Miranda Bonham
I was more than surprised when I heard a commotion down the hall. I could've gotten up to check what was going on, but I felt too weak.
I'd exhausted myself with Nixon, and I had already been tired from not sleeping most of the night. It didn't help that I hadn't eaten anything all day.
"Miranda," Zander said, sighing loudly in relief.
"Zander?" I asked. I couldn't even get up from the ground. I tried, I really did. But my legs felt weak and my body felt numb.
"What did that bastard do to you?" Zander asked in a growl.
The relief he seemed to have felt before was gone. He was looking at me worriedly, but I could tell he was pissed off.
"When did he send you here?" He asked me again when I didn't answer.
Another guy, who seemed to be one of the royal guards, was walking behind Zander.
"Open the door," Zander ordered the guy standing behind him.
Two more guys were walking behind them, and they were looking at me with pitying eyes. I didn't even want to imagine how I must've looked to them. It was embarrassing.
"Nixon knows," I mumbled out, before the tears started spilling down my eyes.
"You didn't tell Preston or Craven?" Zander asked, disapprovingly.
"I don't want them to kill Nixon," I admitted, feeling my face warm up.
The other two guys and the guards stepped a few feet away when Zander dismissed them. I'd only been wearing Randall's large shirt and a pair of his shorts, but I still felt too exposed.
I was betting that Zander could smell on me that Nixon and I had mated not too long ago. It made me feel ashamed of myself.
"You should've said something, Miranda. Look at how he has you. Did you think you could've kept this hidden from Preston? He already felt something was wrong. He'd been calling you at the palace all morning and everyone there told him that you and Nixon hadn't been there since last night. One of the servants told Preston that Nixon had been furious when you two left the palace."
I swallowed loudly, not wanting to imagine what Preston was about to do. No wonder he'd been asking where I was the first time he mind linked me.
He could've been trying to talk to me for much longer than that but I'd been too distracted. I could've been blocking him from my mind unintentionally.
"What are you doing here? How did you get the guards to let you out?" I asked Zander. He'd been going through the duffel bag that Randall had brought for me. When he noticed there was nothing important in it, he threw it in the corner.
"We're leaving," Zander said.I frowned at him, but still let him help me get up.
"Leaving?" I asked Zander, confused as to what he really meant.
"It started, Miranda. Craven changed his plans though. Since the pack is staying behind, we're just going to escape. Craven is already waiting for us upstairs."
"My dad," I mumbled out. Zander was carrying most of my weight as I tried to make sense of what he was telling me.
With every step I took, despite how little effort I was really putting, I felt my eyes get heavier.
"Asher and Preston chose the guards we'd have for today. I was released about ten minutes ago. Your father is upstairs, going through King Luther's office. I guess it belongs to Nixon now."
"What about Nixon?" I stopped on my tracks, even though Zander was urging me to continue walking.
"I honestly don't know the plans for him. Craven and Preston want him dead though. I just know that we're taking off to the US. Craven, your mom, Preston, Clay, Asher, you, me, and a few other Wolves are leaving. Most of the pack is staying behind. I guess your prince had a point with that. It's better for them to grow up with their own kind. They'll be safer here and no one will try to hunt them down."
By the time he finished talking, everything in front of me was blurry and out of focus.
"Miranda? Miranda!" Zander asked.
Zander calling my name repeatedly were the last things I heard before drifting out. I could hear Zander talking, yelling out orders. I was in his arms and he was holding on to me tightly.
I could hear the loud sound of footsteps. It seemed like the lights in the ceiling were blinking off and on, but then I realized it was me closing and opening my eyes. I faintly saw Wolves fighting against each other. Zander wasn't involved though.
He only held on to me, and continued yelling while the Wolves surrounding us fought. Just before I saw the sky above me and felt the fresh air touching my skin, I dozed off again. This time, everything around me remained in complete darkness.
"I know but there isn't much we can do now." It was Zander speaking.
"She was stupid and careless," I heard my father growl out.
"We need to take care of Nixon. Do you think he'll hurt our pack to get back at us?" Preston asked.
My eyes were still closed. When I tried to open them, they felt heavy. My head was pounding so bad, I thought it might actually explode. With a lot of effort, I got my hands to lazily hold my head.
"He won't. His blood might be tainted by Luther but I doubt Nixon is really that bad," Zander replied.
I opened my eyes then. Zander had been gazing down at me. He was running his hand over my cheek and then down through my hair.
"How do you feel?" He asked. I wanted to sit up but when I tried, I only managed to groan out in pain.
"You should be resting," he told me.
"You should be ashamed of yourself," my father spoke out. He was in the same room, I had already known that.
"Where are we?" I croaked out.
I'd been asleep for a while. My throat was dry and it was obvious with how raspy my voice sounded. When I tried to sit up a second time, Zander helped me.
"We got out of The Island," Preston answered. He gave me a small smile and took a seat beside me on the bed. While Zander was on my left, Preston settled himself on my right.
"You two are treating her like a child. We have bigger things to worry about," my father said. His hard eyes were on me, accusingly.
"You should go out and check on what Asher's found out," Zander proposed. Preston remained quiet, but his hand tightened on me.
