*Isla*
“Your son?” my mom repeats. “Isla, what in the world are you speaking about?” Her face is even paler than Ben’s as she stares up at me.
I have to think carefully about how to answer that question because Maddox probably doesn’t want the entire kingdom to know our business just yet, but Ben knows, and if he knows, it’s only a matter of time until my parents know.
Besides, I’ve never been one to keep information from my parents–unlike them. They are, apparently, very used to keeping information from me and my siblings.
Until recently, when I became a breeder, I didn’t keep anything from them at all.
With one hand still hovering over my abdomen, I begin to try and explain the situation to them. I want to call out to Maddox and ask him to come and be here with me when I tell my parents the situation, but I know he is busy with the aftermath of the uprising, and I can’t tell them to just wait until he returns.
With a deep breath, I say, “I’m pregnant.”
My parents exchange a look, and I can see disappointment settling over both of their faces. I’ve always been the responsible one, the one who would never do anything that might make the Moon Goddess feel dishonored or my parents feel disrespected. They instilled good moral values in me from the time that I was a little girl. So for them to think that I could go against the Moon Goddess’s wishes and have sexual relations with a man outside of a proper marking and marriage ceremony has to be disappointing.
“Is he your mate?” my father asks, his voice laced with tension.
“I don’t know,” I tell them. “I’m not old enough to know that.” It was almost my twenty-first birthday, but I wasn’t there yet.
“Do you love him?” my mother asks me.
That was much easier. I nod. “Yes, I love him very much.”
“And does this… guy… love you?” I can hear my father’s disappointment morphing into anger.
I almost laugh. My father has no idea he’s just called the Alpha King a “guy” like he’s just some common butler or something. “He says he loves me.” That’s true–he has recently let that bit of information slide out of his mouth. It makes me giddy to say that, but I keep my joy inside of me.
“Isla… I’m sorry, honey. I want to be happy for you. I really do. I am glad that you’re going to have a baby. We’d love to have another grandchild!” my mom says, forcing a smile, but she has tears in her eyes.
“Maybe this one we’ll actually get to see,” my father mutters, and I hear the pain of being cut out of my sisters’ lives in his voice.
“It’s just… what about your mate?” my mom asks me. “Most women who get pregnant before they meet their mate are never blessed to meet him. They end up mateless, sometimes even wolfless, as a punishment from the Moon Goddess for not obeying her wishes.”
I can feel tears in my own eyes as well. I have so many questions I want to ask them about Maatua and me being in that pool and coming back to life, but instead, we are discussing whether or not I’ve disappointed the Moon Goddess.
“Mom, Dad, I’m pregnant… because it’s my job to be pregnant,” I tell them.
Both of them look at me with expressions of utter confusion etched into their faces, brows furrowed, mouths agape. “You… what?” Dad asks for both of them.
“It’s my job to be pregnant. That doesn’t dispute the fact that I love him, and he loves me, but… when Alpha Ernest brought me here, it wasn’t to take the job of a maid. Maids don’t make the kind of money I do, and they don’t make the kind of money Alpha King Maddox gave you when he came to visit you in the village either.”
My mom stands, taking a few steps away from the bed where she’d been sitting next to Ben. Now, her mouth is hanging open, but rather than it being in surprise, she appears to be in awe. “Is it…. Are you… Isla, are you a breeder?”
Slowly, my head nods up and down. “Yes, Mom. I’m a breeder.”
“What?” my dad asks, still not getting it. “A breeder?” He is shocked, and not in a happy way like my mom. “For who?”
“For… the king?” my mom asks.
Again, I am nodding. “That’s right.” My hands protectively cover my abdomen. “And this baby… is the heir to the throne.”
“Ohh!” My mom covers her face as tears fill her eyes. She rushes to me and pulls me against her chest, stroking my hair as she says, “My baby! My baby is giving birth to a king!”
I can’t help but smile as she holds me close. It feels so nice to be back in my mother’s arms. Even though, I do think it’s kind of surprising that she’s so proud of me to be giving birth to a king when technically, so has she. My oldest brother, Chris, would have been the king of Maatua.
Maybe that’s why. Maybe because she gave up her opportunity to have one of her children become a king, she is proud of me that I have managed to find a way to bring royalty back to our family.
“What is happening?” my father asks, and I’m not sure if he’s asking me or Ben.
“Isla’s the king’s lady,” Ben says. “They’re like… in love and stuff. She’s carrying his baby. But she’s only a few weeks pregnant, so I’m not exactly sure why she knows it’s a boy. Is it because you saw it in a dream, Isla?”
