tears blurred my vision but I blinked furiously.

“Ah – Argh!” Irene exclaimed, pushing Jackson away and scrambling for the covers as if she had just noticed my presence. My mate turned, caught my gaze and pursed his lips.

“Can you wait outside?” He said with a sigh as if I was the one defiling our marriage bed. He covered Irene like she was the most precious gift in the world while I remained motionless at the entrance.

“Chantelle!” He snapped when my legs refused to move and they unglued themselves from the ground. I ran from the room, stumbling my way down the stairs with blurred vision.

He was cheating on me.

It was something I never considered but it made sense. He already checked out of our relationship. I was the fool who kept striving to make things better. He found someone else already – my stepsister even!

Janet’s words from two days ago resounded in my head and I almost laughed through the tears pouring down my face and soaking my hospital gown. She knew about this. She knew her brother was cheating on me with my stepsister that’s why she warned me to conceive fast; before she did.

Who else knew?

I felt like a fool. All the signs were there. He stopped touching me and started looking at me like a piece of dog crap underneath his shoes but I refused to see the signs. I focused all my attention on building a family with him while he screwed my sister in our home, on our marriage bed which I excitedly picked out all those years ago.

“Such a fool,” I whispered, rocking myself back and forth in my seat. “Such a fool, Chantelle. Such a fool!”

“Chantelle, we need to talk.” My mate came down the stairs with my sister clad in his shirt.

“How long?” The words spilt from my lips.

“Do you really want to know?” He asked.

“You fucking bastard! How long have you been screwing my sister!” I screamed and the little bitch huddled into his side.

“Don’t – Don’t yell, Channy. Don’t scare the baby,” she mumbled, tears in her eyes as she cradled her stomach. I noticed the tiny bump and my heart sank to the ground.

“W – What?” I whispered, my jaw slackening.