I unknowingly was pressing myself closer to him. His warmth was something that I'd been missing. I had been so cold when I was locked up in the cell. My dad left but not before giving me one last glare.
"He seems mad," I commented after my dad was gone.
Preston rested his back on the headboard of the bed and he stretched out his arm. When his grin grew wider, I smiled in return and cuddled against his chest. Zander was looking at our exchange with warm eyes, but he didn't say anything else.
"Why didn't you tell me Nixon knew?" Preston quietly asked after a few minutes of silence.
"I didn't want you to kill him."
"Why didn't you tell me you knew, everything," Preston said, letting the sentence hang.
He didn't have to specify what everything meant. I knew he was talking about dad leaving the island, King Luther killing Alex, and then the false accusation King Luther and Richard had created against our dad.ì
"Why didn't you tell me about it? Zander was the one who had to tell me. I would've understood," I said, reproachfully.
It was hardly the time to be getting mad at him over secrets he'd kept, but I still wanted to know. Preston and I, we told each other everything. Yet he'd kept something so important hidden from me.
"I thought you weren't ready to know. I didn't want to worry you over something that couldn't be changed."
"You were going to kill Nixon!" I cried. It hurt when I put too much strain on my chest. I felt breathless after I raised my voice at him.
"Preston!" Zander snapped at him.
"Andy, you need to keep calm. The doctor said you need to relax and not stress yourself out," Preston said.
"I'm calm," I lied.
"Maybe we should talk some other time," Preston said. He was about to untangle himself from me, but I pulled him closer. After Nixon, Preston was the only one who could comfort my Wolf.
"No, don't leave me."
My voice came out as a strangled plea. Both Preston and Zander were looking at me pityingly. While I would usually hate it, in that moment, I couldn't make myself get angry at them over it.
"Hey, it's alright. We're here," Zander told me. He pushed himself a little closer to me, and his hands once again caressed my cheek.
"How did we get out? The last thing I remember was Wolves fighting while we were leaving the Building of Justice."
"We didn't fight him, if that's what you're wondering," Preston answered my unspoken question.
"I told you we weren't taking the pack. Since the pack was staying behind, there was no need to fight. They would've won. We didn't have enough men. All we did was quietly take the plane that was waiting for us. Only a few of us got to leave before Nixon caught on to our plan," Zander added.
"Dad doesn't seem too happy," I mumbled, knowing they'd still be able to hear me.
"It wasn't the way he wanted to leave, Andy. You could say he's disappointed. He wanted Nixon dead," Preston said.
I looked down at my hands, which had been lazily resting on my legs.
"I wanted to kill him too," Preston added, before nuzzling his nose against my hair.
Tears were blurring my eyes and some were rolling down my cheeks. When Zander noticed I was crying, he growled loudly.
"Dammit, Preston! I told you to stop saying that shit around her," Zander reprimanded him.
He tried to pull me away from Preston's arms, but I stopped him before he could get me away.
"I'm fine," I told them in a shaky voice. It was bright outside, which was when I realized it must've been a different day.
"How long has it been?" I asked them.
"We left the Island last night. It hasn't been that long," Preston assured me.
Both Preston and Zander tried to stop me from getting up from the bed, but I kept pushing them away.
"You need to rest, Andy," Preston said, disapprovingly. Other than how much I really missed Nixon, I didnít feel too bad physically.
"Should we call Craven so that he's here?" Zander asked, looking more at Preston than at me.
"What for?" I asked, not liking the way Zander had said that. Preston's eyes suddenly turned cold, and he was looking at me with a serious expression.
"What's wrong?" I asked, looking between Zander and Preston, hoping one of them would answer me.
"Andy, dad is more than angry. He's not just mad that he hasn't killed Nixon yet. He's furious with you," Preston told me.
I narrowed my eyes at him, hating the accusation in his eyes. He was looking at me the way dad had looked at me before stepping out of the room.
"This isn't her fault," Zander said to Preston.
"Miranda, this isn't your fault. Craven is just closed off to reality sometimes, but everything is fine," he firmly said.
"What isn't my fault?" I asked, not even wanting to hear the answer to my own question.
"Andy," Preston sighed, shaking his head at me like he was disappointed at something I'd done.
I didn't remember doing anything to him. The only things I'd kept from him, he already knew and he hadn't gotten mad over them.
"What?" I asked, suddenly feeling breathless.
"How could you be so careless?" He asked me, the disapproval clear in his voice and the way he was looking at me.
My eyes got watery on their own accord. I didn't know why, but I suddenly felt like bursting out crying. Preston was looking at me like I'd done something really bad.
"Stop that," Zander snapped at Preston, and he gave him a hard shove.
Preston hardly moved from the spot he was in, but he still got up from the bed and started pacing the room.
"Miranda, you're pregnant," Zander said.
Preston cringed at the words, and he put his head in his hands. It was obvious he had already known, but Zander saying the words out loud really got to him.
Out of all the things I expected him to say, the thought of being pregnant had not even crossed my mind.I was pregnant.
Nixon had rejected me and now, I was pregnant.