Page 84 of Bullied Pregnant Mate

“Where’s Natalia?” Carla asks.

“Out,” Gina answers with a sigh. “She’s almost a teenager now. She thought a family gathering was boring, and she’d rather go to the movies with her friends.”

“Headstrong, that one,” Carla says. “No idea where she gets it from.”

Boots stomp on the wooden floor as the next crowd of people come through into the kitchen. To my surprise, I see Jen with Rider and Fiona.

“Bailey, can we clear the room a bit?” Rider asks quietly.

“Sure,” Bae answers. “Mother, can you handle it?”

“And you wonder why I still call you alpha pup!” she huffs. “Always doing your dirty work!”

“I’ll help, Auntie Carla,” Caleb offers, coming in behind his mother.

“That’s a good young man,” Carla coos at him. “Come on, let’s sort out the riffraff.”

The room swiftly empties, leaving Bae, Jack, Jen, and Gina sitting with us.

“This sounds serious,” Jenks says in a low voice.

“It is,” Jen says. She looks absently around the room, her eyes glinting with a milky white sheen.

She’s going blind!

“You’re all so interested in the Ancient Ones, then?” she asks us. “You want the word on them?”

“Yes,” Bae answers somberly. “Nate has still kept us waiting. All I know is that they are powerful, and savage. Practically unstoppable. This information is passed down to each alpha, but I don’t know any more than that.”

“Jethro was obsessed with them,” Jen recalls. “He thought if he could find them, he’d rule the territory. He never realized they’d probably crunch him up in one bite.”

“Jen, please, tell us,” Jack implores. “We need as much information as we can get.”

Jen stares out into space, her milky eyes unfocused, her pupils fixed on something none of us can see.

“They are the first wolf shifters,” she finally says. “I don’t know how they came into existence, but there were five original blood wolves. All of us are descended from them.”

“They must be hundreds of years old!” Gina exclaims.

“True,” Jen affirms. “And the tale goes, they were locked into their wolf forms by witches.”

“Why?” I ask, the question out of my mouth before I can stop it.

“I don’t know,” Jen shrugs. “Might have been love gone wrong, or vengeance for some other act, or mercy. I doubt we’ll ever know. But this led to the war between witches and wolves, and the complications in later years where witches thought if they married wolves, they could steal their powers.”

“How do you know this, Jen?” Jack asks.

She whistles, a low, long sound, a lot like mountain wind curling through rocky peaks.

“My sight is going, but my other senses are far keener. It is almost time for me to take the long walk into the snow and become one with the mountain.”

“No, Jen!” Fiona cries. “You deserve to be wrapped up warm in bed for your final days! You don’t have to die like your mother, forgotten in the snow!”

“And I won’t, child. Mother was abandoned before her time, but mine has certainly come.”

“Jen,” Bae urges, “tell us about the Ancient Ones. What do they want, and how do we stop them?”

“They want witch blood,” Jen whispers. “Only the blood of a witch can restore their human form, and once they regain the ability to shift, they will be unstoppable. They have slumbered in the earth for so long, and now they wake to the scent of their enemy.”

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