31. The Parents Find Out: Xander's Pov
QOTC- anyone into The 1975? Favorite song?
"This isn't a goodbye." I firmly hold the pod in place and kiss her lips. "I'll see you when you wake up."
I helplessly watch as the blue liquid of Lycanthrope enters my mate's body. Her veins begin to darken even more because of the added chemical. She lets out a small scream and grips my hand, but she quickly calms down as she loses consciousness. "This is for our pup." I remind myself.
The wolves have stopped fighting already, it was just a thirty minute battle. "Xander!" someone shouts in the distance, but I don't look up. I just focus on holding my mate in my arms. I would've thought that she was dead if her chest wasn't moving up and down with her breaths.
"XANDER!" the voice is louder this time and I recognize it as Brody's. "What the hell happened to her?!?"
"Jimmy." I growl, nodding my head in the direction of his corpse. "Charlotte shot Dylan and he snuck up on her. I wasn't fast enough to knock the syringe out of his hand."
"The pod is still on her neck." Brody points out, his tone filled with worry and concern. He looks at his sister, his eyes widening when he puts two-and-two together. "She has Lycanthrope and Wolfsbane in her system?"
"Yes." I answer, looking up when I hear ambulance sirens. The pack symbol is on the side of the vehicles, so I know that Dr. Kale and her medical team are inside one of them.
"What's the situation?" Dr. Kale asks, swinging open the back doors of the ambulance that stops by us. Brody and I both enter and I gently lay my mate on the stretcher inside.
"She was injected with Wolfsbane and then used her Lycanthrope pod to cancel it out." I quickly explain. Charlotte assured me that she'll wake up, but I can't help fearing that something will happen to her and the baby.
"The Luna is smart." Dr. Kale says, hooking up the usual IVs and needles that she uses during Charlotte's doctor appointments. "She knows that she will be okay if she gets medical help, just like right now. The mixing of the Lycanthrope and Wolfsbane will put her into a short coma-"
"What's the expected duration?" Brody and I ask in unison, both of us wanting to know when Charlotte will wake up.
"To any normal wolf it would be three days, but-"
"But?" Brody and I interrupt, both of us just wanting answers and not explanations. I know that it's Dr. Kale's job to explain the situation to us, but I need to know how long my mate will be unconscious. I need to be sure that she and our unborn child are okay.
"But the Luna is much smaller than most wolves.." Dr. Kale explains. "The two chemicals mixing inside of her body has caused her to lose consciousness-"
"Will she be okay?" I ask, starting to worry even more. Every time that Charlotte and I require medical assistance, the terms that the doctors and nurses always scare me. Whether it's a check-up, ultrasound, or something serious like this, I would rather not know the details just know the outcome. Dr. Kale and the rest of the pack doctors always start out by telling me the worst that could happen and all of the bad things going on, all I ask is if my mate and our child is going to be okay or not.
Brody gives me a look and mind-links me, 'Let Dr. Kale explain. Stop cutting her off.'
I growl at him for correcting me, but I know that he's right. "The wolfsbane nearly killed her and the future Alpha, but the Lycanthrope injection saved them both." Dr. Kale explains. "The Luna knew that she would get medical assistance and that it would keep her alive."
"What about our pup?" I ask, noticing that Dr. Kale didn't say the same for our pup.
"I do not know, Alpha." Dr. Kale shakes her head. "No wolf, let alone a pregnant one, has ever had Wolfsbane and Lycanthrope in their body at the same time. Hopefully the Lycanthrope will reverse the effect of the Wolfsbane without causing harm to the Luna and the pup."
I let go of the breath that I didn't know that I was holding in and run a hand through my hair as I take in the news. Charlotte and I's unborn child may not survive.
The thought of losing our pup causes me to growl when I remember that this is really all my fault. If I had simply killed Dylan in the slaughter-house and listened to Charlotte about the threat that he posed by being so close to us, my mate wouldn't have nutrition tubes in her and our pup wouldn't be fighting for its life right now.
I don't necessarily like the term 'it' when it comes to the pup, but I don't know the exact gender yet. Most of me knows for a fact that all first-born Alphas are male, but there's a small part of me that's waiting for the next ultrasound to reveal that our pup is actually a girl. If Charlotte and I have more children, I want at least one daughter. Maybe two if Charlotte wants to try for more.
