The Alpha's Secret Family: Howls Romance
Page 6
The nurse held her hands up in a silent request for her to stop. “Hold on, honey. Just calm down. That’s what I’m here to talk to you about. There’s a place a little ways from here that takes in expecting mothers who have no place to live. I’ve called them, and they said you could come stay with them.”
“Yeah, but for how long?” Dia asked desperately. “How long will they let me stay? I may never get my memories back.”
The nurse sat down on the side of her bed and patted her hand. “Don’t worry about everything at once, honey. You need to take things one step at a time. Right now, the best thing you can do for you, your baby, and your memory is get back to living life. What’s not good for you is to stress too much.”
Letting her head fall back on her pillow, Dia couldn’t help the tears that started running down her face. How could she not stress right now? She was a woman who was almost three months pregnant, with no home and no money. That was a tough situation to bring a baby into.
She felt another soft pat to her hand and looked back at the nurse.
“It’s gonna be all right. I’ve been on the phone with some churches and charities. The other nurses and I are gonna do everything we can to help you and the baby. Until then, honey, you have to keep the hope alive. Your memories can return, and while that won’t solve everything, it’s still something to look forward to. Until then, look forward to that precious bundle you’re carrying. In a little over a month, you’ll be able to find out if you’re having a boy or a girl. Isn’t that something to look forward to?”
Dia glanced down at her belly, which was now starting to show a small baby bump. It was more like a pooch, but there was no doubt in her mind that it was her baby under that small mound. She thought about finding out the baby’s sex and found the thought bittersweet. That was probably something she should be doing with the baby’s father, if she only knew who he was. The nurse was right about one thing, though. She needed to try to stay positive for the baby’s sake. It was important for her to take care of herself while she had the proverbial bun in the oven.
The nurse’s voice brought Dia out of her musings. “Do you want a girl or a boy, honey?”
Dia gave her the only answer she could think of. “It doesn’t matter to me. I just want a family, and this baby is going to give me that.”
Chapter Ten
“How are you doing, Alpha?”
Stone was standing at the fake memorial service for his mate, hoping that whoever had tried to kill her was in this room. He had been without her for far too long, and he was more than ready to figure out this mystery so he could bring Dia home. Even though his patience was non-existent, and his wolf was raging inside of him, he somehow managed to play the part of a grieving widower to the little old lady standing before him.
He let some of his agitation show because that was how a wolf who had recently lost their mate would act. A twitch of his eye, the tightening of his hands, and a low rumbling growl in his chest. Then Stone reeled it all back in so he didn’t give in to the urge to bite his packmate’s head off.
“It’s very kind of you to ask, Mrs. Jones, but to be honest, I’m not doing well. I’d rather have Dia here with me more than anything.” The words he spoke were true, even if no one in this room beyond Caleb knew that his mate was actually alive in Nashville. Everyone would assume he meant he would rather have his dead mate back. It was a simple trick of the words so that no one could discern he was lying.
The hunched over, ninety-year-old woman clucked her tongue at him. “Now, now. Wouldn’t do for the alpha to give up on us. Perk up, my boy; it’ll be okay. I lost my Wilbur fifty years ago, and I’m still chugging along. You will, too.”
Utterly shocked at her words, Stone didn’t have a chance to respond to her callous statement before she moved away. He watched her toddle over to her great-granddaughter, Danielle, who stood next to the building’s door, fidgeting from foot to foot. Her hands were clenched in front of her and nervousness rolled off her in waves.
Stone felt someone stop next to him and knew it was his beta by the scent, so he muttered under his breath where only Caleb could hear, “Someone looks nervous.”
“Or guilty,” Caleb murmured back.
Looking back at his beta, he asked almost hopefully, “Have you had a chance to hear her speak?”
Caleb shook his head. “Danielle hasn’t uttered a word all afternoon. I would say that is odd, unless she’s afraid I’ll recognize her voice from that day behind the barn.”
