The Luna's Escape

Chapter 2 - A ‘Doting’ Alpha

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TRIGGER WARNING

This chapter contains topics of miscarriage, domestic abuse, non-consensual touching, manipulation and love bombing.

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Jasmine

“All done, Luna,” Doctor Knox chirped, removing the blood pressure cuff from the top of my arm.

An older she-wolf nurse took the cuff from her to fold away and handed me a glass of cucumber water.

“I remember you liked this last time you were here.” She patted my shoulder as a mother would.

“Thank you.” I accepted it, gulping it down my parched throat after so many tests.

“My Luna couldn’t be in finer care.” Dominic rolled out his performance. “I wouldn’t entrust her to anyone else.”

He kissed the back of my hand and disarmed the two she-wolves with his handsome and charming smile, perfect teeth and all. The man truly was so skilled; his smile reached his eyes, and his affections were so natural, spilling with such ease. His pleasantries were returned, both women beaming with pride to be praised and considered so highly by their Alpha. How could they ever believe him to be anything else other than a model leader?

Dr. Knox typed away on her computer, either inputting appointments or my results. “Everything’s come back healthy, and I can confirm you’re definitely pregnant,” she chuckled, “probably around a week or two along. I’ll schedule your first ultrasound scan for ten weeks, but I want to see you again each month so we can keep a close monitor of your progression—”

“Forward those appointments to me. I want to be at my Luna’s side so that she’s not alone.” Dominic gripped my hand and settled his arm around my waist.

“Of course, Alpha. The other wolf males would do well to follow your example.”

I wanted to throw up, and not from the morning sickness that was yet to kick in. The knot that rose in the back of my throat was enough to make me retch, and my face burned in an all-too-familiar heralding of more tears, the bawling kind from utter defeat. I could understand why the doctor would say such words. Dominic made superficial integrity look effortless, and he wore it remarkably well with his practised proficiency.

“When the moon goddess grants me a second chance and the greatest love of my life.” His large hand curled around my waist to my stomach, spanning the flat surface entirely. “I’d do anything to protect what’s mine.”

Honey-sweet words that no one but myself grasped the true meaning of. I was his possession to own; his possession to control; his possession to breed from at his will, an incubator for his heirs who would be an extension of himself as was everything else he owned. He made it sound as though I was a second chance mate to him and his wolf, Dolph, and a balm over the wound of his former ‘love’. I believe it was an assumption made and never clarified, and I was too busy mistaking the man’s red flags for glittery confetti with hearts popping in my eyes to want to dispel the fallacy.

“The only result to be aware of is your blood pressure.” The doctor turned to me with a concerned furrow of her brows. “It’s a little high. Is there anything causing you stress?”

My eyes must’ve doubled in size, and I took everything I had not to side-glance Dominic.

Was anything causing me stress?

Did Dr. Knox have any idea what a loaded question she had asked? I lived in fear every day that I would do or say something to evoke an Alpha’s anger again. I had been terrified of what would happen if I didn’t become pregnant again. I was terrified of becoming pregnant again. What if I had another miscarriage? How far would Dominic’s rage extend with a second failed pregnancy?

“I think my Luna’s worried about what happened last time,” he interjected, tightening his grip on my hand as a warning to remain quiet. I squirmed on the examination table at the pressure squeezed around the bones of my fingers. He let go of my waist to stroke my cheek, and I bit the inner round of my lip to keep it from quivering. “It was a difficult period for both of us.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” The nurse spotted my wilting eyes and handed me a tissue.

But before I could take it, Dominic beat me to the white square and wiped under my eyes for me, leaning in to kiss my temple.

“It’s a lot easier said than done,” the doctor soothed, “but please don’t worry. You’re only twenty-two; you’ve got all the time right now. Many she-wolves face this sort of thing too, so you’re not alone. And if the worst does happen, you’ve got our Alpha here to look after you so well, just like he did last time.” She beamed her approval at Dominic, who preened over the accolades.

True, Dominic did look after me. He made sure I was warm, kept me off my feet, brought my meals and gave me every personal attention a person could want. However, none of it was in the interest of my care. It was so no one would see the large bruise across my left eye and cheek. The official story fed to the pack was that I was recovering and grieving; neither were technically a lie. I was recovering, and I was grieving, but it was for far more than anyone else knew.