“I was going to ask how far along you are, baby,” my mom says, pulling back and patting me on the cheek.
“I’m not exactly sure,” I admit. “But not too far along.”
“And what did you mean about saving the baby?” my dad asks. “Is something wrong with him?”
They were asking me so many questions all at the same time, and all I wanted to do was ask them my questions.
“Uhm, well, I did have a dream, and even though I’m not quite sure, I think it was a vision or a premonition. I’ve been having a few of them recently. Some of them have already come true. This one was far in the future, though, if it was my son. I just… feel like the baby is a boy. I don’t know how far along I am exactly, but I know I was pregnant when I was kidnapped and poisoned by that awful Zabrina that was put to death today. So Mystica, the pack healer, is afraid that the baby might have complications because of it.”
“Mystica?” Mom repeats.
I nod. “Yes. She’s from Maatua. Do you know her?”
My mom turns and looks at my dad, and he sort of shrugs.
“Not exactly. I know of her,” my mom says.
“I’m sorry, Mom and Dad. I know we got off topic, but listen, I really want to know about what happened back there. You said I died? And I came back to life? Do you think that’s why my tears and blood were able to save Ben and Maddy? Or bring them back from the dead or whatever?”
Once again, my parents are exchanging glances that I can’t read, and it is very frustrating to me. I wish that they could simply answer my questions. But they don’t seem capable of it, not without this facial expression exchange that seems to be some sort of a replacement for the mind-link they could be using instead.
Eventually, my father says, “It probably has a lot to do with it, Isla. But we aren’t sure. We’ve never heard of anyone else who died and came back to life from the pool having any kind of powers.”
“It might be because of your ancestry,” Mom says.
I look from her to my dad, to Ben, and then back to mom again. “Because we are related to the Moon Goddess?”
“That’s right,” my mom says. “It’s all so complicated, dear, and without you knowing all of the secrets of Maatua, it will be difficult to explain.”
“Will you at least try?” I ask, feeling overwhelmed. My mom sits down in a chair next to the window, and I do the same, and Dad comes around the bed and sits near Ben’s feet. I can see them looking at one another again, but this time, I think my parents are using the mind-link, trying to sort out who is going to tell the story and how much exactly they are going to say.
“After you came back to life, we took you home and told everyone in our family about what had happened. A few people didn’t believe us; some did. We tried to put it behind us and just be thankful that you were all right,” my mother begins.
“But then, something strange happened,” my father chimes in. “Something we were unsure about.”
“Something we couldn’t explain,” my mom adds with a nod.
“What was it?” Ben asks.
My father sighs and pulls out his wallet, which I think is peculiar, but we are both hanging on their every word. He opens it up and pulls out a photograph, which he hands over to me.
The picture is of me when I was a little girl. I’ve seen the photo before, but it’s been a long time. I’m standing in a field of some kind, holding an orange cat in my arms and smiling at the camera. It could be any back yard anywhere. I had no idea that it was on Maatua, but when I look at the trees behind me now, I do notice they look tropical.
“What am I looking at?” I ask, studying my face. Was this before or after I had died?
“The cat,” my father says. “Do you remember the cat?”
I look closely at the kitty, and suddenly, I feel a slight twitch in my heart, and I smile. “Ginger,” I say.
“That’s right.” Mom takes the picture from me and hands it to my brother so he can see it before he gives it back to dad. “That cat was your best friend when you were little. You loved her so much.”
“What happened to her?” Ben asks, and I want to know the same thing because I don’t remember.
“She got hit by a car,” my dad says, and I feel my heart break. I don’t remember that at all.
“It was awful,” Mom says, shaking her head. “You were beside yourself, Isla, crying so hard.”
“Your nanny had put the cat in a box on a pillow,” Dad explains, “and we were going to have a funeral for her. We’d had the pack healers try to help her, but she was dead. Not bloody and gross, but dead nonetheless. So… when the nanny brought her in for you to say goodbye, you held the box and cried and cried.”
“I don’t remember,” I admit.
“You wouldn’t. You were so little,” Mom says.
“So… you probably don’t remember what happened next,” my dad says, eying my mom to see if she wants to tell me or if he should say.
They don’t need to tell me. Before my mother even opens her mouth, I know what she’s going to say.
“Just as we were about to take Ginger from you and put her in her grave… something unusual and unexpected happened, “ Mom begins, pausing for dramatic effect.
‘She got up and ran away?” I ask.
My parents nod. Mom says, “You’d brought her back to life with your tears.”