“Exactly,” Stone muttered. “Keep her under surveillance, but make sure to stay hidden. The minute you hear her speak, I want to know if she was one of the two voices you heard. Otherwise, this whole sham today was a waste of time.”
“Have faith, my friend. We’ll get whoever it is that did this.”
With that, Caleb moved to mingle back in the crowd as Danielle and Mrs. Jones left the building. His beta couldn’t follow them just yet. He needed to be here, on the off chance that their would-be killer was still in the room. Although, the more Stone watched the spot that Mrs. Jones and her great-granddaughter had just left, the more he became certain that the conspirators against his mate had just left the room.
~~~
Several hours later, Stone sat in his chair, staring into nothing, with his lights on, giving the pack the pretense he was at home, mourning again. Really what he was doing was waiting. Waiting on his beta to call him with news.
Caleb was currently staking out Danielle’s house.
The two men had stayed until they sweet talked the last guest to leave the memorial so the poor alpha could go home. The reason that they had stayed after Mrs. Jones and Danielle had left had been a bust. Out of everyone who had come, which had been the entire Battletown Pack, none of them had matched one of the voices that Caleb had heard that day behind the barn. Danielle Jones had been the only pack-member who Caleb had not heard speak. It seemed as though, slowly, the evidence was starting to pile up against her, which made Stone wonder: Had the day Dia had almost been hit by Mrs. Jones SUV been an accident after all?
He could have sworn it had been the old woman driving that day, but perhaps it had been Danielle instead. If things had gone differently, he could have very well lost Dia before he had ever had her. The thought turned his blood ice cold and made his stomach drop.
Sitting here, waiting, was driving him insane, but there was nothing else he could do right now. The plan was in motion, his beta was in place, and now all they needed was for Danielle Jones to open her mouth and say something.
An hour later, Stone got the phone call he had been impatiently waiting for.
Picking it up, he asked Caleb the only question that mattered. “Is it her?”
“Yes.”
Triumph and rage both surged through him at the single word. He finally had one of the two people who had conspired to kill his mate. Now they just had to grab Danielle and find out who else was involved.
“I’ll be there in just a minute. Wait for me. If she tries to leave the house, grab her.”
Finally, after months of trying to find out who had attacked his mate, he was going to have justice.
Stone hung up the phone, jumped out of his chair, and raced out of his house and to his truck. Throwing himself into it, he started the engine and slammed his foot on the gas pedal. Tires screeched, the motor roared, and he catapulted forward down his driveway. Danielle and her great-grandmother only lived minutes from him, but he couldn’t get there fast enough.
He made the five-minute drive in two and a half minutes, slamming on his brakes and sliding to a stop on the side of the road where he saw Caleb waiting for him. Throwing the car in park, he then jumped out of his truck, not even bothering to close the door, and rounded the hood, heading straight for old lady Jones’s house.
He didn’t bother knocking on the door. As alpha, he took his pack-given right to kick that bitch in. In fact, he kicked the door so hard, he ripped the top half off its hinges.
Danielle came into view, running in to see what had happened to her front door. She took one look at Stone, his angry countenance, and how fast he was approaching her, then tried to flee. She had a right to be scared. It didn’t matter if she was a female, Stone didn’t plan to spare her any more than she had planned to spare his mate.
What caught the alpha totally off guard, though, was Danielle screaming for her great-grandmother.
“They’re here! Run, Grandma Jones! They’re here for us!”
Stone and Caleb were hot on Danielle’s heels, chasing her through the house, within grabbing reach of her, when little old woman Jones stepped out from behind the kitchen door and threw something in his face.
Between one second and the next, Stone’s legs wouldn’t work. He tried to catch himself as he started to fall, but his hands and arms wouldn’t work, either. That was why he went crashing to the ground, completely immobile within seconds.
From the floor, Stone watched as Caleb roared while batting the old woman’s hands down. Grabbing her from behind, he secured Mrs. Jones’s hands behind her back as her granddaughter escaped out the back door.
