The Alpha's Fatal Kick

The sheer force of Damien’s heavy combat boot connecting with my stomach sent me flying across the Pack Hall.

I crashed violently against the cold stone pillar, tasting copper as my vision blurred.

My hands instinctively flew to my abdomen, where our fourteen-week-old pup rested, as a sudden, terrifying cramp ripped through me.

Towering over me, my mate and Alpha wiped his hands in absolute disgust.

"Stop clutching your stomach like a victim, Mia," his voice thundered, echoing off the silent walls.

"Chloe is fighting for her life because you poisoned her, and you think faking a pregnancy will save you?"

I looked up at him through a haze of agony, begging him to feel the terrified heartbeat of our unborn child through our mate bond.

He didn't even blink as he signed the order to throw me into the underground cells.

"Throw this murderer in the darkest block, and if she bleeds, let her."

As the guards dragged me away, I didn't scream or beg anymore.

The moment my blood hit the dungeon floor, I knew my Alpha was dead to me forever.

***

Mia POV

Damien's combat boot struck me in the stomach.

The force threw me backward into one of the stone pillars lining the pack hall. Pain burst across my spine, and the breath left my lungs. I hit the marble on my side, tasting blood where my teeth had cut the inside of my cheek.

No one moved to help me.

Dozens of pack members stood along the walls. Warriors I had trained beside. Elders who had watched Damien mark me two years ago. Servants who called me Luna every morning.

Every one of them looked away.

Damien towered over me, gold swallowed by black in his eyes.

"You poisoned her under my roof."

"I did not touch Chloe."

My voice came out thin. I pressed one hand to my abdomen and forced myself upright.

"Do not lie to me."

He caught the front of my shirt and hauled me halfway off the floor. "She drank the supplement you prepared. Ten minutes later she was convulsing in the infirmary. Silas searched your pantry and found the same toxin in your private cabinet."

"Someone planted it."

"Of course that is your answer."

"I was in the greenhouse all morning. Check the cameras. Ask the gardeners."

Damien released me so suddenly my shoulder struck the floor.

"Three witnesses saw you arguing with her before breakfast."

"Because she told me I should start packing my rooms."

A murmur moved through the hall.

Damien's expression hardened.

Chloe had lived in the Alpha residence since before our mating. Four years ago, she had supposedly shoved Damien out of the path of a rogue vehicle and taken the impact herself. The crash left her with a permanent limp, and Damien had spent every year since treating her sacrifice like a sacred debt.

She used that debt well.

She sat beside him at council dinners. She approved household staff. She interrupted our private conversations whenever she pleased. And every time I complained, Damien gave me the same answer.

She saved my life.

"She has been trying to replace me for months," I said. "You know it."

"She has done nothing but show you patience."

I laughed despite the pain. "She told me you would eventually realize the Goddess made a mistake when she chose me."

"Enough."

"She told me my child would never matter as much as she does."

The room went silent.

Damien's grip loosened.

"What child?"

I had not planned to tell him like this.

I was twenty-six weeks pregnant. Dr. Ellis had classified the pregnancy as high-risk three days earlier after a scan showed that stress was already provoking contractions. I had hidden the report in my desk because I wanted one quiet evening before our lives changed. Damien and I had been living on opposite schedules for months, and the formal robes I wore around the estate had hidden my small belly better than they should have. Chloe always found a crisis whenever I tried to get him alone. I had planned to tell him after the second scan, when I had something more hopeful than a list of warnings to place in his hands.

Instead, I was bleeding on the floor while half the pack watched.

"Yours," I said. "I am pregnant."

Shock crossed his face.

For one impossible second, I saw the mate I had once trusted. His gaze dropped to my abdomen, and his fingers flexed as if instinct had urged him to reach for me. Around us, the hall went utterly still. Even Silas looked toward the floor, suddenly aware that this was no longer a disciplinary scene. It was an Alpha standing over the woman carrying his heir.

Then Damien looked toward the corridor Chloe had been carried through. The softness vanished. Suspicion replaced it.

"Do not."

"The clinic confirmed it."

"Do not use a child that does not exist to escape judgment."

My wolf recoiled inside me.

"Open the mate bond and feel for yourself."

Damien had been blocking me since Chloe collapsed. I could feel the wall where his presence should have been.

"Open it," I repeated.

"You have manipulated the bond before."

"Never about this."

I reached for him.

My palm had barely touched the floor when his boot came down across my fingers.

Pain shot through my hand.

I cried out.

Damien did not lift his foot.

"The evidence is in your room," he said, looking down at me. "Chloe is fighting for her life. You expect me to ignore all of it because you suddenly claim to be pregnant?"

"I am not claiming anything."

I forced the words through clenched teeth.

"Call Dr. Ellis. He ran the blood test."

Beta Silas shifted near the dais. For one second, I thought he might intervene.

Then Chloe's personal nurse rushed through the side doors.

"Alpha!"

Damien turned.

The nurse was pale and breathless. "Lady Chloe's heart stopped. The healers restored a rhythm, but she is asking for you."

Damien lifted his boot from my hand.

Not because I had convinced him.

Because Chloe had called.

"Take Mia below," he ordered.

Two guards approached.

I stared at him. "Below where?"

"The underground detention block."

Several people gasped.

Those cells were built for violent rogues. Damp concrete, iron bars, no heat.

"Damien, I am pregnant."

He looked at the nurse instead of me.

"No visitors. No special meals. No healer unless I authorize it."

"Alpha," one guard said carefully, "the lower cells are freezing this time of year."

Damien finally met my eyes.

"Then she should have considered the consequences before poisoning someone under my protection."

The guards pulled me to my feet.

My injured hand hung uselessly at my side.

"Check the clinic records," I said as they dragged me toward the doors. "That is all I am asking. Check one record before you do this."

Damien turned away.

"If she resists," he said, "chain her."

The mate bond should have carried my fear to him.

Instead, I felt the wall he had built between us harden into stone.

The last thing I saw before the hall doors closed was Damien running toward Chloe's infirmary without looking back once.