Page 13 of The Barren Luna

Then, to my utter shock, with a piercing scream, she threw herself down the stairs.

Henry and Calum rushed out of their respective offices and froze upon taking in the scene.

“What have you done?!” Henry screamed at me, but my drug-addled mind was still playing catch up with reality. What the fuck had just happened?

“Take her to the dungeons, Calum, now!”

Who, me?

Henry ran down the stairs, scooped Hannah’s limp body up in his arms and ran out. Toward the hospital, I assumed. I was freaking out, still uncertain what I had witnessed. Was I dreaming? Hallucinating?

“It’s okay, Luna, he’ll be okay once he calms down. Can you tell me what happened?” Calum asked me, already back in hisofficial Beta-mode. I guess some of us were more easily rattled than others.

“I – at the risk of sounding completely insane, I came up the stairs and she started screaming and threw herself down the stairs. That’s it.”

Calum frowned.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he started saying, then saw my shocked face and hastened to add, “I’m not saying I think you pushed her. I know you and you wouldn’t do that to a pregnant she-wolf.”

I was relieved to hear that. I was beginning to think I was going crazy and that no one would believe me.

“I agree it doesn’t make sense, Calum; why would she do something like that? I understand why she would accuse me, but why harm her pup?”

“I have no idea, Luna, I was thinking the same thing. This is a very desired pregnancy on both sides, something just doesn’t add up. As things stand now, I’ll have to leave you in the cells for the night. I’ll send an Omega over with some stuff from your home, and then in the morning, the Alpha will hopefully have calmed down and gotten to the bottom of this.”

“Thank you Calum, I really can’t thank you enough for being so calm about this and for believing me.”

He only nodded, visibly uncomfortable with the acknowledgment.

The cell he led me into was small and dark. The walls were unfinished concrete, and the bed was more of a cot with a thin sponge instead of a mattress and nothing else on it. There was a stained washbasin with a leaky pipe in the corner and a bucket next to it. That was all.

I could survive one night here. I would be fine. Soon, the promised Omega came and brought me a change of clothes, as well as my toothbrush and a travel-sized toothpaste. She asked whether I wanted her to clean the cell a bit, but I declined. Why fuss over temporary accommodations? I thanked her and sat down on the cot, trying to make sense of things.

This was one of those instances where you wish you could go back in time and pay more attention to your surroundings. In my mind, I kept going over the events of the afternoon again and again. I had just woken up, and since I had drugged myself earlier in the day, I really didn’t care who came to get me, why, or where he was leading me.

I'd simply gone through the motions, and after Hannah had thrown herself down the stairs, I woke up, but it was too late. Why would she do such a thing? To what end? Okay, even to me, it was clear from the screaming that she tried making it seem like I was the one attacking her. But didn’t she know that I didn’t want to be in this pack anymore? And if she lost the baby, did she think Henry would keep her around? Maybe he would, it’s not like I knew him anymore.

I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew, I was being shaken by an exhausted, angry Alpha. The dungeon had no windows but I assumed it was nighttime.

“Nice to see you resting after you tried killing my pup,” he growled at me and I blinked in confusion, still half-asleep.

“Henry, I didn’t-”

“Save it! Hannah already told me everything. I can’t believe you would stoop so low, I can’t fathom you would do something like this to me! To us!” He was pacing the floor outside of the cells now, agitated and crazed.

“I didn’t do anything! She threw herself down the stairs!”

He laughed in my face bitterly.

“God, do you hear yourself? Have the drugs completely eaten away at your brain, and you’re no longer capable of coming up with a believable excuse? I know I made a mistake keeping you with me against your will, but I thought given enough time you’d be happy for our pack and happy for us, I was doing this to give you a pup!” he was now raging at me and it only served to ignite my own anger.

“Oh, so you fucking her when she wasn’t in heat was doing me a favor, got it! Thank you for your generosity, Alpha!” I spat and he spun around and grabbed my throat, pinning me to the wall in the process.

“Shut your fucking mouth.”

I could barely breathe but he kept his grip tight. “You tried harming my pup today, and thank God, you failed, he is still alive. Just because you're barren, you don't want anyone else to be happy or have pups. You tried taking what is most precious to me and I’ve come to repay the favor. Only unlike you, I will not fail.”

He released me and I fell to my knees, coughing and clutching my throat.

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