The old woman began to mutter strange rhymes before Caleb wrapped his hand around her mouth to stop her.
Magic.
The old bitty had found herself some magic.
It was too much. His wolf didn’t leave things to chance. Someone using magic when they weren’t born to … Well, that meant things could easily get out of control.
Which seemed to be the case here.
Caleb let out a yelp as old lady Jones bit his hand.
Stone was beginning to get movement back just in the nick of time to shove a dishtowel from the kitchen into the woman’s mouth.
After glaring at Mrs. Jones, Caleb cocked an eyebrow at him.
“At the risk of getting my ass beat, I have to say it. I can’t believe you let a ninety-year-old lady take you out, boss.”
Irritated that his beta was right, Stone countered, “She didn’t take me out; she just caught me by surprise. Now stop trying to piss me off and make sure she’s securely tied up.”
Caleb glared at Mrs. Jones as he took his leather belt off while holding the old woman still with his other hand. “I think she’s got a few more surprises for us. Like who the hell she’s getting magic from.” Done talking, Caleb tied Mrs. Jones’s feet to the chair that Stone had put in front of him, then looked back. “Think we can track Danielle down?”
Stone shook his head. “I might have been unable to move, but my hearing worked just fine. She got in a car and took off. We’ll never catch up to her tonight. Call our enforcers and tell them to be on the lookout for her. While you do that, I’m going to call Miriam. It’s time Mrs. Jones faced the pack’s female alpha.”
Silence fell around them.
Stone didn’t understand why Caleb wasn’t on his phone yet, so he looked at the man for answers. What he found was a strange, perplexed look on his beta’s face.
“What?”
Caleb looked down at the ground, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he took a nervous swallow.
Not having the patience for this sort of shit, Stone snapped, “Just spit it out.”
His beta winced, then picked up his head and told Stone, “Boss, don’t call your mom by her first name. It’s just weird.”
Caleb didn’t even flinch when his alpha lost control and roared in his face.
Chapter Eleven
“Now, sugar, I don’t know who the baby’s daddy is, but I bet your baby comes out with your gorgeous hair.”
The lunch nurse who was always so nice to her was back visiting Dia later that evening. The sky was a dark blue, on its way to a nighttime black.
Dia was grateful for the woman’s visit since she wasn’t tired yet. The older African-American woman, whose name she learned was Angela, sat in a chair next to her bed and smiled her sunny smile that Dia found infectious.
“Why do you think that?” Dia asked the nurse softly.
The woman’s smile somehow got even brighter as she said, “No one with hair as pretty as yours could not pass that on to their baby. Just you watch, honey. That little blessing in your belly is going to come out with your strawberry blonde locks. And if it’s a girl … Whoo-wee! You better get a shotgun ready, because the boys will come from all over.”
She couldn’t help laughing at Angela’s enthusiasm. It felt good to laugh. She hadn’t had much reason to do that since she had woken up.
Angela patted her hand to get her attention. “Tomorrow, you’re going to be discharged, and I’m going to take you to the Fresh Start Women’s Center. You ready to get your life going again, sugar?”
Dia shrugged, uncertain. Using her free hand to rub over her belly, she thought about being out in the world again. She might miss Angela’s visits, and the friendly staff here, but she wouldn’t miss being made to rest in the hospital.
Turning back toward Angela, she finally nodded. “I’m ready. I appreciate everything you all have done for me, but I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to go out and figure how I’m going to take care of me and my baby.”
Angela gave her another soft pat on the hand. “I’m so happy to hear you say that, honey. Now get some rest. Tomorrow, you’ll start your journey, and I’ve got a feeling it’s going to lead you exactly where you’re meant to go.
As she watched the nurse leave, Dia prayed the woman was right and that she would end up where she was meant to be.
I just want to find my home.