"Will I be able to go into the room?" I ask, remembering the other times when nurses had to hold me back so that I wouldn't barge into my mate's hospital room and get in the way of all the medical stuff happening.
"Yes, Alpha." Dr. Kale answers as we near the pack hospital. "We just need to stabilize her and attach her to some medication first." The ambulance stops and we all exit the vehicle with Charlotte peacefully laying on the stretcher. The nurses pushing the stretcher move slowly, as if their Luna's life isn't in danger right now.
Dr. Kale must sense this too because she orders them, "Go prepare the room."
Once the nurses leave to prepare the room, we start moving a lot faster. "Some wolves here don't understand the constant urgency that goes on in this hospital." Dr. Kale tells Brody and I, obviously annoyed with how her team responded to the situation.
"It's the usual room on the sixth floor." she adds as the elevator opens. Time slows down when the elevator door closes. The steady beat of the mini-heart monitor on my mate's wrist is the only sound that fills the air. I try to pretend like the dark color or her veins isn't concerning me, but it's impossible. I know that if she were awake right now, she would be feeling everything that the Wolfsbane and Lycanthrope mixing is doing inside of her body. That's the only good thing about this situation; she can't feel pain.
Her breaths are still coming out in short pants and she visibly paled. By the time Dr. Kale and the nurses transfer her from the stretcher to the gurney, her veins and her skin are nearly the exact opposite colors. "This will help her breathe," Dr. Kale explains as she puts an oxygen mask over my mate's face. She knows from past experience that I need to know about everything that happens. Even the slightest change that's made without me being informed first will cause me to think that someone is trying to hurt my mate. "I'm going to keep her on oxygen for the next few days. I don't want to risk the Luna being unable to breathe if we take her off of it."
"When will she wake up?" I ask, desperately needing to know when my mate will open her eyes again.
"The definite answer to that is unclear, Alpha." Dr. Kale starts. "But I'm estimating that the Luna will wake up within a week or two."
"And our pup?"
"I'm not sure. Nothing like this has ever happened before." she shakes her head. "The future Alpha has a chance of survival since the Luna injected herself with Lycanthrope, but the mixing of the chemicals might overwhelm the fetus. We won't be able to know the final result until the Luna wakes up."
There's an awkward silence before Brody speaks up, "Are there any papers me to sign?"
"Yes, Beta Brody." Dr. Kale answers, picking up a clipboard and getting ready to leave the room. "The Luna is stable, Alpha. I'll leave you alone to take in the situation."
Brody gives his sister one last glance before reluctantly leaving the room. I can tell that he didn't want to leave his sister, but he has to go with Dr. Kale to sign Charlotte's papers. I would do them myself, but Brody is her legal guardian; I'm not permitted to sign the papers since he's here. In a few weeks when she turns eighteen, she won't have to have her brother sign everything for her anymore.
"Our pup is going to be okay." I say more to myself than to my mate. Even though she can't reply at the moment, I just feel like I needed to say it. "You're going to be okay."
"We're going to be okay."
*** (six days later)
"What the fuck are you doing?" I growl when I walk back into Charlotte's hospital room. Dr. Jones (the doctor before Dr. Kale) stands by my mate with a syringe filled with an opaque liquid.
"I'm giving Charlotte her medication." he answers, his voice unsteady as tells me this lie.
"Dr. Kale gave the Luna." I pause, emphasizing Charlotte's title. In the werewolf world, calling a wolf of a higher rank by their first name is a sign of disrespect if you don't know them well. "Her medication just a minute ago."
"This is her other medication." Dr. Jones says, his nervousness showing. The syringe wobbles closer to my mate's body as his hands shake.
"You know better than to lie to me." I shake my head, starting to take steps towards him. I would just lunge at him, but I can't risk him getting too nervous and just sticking the syringe into Charlotte. "And I know that you remember what I said I would do if you came near my mate again."
"F-Forgive m-m-m-me, Alph-" just like the last time that we encountered each other, I cut him off by advancing towards him and roughly grab him by the neck. What infuriates me even more is that he was faking a stutter. As if mocking the way my mate speaks will convince me to let him live.
I let my claws extend and watch as this man's eyes go wide. He dies quickly, going limp against the wall that I had him pinned against. I drop his body on the ground and call out to no one in particular, "Clean this mess up and dispose of his body."
