The Rejected Luna And The Heir Is Back

Elara woke to fluorescent lights buzzing overhead and the smell of antiseptic, her head was pounding and her shoulder wrapped in bandages that felt too tight.

"You're awake," a man said and she turned her head to find a doctor who looked too tired to be working, dark circles under his eyes and a white coat with suspicious stains.

"You've been out for six hours."

"My baby…" Elara started to sit up but pain hit her ribs and she gasped.

"Still there, the heartbeat is still strong despite the crash," the doctor said, checking a clipboard.

"You're lucky you were only six weeks along, any further and the impact might have caused complications."

Elara pressed her hand to her stomach and felt reliefed, then she took in her surroundings, it was a clinic that looked more like an abandoned warehouse with peeling paint and equipment that belonged in a museum.

"Where am I?"

"Borderlands Medical Center, though calling it a center is generous," the doctor said.

"Some wolves found you passed out at the border marker and brought you here, you had a concussion, dislocated shoulder, three cracked ribs, and significant blood loss from the head wound."

"I need to leave," Elara said and tried sitting up again despite the pain.

"You need to rest and you need to pay," the doctor interrupted. "Treatment, medication, six hours of observation….. then the doctor signed ….that's eight hundred dollars."

Elara's stomach dropped. "I don't have eight hundred dollars, I barely have fifty."

"Then you work it off," the doctor said flatly. "We need workers, so you can be cleaning the clinic, sterilising equipment, handling laundry, and other basic tasks until your debt is cleared."

"That's not legal…"

"This is the borderlands, sweetheart, pack law doesn't apply here and human law doesn't care about us," the doctor said.

"You want to walk out that door, fine, but I'll report you to the settlement authorities for theft of services and they'll put you in lockup until you pay."

Elara closed her eyes and felt tears building but refused to let them fall because crying wouldn't help and wouldn't change the fact that she was trapped in a place that operated on different rules than anything she'd known.

"Fine," she whispered. "I'll work."

The doctor nodded and left, and Elara lay there staring at the water-stained ceiling tiles until a nurse came to help her to the bathroom where she saw her reflection for the first time, her face was bruised, stitches across her forehead, and her eyes looked hollow and defeated.

She just signed and started gathering equipment to start work despite the pains.

*****

Elara worked for three days cleaning blood off floors and washing sheets, her ribs ached with every movement and her shoulder screaming whenever she lifted anything heavier than a mop.

On the fourth day she was scrubbing an examination table when the clinic doors burst open and five men walked in wearing leather, they looked like they owned the place, and maybe they did because everyone else in the clinic suddenly found reasons to disappear.

The man in front was tall with scars across his face and eyes that looked at Elara like she was something he might buy or break depending on his mood, and when he smiled she felt her wolf curl up in fear.

"Well well," he said, his voice was really deep. "Fresh meat from pack territory, I can smell it on you."

"I'm working," Elara said and kept scrubbing even though her hands were shaking.

"You're an omega," he corrected and walked closer until she could smell the cigarettes on his body.

"An unprotected omega in the borderlands, that's dangerous, because lots of alphas here would take advantage."

"I'm fine," Elara said.

"You're not fine, you're vulnerable and alone and pregnant based on that scent," he said and grabbed her wrist, pulling her hand away from the table.

"I'm Mandivus Swathi, I run this settlement's south district, and I'm offering you protection."

"I don't need protection."

"Everyone needs protection here," Mandivus said and his grip tightened enough to hurt her.

"Especially omegas carrying valuable cargo, that baby you're growing could be worth a lot to the right buyer."

Horror crawled up Elara's spine. "You can't…"

"I can do whatever I want, but I'm being generous," Mandivus interrupted.

"Work for me, be under my protection, and nothing happens to you or the kid, refuse and I'll make sure every dangerous alpha in the borderlands knows there's an unprotected omega ripe for claiming."

The clinic doors opened again and a different man walked in, a cute man with gray in his hair and a face that had seen too much, and Mandivus dropped Elara's wrist immediately.

"Swathi," the man said. "We've talked about you recruiting in my clinic."

"Just offering a helping hand, Marcus," Mandivus said but he was already backing toward the door.

"Think about my offer, omega, you've got three days before I stop being nice."

He left with his men and Elara's legs gave out, dropping her into a chair while her heartbeat rate fastened, her mind raced through everything he'd said about buyers and claiming and protection that sounded more like ownership.

Marcus approached slowly and crouched beside her chair. "You okay?"

"Who was that?" Elena asked slowly.

"Trouble," Marcus said. "Mandivus runs illegal fighting rings, gambling operations, and worse, he's dangerous and he doesn't make empty threats."

"I don't have anywhere to go," Elara said and hated how small her voice sounded.

"You can work at my diner," Marcus offered. "It's not much but it's honest work and I don't let Swathi's people operate there, it's neutral ground."

"Why would you help me?"

"Because someone helped me once when I got exiled," Marcus said. "And because letting Swathi get his hands on a pregnant omega doesn't sit right."

Elara looked at this stranger who was offering kindness in a place that seemed designed to destroy it, and nodded because she had no other options and no other allies.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"Don't thank me yet," Marcus said. "The borderlands will test you in ways you can't imagine, and Swathi doesn't give up easily."

That night Elara lay in a shelter bed surrounded by other exiled wolves, most of them criminals or outcasts, listening to someone crying three beds over and someone else arguing about stolen food.

She touched her stomach where her baby grew and promised him she'd survive this somehow, because for the doctor to let her go, that dangerous Alpha will also do the same.

Although she didn't believe those words.