All Chapters of The Alpha's Forbidden Mate Is Cursed : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Pregnant. That's what the result said between all the numbers and long words. I was pregnant. I stared at the results for so long that the doctor cleared her throat from across the room, a gentle reminder that she had other patients and I was sitting frozen on the edge of her examination bed like someone had unplugged me from her wall. "Miss Elenora." Her voice was careful, like she didn't want to scare me."Are you alright?" I wasn't, or I was. I couldn't tell which one was the louder emotion to hold on to. "Yes." I said. "Sorry. Yes, I'm fine." It sounded more like I was trying to convince myself than her. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and failed miserably. She gave me the kind of smile that said she had seen this exact face on this exact type of girl more times than she could count. Then, she slid a pamphlet across the desk and started talking about prenatal vitamins and first trimester checkups and I heard maybe every third word because the rest of them kept get

A week had passed and I was still waiting for it to feel real.That was the thing about grief that nobody warned you about. It didn't arrive all at once like a wave you could brace for. It came in small, ordinary moments. The way I reached for my phone every morning before I was fully awake, already dialing her number before I remembered. The way I would think of something funny and turn to text her and then remember there was no one to recieve the text anymore. The way silence in a room had started to feel like a presence instead of an absence.Elira was gone. Th only family I had left, was gone.The man on the phone had been careful with his words. A welfare officer from Shadowfang he said. They had received a report. They found her at the cottage. He was very sorry. I didn't hear much after that because Iris had taken the phone from my hand at some point and I had let her.Lucian drove us to Elenora Creek himself.I remembered the way he held my hand the entire drive, not saying an

The room had no windows.That was intentional. Rooms with windows had directions, and directions left traces, and the man who used this room had spent a very long time making sure he left nothing that could be followed back to him.He sat at the head of the table and listened.There were three of them across from him. Men he had chosen specifically because they were good at being invisible, at standing in places without being remembered, at watching without being seen. They had been watching for ten days and they brought their report the way he had trained them to, without embellishment, without opinion, only fact.The girl had gone to the creek with the wolf and another woman. The wolf had stayed two nights before leaving for the Blackwater funeral. He had sent his cousin, the one called Jake, to bring the girls back to campus. The cousin had visited several times since. The other woman, the girl's friend, had not left her side."And the wolf?" he asked."He returned to campus today.

I stood under the shower until the water ran cold. It was the only thing that helped. The heat first, as hot as I could stand it, then the slow drop to cold that forced my body to feel something other than the weight sitting in my chest. I stood there until my fingers pruned and my breathing evenened out, but all of what I read was still a heavy weight that couldn't be ignored When I came out, Iris was gone. But she had left breakfast on my desk. A plate covered with a napkin to keep it warm, a cup of tea beside it, and nothing else. No note. No explanation. That was Iris's version of an apology, one that I have come to terms with. I sat down and ate slowly. Scrambled eggs and toast, still warm, seasoned exactly the way I liked it. I was just setting the empty plate aside when someone knocked at my door. I wasn't expecting any visitors. Iris had a key, so did Jake. Rivel never come over without Lucian and I always knew when he does. I cautiously walked to the door and held my

Something was coming.Something bad.Iris moved to the window before I could process what was happening. She looked out once, then pulled it shut and locked it with a quiet click that felt louder than it should have.Then we heard it.The living room door. Someone on the other side of it, working the lock slowly and carefully, the kind of careful that meant they did not want to be heard. Not Jake. Jake knocked like he was trying to wake the building even though he had the keys.This was someone who wanted in without announcing it.I turned to Iris with my hand already pressed flat against my stomach. The fear that moved through me was not just mine. It had not been just mine for weeks now.She took my hand and looked into my eyes and that was the first time I saw it. Her dark brown eyes had a ring of gold in them, faint and flickering, like something lit from the inside."No matter what happens," she said quietly, "no matter what you hear, do not come out of this room unless someone br