Chapter Twelve
He watched her walk through the door, head back, shoulders squared, and utterly confident. It wasn’t a surprise to see Miriam that way. Stone had seen his mother act that way for as long as he could remember. She was the alpha female of their pack, just as his father had been the alpha male. When Stone’s father had passed away, Stone had assumed that role. Not just because he was his father’s only child, but because the entire pack knew he was the strongest, most cunning, and definitely the most lethal out of all of them.
When it came to women, though? Not his department.
Sure, he could pass judgement on a female of his pack, but this was more. They needed to find out how old Mrs. Jones had come into her magic, and who else, other than her great-granddaughter, she was working with.
Stone watched as Caleb bowed his head in deference to his mother, but the old woman didn’t. It was a snub that he knew would not go unpunished by his mother, which was very bad for Mrs. Jones, because Miriam had been mourning the loss of Dia since the day Stone had told the pack she had died.
His mother had loved Dia from the first moment she had met her, and had treated her as a daughter right away. Even though he knew he could trust her, he hadn’t even told his own mother that his mate was still very much alive. And after losing her own mate five years ago, Miriam had taken the loss of Stone’s mate harder than anyone else in the pack. Now she was looking for vengeance on Dia’s behalf.
“Tell me, Patty; why would you do anything to harm your alpha?”
Mrs. Jones turned her head away.
His mother spoke again. “Tell me why you tried to hurt my son.”
The little old lady spat in Stone’s direction. “He’s no alpha to me! The moment he mated that human whore, he stopped being my alpha. I tried to stop it, too! That day in the street in front of the human whore’s shop, I almost killed her then. It would have saved him from the human’s clutches! He just had to go and save her, though. I knew then they would probably mate, and if he did, I decided he was a lost cause. But I’ll be damned if I follow a man who fornicates with human filth. Imagine if they had a child together! Blasphemy. It would be an utter abomination. We need to keep our shifter lines pure, and the human tart was only going to corrupt him.”
Miriam stepped in front of Mrs. Jones’s chair and bent down until she was nose to nose with the bitter woman. “
That human was my daughter, and whether you liked it or not, your alpha’s mate. You know what the sentence is for someone who makes an attempt on an alpha or his mate? Death. Tell me now, Patty, why you attacked my son tonight, and what you had to do with the attack on his mate, and I’ll forgo the death sentence.”
“I’d rather you kill me, you human-loving bitch.” Mrs. Jones sniffed in annoyance, as if none of them were worth her time.
That was a serious mistake on her part.
His mother grabbed the arms of the chair and stared at the old woman until Mrs. Jones looked away, a reminder of who was alpha here and who was not. Stone knew Miriam wouldn’t torture the woman because of her old age. His mother might be lethal, but she drew certain lines in the sand and refused to cross them. It would be interesting to see how she chose to handle this problem. It didn’t take long for him to find out.
Using one hand to grab Mrs. Jones by her wrinkly face, Miriam growled and flashed her fangs. “You’ll tell me what I want to know, or I’ll end you, old woman. I don’t need a pack hearing to be your judge, jury, and executioner tonight.”
“I already told you to kill me, then.”
Miriam shook her head. “That’s not all I’ll do. You’ll tell me how you came to obtain the magic, and who else was involved in this scheme besides your great-granddaughter, or I’ll exile your whole line after I kill Danielle in front of them.”
Mrs. Jones sucked in a sharp breath, as if she couldn’t believe Miriam would carry through on her threat. It was by far the harshest sentence in pack history.
“Think of it, Patty,” his mother whispered. “Think of how I’ll snap Danielle’s neck in front of every person who’s remotely related to you before I banish them from our pack. They’ll have no place to go, no way to eat, and nowhere to call home, all thanks to you. And the best part? I have better plans for you now. See, for you, instead of killing you, I’ll leave you alive so that you have to leave with them. Eventually, one of them will get so angry at you for what you’ve done that they’ll kill you themselves. Is that how you want to end? By the hands of your own kin? Despised and left to rot in the middle of nowhere?”