After washing the blood off of my hands in the sink, I take my usual seat next to Charlotte's sleeping form. "This is why we have you guarded twenty-four-seven." I mutter, recalling the time when she talked to Brody and I about not wanting to have guards around her so often. She said that she never got "alone-time" and that it was awkward to be in her own home with them just watching her. I felt bad for doing that to her because I know that she wanted to come with me to do pack work outside of our home, but it was too dangerous since I was constantly in the slaughter-house. She would go to the pack-house often, but there are certain people who I have yet to take care of there. The Dylan/rogue situation caused me to ignore the girls that sent my mate "hate letters" and there are still men in this pack who think they have a chance with their Luna.
"Dr. Kale said that you're going to wake up in a couple days.." I inform her. Even though I'm fully aware that she can't reply, it doesn't feel right to be by her side and sit in silence. And if I don't talk to her while she's in this state; when she wakes up, she might be mad at me for providing her with no background noise.
"I'm going to make you food when we get home." I add, reaching out for her hand. Her veins aren't as dark as they were the day she was brought here, but they aren't a normal color either. "And you're going to enjoy it and not eat a Pop Tart instead." I chuckle, thinking about the last time we went to the cabin.
But my laughter fades when all I'm met with is silence. It's not that I was expecting a reply, it just feels weird without her "presence". She somehow makes the environment lighter and lifts the overall mood of everything; I never really realized how important just having her near me is.
During our fight over my inattentiveness, she gave me the silent treatment, but I still knew that she was listening to me and thinking about my words. Now she's listening, but not really listening; if that makes sense at all. She can't comprehend anything that I'm saying in the state that she's in.
"Did you get the list?" I ask Brody when he enters the room. He stares at the dead body on the floor and the blood splattered on the wall, but he doesn't seem fazed when he sees that it's Dr. Jones.
"I made three copies." he says, handing me one of them. Since we both caught so many people trying to harm Charlotte in this hospital room, we figured that we might as well just get the list of people who are permitted to go in here. One copy is for me, another is for him, and the third is going to be posted on the door.
We narrowed down the list the best we could so that not too many people would be able to come in here. It's Brody, Dr. Kale, two nurses, and I who are allowed to be in here. "How's your arm?" I ask.
"It's completely healed." Brody answers, swinging his right arm in the air. During the fight between Dylan and Lunar Shadow, the other gunshots that were heard came from a rogue. He was shot in the arm with a silver bullet, but because he's immune, it acted like a normal bullet. And out of all of the wolves who fought on Lunar Shadow's side, only two people were hurt; Charlotte and Brody. Everyone else came out with only a few cuts and bruises- if wounded at all.
"My parents want to visit Charlotte today." I inform Brody in attempt to start a conversation.
"Is that bad?" he asks, not understanding how seeing my parents is a bad thing.
"They're going to stand right there and yell at me." I say, pointing to where he's standing right now.
"At least you get to interact with them." he shrugs. "Spend as much time with them as you can.... You know the rest of my speech, don't forget it."
"I won't." I mutter. Every time I try to back out of plans with my parents, Brody always gives me a speech about how you should spend as much time with someone as you can since you don't know when you'll see them again. He and Charlotte remind me of how fortunate I am to have my parents in my life; sometimes I accidentally complain about family in front of them and they look at me like I'm crazy. I understand why though, and the truth is heartbreaking.
"So why exactly are you're parents going to yell at you?" Brody raises an eyebrow at me. He knows that I rarely get yelled at. Even during my teenage years, I was never one to get in trouble and I barely ever get yelled at... By both of my parents. My mom expresses her love by raising her voice at me.
But back to my teenage years, I never really did "teenage" things. I just hung out with Brody for that period of my life. I had no desire to sneak out of the house, not like I had anyone to sneak out to in the first place, and I also had no desire to go to parties or anything like that. I was the only Alpha-child who didn't like doing those things.
"They don't know that Charlotte's pregnant." I tell Brody.
His eyes widen when he comprehends my words and he laughs, "You're screwed."
"I told Charlotte that I would tell my parents the news, but I never got around to it. They didn't even find out that she's in the hospital again until an hour ago." I shake my head, anxiously looking at the clock on the wall. My parents are going to be here in half an hour. "Where are you going?"
"I'm going to sign Charlotte's papers." he answers, leaving the room. "Tell me how bad the lecture is later."
*** (forty-five minutes later)
"I was going to tell you-"
"But you didn't." my mom cuts me off. "Instead, you lied to your father and I about your life."
