The entire pack had turned upside down in the two days she had been away. Ava returned to meet so many chairs that she thought that there had been a re-emergence of the rogue problem.
“Rhea tried to kill Cynthia and Ivy? Why would she do that?”
“She is still being interrogated but Ivy testified that Rhea is the heir to the Silverwolf pack that you and Adrian have been searching for.”
Ava reeled back in shock. She could never have seen that one coming. How far back had she been planning this?
“How is Cynthia?”
“I have no idea. Calvin is still with her at the pack hospital. She entered surgery an hour ago. They might need to deliver the child now if they still can without killing it. She can’t heal from the silver wound without her wolf’s strength.”
Ava’s legs shook with weakness. Goddess, Cynthia couldn’t lose her child at this time. Not like this. How could she not have noticed that Rhea was Rita’s daughter? Hadn’t she thought once upon a time about how her eyes were eerily similar to Gilbert’s? She had discounted her suspicions and now Cynthia’s life was on the line.
Felicity. She had known. Had given Rhea to them.
“This is my fault.” Ava’s voice broke.
“I brought her here. Into our home.”
“Sis, you can’t blame yourself for that.” Alex tried to placate her. But she could. And she would take responsibility for her actions.
“Alex, I need you to do something for me.”
“Sure what?”
“You will move to the Silverwolf pack with Zinora in mine and Adrian’s stead… your first act there will be to execute Felicity Randall.”
***
When Cynthia opened her eyes, she saw Calvin.
Was she dreaming? It didn’t feel like a dream, real yet weak at the edges. The pain in her midsection felt very real. Her midsection.
She touched her board flat belly.
“My baby?”
Had she lost– no it was not possible. She would feel it. Something like that would have altered her entire state of being. There was no way her child would have passed on without her feeling it deep in her veins.
“The baby is fine. They had to do emergency surgery to save both of you. You should be able to hold him in twenty-four hours.”
“Him?” Her eyes teared up. “It’s a boy?”
Calvin nodded and took her hand pressing a kiss on it.
“Yeah, and he is stunning just like you.”
Cynthia smiled at him. She would have smiled anyways. She now had a child, a legacy that she would leave behind in this world. A son. She wasn’t even sure if she would make a great mom but she would try. She would give it her all. Give any sacrifice needed to ensure that her child had a happy life.
But she smiled wider because Calvin was here. Next to her, holding her hand and wait g for her to wake up. Telling her that she was ‘stunning’. He was always saying one sweet thing or the other.
“I can’t tell you how happy I am that I got to see your smile again. I was so scared that I would lose you. So scared that the last memory we would have of each other would be me picking Rhea over you.”
Cynthia remembered how Rhea had stabbed her and then gone after Ivy.
“Was Ivy also hurt?”
“No,” Calvin shook his head. “I got there in time. Not that she needed my help anyway, that she-wolf is vicious.”
Cynthia laughed. “That she is. I thought I saw you there for a moment but I thought it was a dream like always.”
“Like always?”
Cynthia paused. She didn’t know what Calvin knew. Didn’t know if he knew about his mate being a fraud among other things.
Or worse if he did but was already too attached to her to care. They had been together for a month, they had probably done all sorts of things together.
The thought of that made her chest ache. She refused to flirt with him if he had already chosen Rhea.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. She is… she still matters to you after all.”
Cynthia looked away afraid of what she would see in his eyes.
“Cynthia. I know she isn’t my real mate. She confessed to it. Though it was more of screams mixed with a lot of other insults.”
Cynthia looked at him unwilling to nurture false hope.
“So?”
Calvin leaned in and kissed her. Her eyes fell shut and she pulled him closer. Way closer than she could before due to the pregnancy.
His kiss was soft and unhurried, the hospital fading away in the aftermath until all she could feel was him. She realized something as he kissed her at that moment.
Before him, she had known nothing about love.
She couldn’t state the exact moment things had changed from her using him to being unable to stop thinking about him. Thinking about his laughter, his smile, his innocent outlook on life, and his fierceness to protect the people he loved.
It was nothing like what she had with Dorian. It wasn’t manipulative, or filled with fear and uncertainty at Dorian’s mood swings. The way he could be so caring sometimes and so violent at others. So much so that she endured the bad times thinking that love wasn’t without sacrifice and that she had to hurt so that the times of love and affection mattered more.
She felt because Dorian understood her dark tendencies the least she could do was be able to take his. He was the first man she had known who had shown her complete love despite knowing everything about her.
And because he was special, he made her feel special that he had chosen her out of the plethora of female wolves that threw themselves at him on a steady basis.
But now she knew that things could be different. And how she hungered for a different kind of love that built instead of tearing down. She knew that if she chose Calvin there would be no going back. She might even have to halt her plans to kill Ava and Adrian.
The thought was so scary that she almost reconsidered but her crazy new confidence in she and Calvin didn’t let her.
Calvin stopped the kiss but didn’t move away, his brown eyes were filled with affection as he cupped her cheek.
“So. I want to apologize for all the pain I caused you in my ignorance. I could never get into my relationship with her because you were always in my mind yet I couldn’t see the truth.”
“Calvin–”
“I hurt you so much when all I have ever wanted was to keep you happy and smiling. I hope we can start anew.”
Cynthia’s eyes sparkled as she held back tears.
She placed her hand over his hand that was on her cheek.
“I forgive you. I always will… just promise me you’ll do the same. Forgive me.”
“But what for? You haven’t done anything wrong.”
If only he knew how wrong that statement was.
She smiled ruefully.
“It doesn’t matter. I want us to begin on a fresh slate. All our offences wiped clean. Deal?”
Calvin looked confused. Then he shook his head with a laugh.
“Deal.”
She kissed him this time and when the kiss ended, she asked him the question that was burning her up.
“What is the plan now?”
Calvin pretended to think hard.
“We get mated, you and the baby move in with me, and we have a dozen more children and two dozen cats.”
Cynthia laughed. “I like that plan.”