Page 95 of Fated to the Warrior Wolf

Resolve.

Therewasone way I could protect my baby. I would not give her up. Not now, not six months from now,not ever.

I would protect her with my dying breath.

I swiped at my face, trying to dry off as Brielle leaned back, smiling sadly down at me from her perch on the arm of my chair.

“When does your aunt get here?” I blurted the question with all the grace of a drunken elephant.

“What, Kari?” Brielle scrunched up her nose.

“Yes, Aunt Kari. She’s coming soon, right?”

“I think next week, why?”

“I need her to put a curse on me.”

Brielle paled, head already shaking as if she was about to argue. I held up a hand, stopping her before she could start.

“I’ve thought this through, Bri. It’s the only option. The council isn’t going to do shit to protect her or you. It’s on us.And I’m not giving her up. Your mom got seventeen years with you. If that’s all I get, I’ll take them and savor every fucking second. But I’m not sentencing her to die for her designation.”

She bit her lip, ducking her head as if she was holding back a flood of words under duress. I reached down and peeled the latest, sticky nightmare of a bandage off my palm where it covered the omega seal. I flexed my hand happily, enjoying the freedom.

I held up my palm, letting the soft light shine in the space between us.

“Look at this, Bri.”

She acquiesced, cupping my hand between hers.

“Do you know what this means?”

“It means your daughter is going to be born omega.” She traced her fingertip over the lines of the mark, following the dot pattern of the beautiful stars.

“No, that’s not what it means. It means I’ve beencalled. The Goddess herself chosemeto bring this baby into the world. I’m not even mated. My mother? She was shitty. Her life was hard, and she couldn’t handle it. She used alcohol to drown the pain. And for a lot of years, I was scared I would be exactly like her.”

“Leigh, no. You couldnever.”

“Thank you for saying that, but I didn’t know. I really didn’t. But I donow. Because now that little Petal is on the way? There is no mountain I wouldn’t climb for her. There is no enemy I wouldn’t face, and there is no sacrifice I wouldn’t make to protect her.”

Brielle sniffled, and I knew she was holding back her own tears for me. But she didn’t need to. Because all that emptiness in my chest? It was filling back up with certainty. Purpose, direction.

The Goddess had given me a great blessing, and I was going to grab on to it with both hands. Nine months, plus seventeen years of joy, give or take.

It was more than I ever dreamed I’d have. Me, the mutt child of an absentee shifter father and an alcoholic human mother.

Another knock came at the door. “Leigh? Are you in there?” Shay called. “We need to head to Bri’s suite for a meeting, but I’ve got to find her too. Oli already walked over.”

I closed my eyes, sucking in a deep breath through my nose and letting it out slowly. When I opened them again, Bri was staring at me, her wolf’s eyes shining bright with the same white light that shone from my palm.

“Are yousure?” she asked me, and I knew in that moment that she was hoping I would say no.

“I’m surer than I’ve ever been about anything,” I told her. “Let’s get to this meeting. But can we keep this between us for now? I have a few months until we need to do it, and I don’t want to deal with the arguments in the meantime.”

“Doctor-patient confidentiality,” she whispered, then got up to go tell Shay she’d found both of us.

FORTY-SEVEN

Gael

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