"I didn't even lie-"
"You kept important things from us, Xander." my dad shakes his head. "We didn't even know that the rogues we're going attack until after the fight. You didn't tell us anything about Charlotte being pregnant, and you didn't even tell us that she was hurt."
"I told you that she was in the hospital."
"You told us two hours ago!" both of my parents shout. My mom narrows her eyes at me and steps forward, "Your father and I rushed over to this hospital, thinking that something had just happened to Charlotte, but it turned out that she has been laying on that hospital bed for six days. And there's a dead body on the ground! The blood isn't even cleaned up yet, what if it's the first thing that she sees when she wakes up?""
My dad puts a hand on her shoulder to calm her down before she violently lashes out on me. "We thought we were in the wrong room when we saw the baby-bump." he says. "How far along is she?"
"A little over a month." I answer. I've counted the days since she's first tried to tell me that she was pregnant and she's actually thirty-seven days into the pregnancy. "I told Charlotte that I would tell you two, but I never got around to it. I had the incoming Red Stone wolves to handle, the rogue, situation, our argument, and Dylan."
"What argument?" my mom asks, crossing her arms. Whenever someone looks at Charlotte and I, they can automatically tell that Charlotte isn't the aggressive one in the relationship. That's why my mom thinks that I for some reason got mad at her.
"I'm going to find Brody, I need to..." my dad trails off, thinking of an excuse to leave the room. "I need to talk to him."
"Yes." my mom nods. "The less witnesses, the better."
Once my dad leaves, my mom repeats her question, "What argument?"
Wanting to keep Charlotte and I's previous argument private, I answer as smoothly as possible, "We were arguing over the baby name, but we got compromised."
"I don't want you hiding anything else from your father and I." she says. "You know that you're supposed to call us at least once a week. We don't like being kept out of the loop like this."
"I know, I know."
I can tell that my mom isn't hurt that I didn't tell her about the pregnancy, she's mad. "I want to see Charlotte within the first three days that she wakes up." my mom tells me. "Bryanna and I have been wondering why Charlotte was asking questions about werewolf childbirth and parenthood, we thought that you two were planning on having a child."
"Mom-"
"When did Brody find out about the pregnancy?" my mom asks, putting a hand on her hip. Her "mom-stance" makes me realize how angry she is with me. "Did you keep this from him too?"
"Charlotte told him right after she told me." I'm not lying, Brody was the first person after me to find out that Charlotte's pregnant. He just comprehended it before I did, but I was still told first. "She was about to call you and dad to tell you two the news, but I wanted to tell you two myself."
"And why didn't you?"
"Because I was busy."
"Too busy for family?"
I sigh and take a seat on one of the chairs in the room. This is going to take a while.
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"In this world there are no sides, only players."
-Raymond Reddington
Hi! I was busy with testing during school this week, but I managed I to make this a chapter since I worked on this directly after the last chapter. I've also been going back to edit the early chapters, but I haven't gotten through half of the first chapter yet since I don't really have that much time on my hands. Aside from school, I spend at least an hour per day trying regain my Italian fluency, another hour per day to work on choir stuff, and I recently started doing my math homework (even though it's almost the end of the school year).
And my birthday is this Friday (May 20th), so I'll try to make it a "special" chapter. It'll probably contain IMPORTANT things that involve Brody or IMPORTANT things with the baby or IMPORTANT things with Xander and Char's relationship; I'm not sure, I'll decide while I'm writing.
Important News:
1) Since I am working on publishing My Broken Luna once it's completed and edited, I might just combine some of the shorter chapters together and include Brody's possible mate in this book. I want all of my chapters to be around 5k to 7k words, so it'll save the book from having too many chapters by combining some of them. And the reduced chapters will mean that Brody and his possible mate will be more easily introduced and that they'll be more involved in the storyline.
2) I always say Brody's possible mate. That's because I don't know if I'm actually going to give him a mate, but I'm leaning towards the idea. And just so you know, Brody's mate might not be a girl. But I'm not sure yet, it depends on how I want the book to progress. Please comment if you think Brody should have a mate or not.
3) I'm trying to update my other werewolf book, Josephine's Secret soon, but I want to finish writing at least three lengthy chapters before I do so since I want the updates to be consistent. I have 3k words for the first chapter, but it's only halfway finished.
Chapter Goal: 2k votes