“I think we’re all done here for today.” The doctor tapped a few more times on her computer and collected a printout. “You can get dressed while I get you your prenatal vitamins and a recommended diet going forward.”

“Thanks again, doctor. I appreciate you fitting her in on such short notice.” Dominic extended his hand to Dr. Knox and the nurse.

“Of course. Any time for our Luna.”

“One final question before we go. Jasmine was a little worried about having s*x in her condition. Will we be alright, or do I need to learn to keep my hands off her?” he laughed while pawing at my waist.

I was mortified, wishing the sky would fall on me through the roof of the pack hospital maternity wing, and I knew my face had turned into a tomato.

She chuckled as though it were a sweet little query, which, to her, it was. “You’ll be fine, Luna. s*x can actually be very beneficial during pregnancy. Just avoid lying on your back and either keep on your side, on all fours or on top. We’ll maintain a close eye on you for any complications that intercourse may pose.”

Gee, thanks, Doc, I cursed, losing my one argument to keep the wolf at bay and let my body be mine for just once.

With a smile and nod, both she-wolves exited the cosy consultation room, leaving me alone with Dominic. I wondered if they realised I had only spoken once during the entire examination. Had they noticed the Alpha answered each question for me with his script?

“Let’s get you out of this, angel.” He slid my long, blonde curls to the side and pulled the strings of my gown. “And when we get home, I’ll run you a nice long bath to help with all those stresses.”

“I’d like that.” I strained a smile as he stripped the gown from me.

A soak in the tub after all of this sounded like heaven, and my muscles sighed at the thought of being engulfed in soothing warmth.

Dominic insisted on placing each article of clothing on me and peppering every inch of exposed skin with his kisses before it was covered. I didn’t bother resisting him because it was pointless. If he wanted to spin me around and bend me over the examination table, then that’s what he would get. Whenever I tried to pull away from his intimacy, he would remind me of the debt owed that was to be paid with my body, unaware that I knew the truth about my so-called-rescue.

At any opportunity like this, he would take his time to infuse my skin with as much of his scent as possible. It wasn’t as though any pack member would disturb their Alpha while he ‘showered love’ on his Luna. As his teeth nipped at my inner thigh, the knitted stocking loose around my knee forgotten, I allowed my mind to drift away and transport me to someplace other than here.

Flecks of white broke my thousand-yard stare through the clinic room’s window for a brief second. Before coming here, I had barely witnessed a flake of snow in my commune home on the Nelson River near Hudson Bay in the Manitoba province of Canada. I also used to have visions more frequently from being in the constant company of my wiccan Family.

We influenced each other’s powers and our immediate area the longer we stayed, allowing our connection with Gaia – the earth spirit and the moon goddess’s link to us – to deepen, particularly among earth wiccans, who could cultivate a variety of plants year-round. The little sprouts answered their presence, growing and blooming around them at speed. Even the weather and temperature responded in kind, remaining balmy when the surrounding region was plunged into freezing winters. They comprised the majority of our hundred and twenty-strong Family, including our Elder, who served as the head of the wiccan Family in much the same way that an Alpha led a werewolf pack. We also had within our midst a few fauna wiccans, and animals would flock to them, doing as they asked. The aura wiccans of our Family could see a person’s soul through the colours that reacted to Gaia’s encircling tendrils, revealing their nature and emotions.

My mother was a healer wiccan and the only one of her kind in our commune, aside from her brother – my uncle. Unfortunately, I never met him; he vanished without a trace when I was all but six months old. My powers of foresight came from my father. In his particular speciality, he was able to foresee a person’s soulmate – familiars we wiccans called our other halves – though he was never able to see mine.

Unlike other wiccans’ powers, foresight was unstable with little control. There was no telling when a premonition would happen; it just happened. And the characteristics of the vision were unique to the individual. My visions were of events that had happened in another’s past, transferred when their emotions spiked. My visions could also illuminate what might unfold around me, but those were always scrambled as though a multitude of versions battled to show themselves at once.

The future was never set and could be altered, eliminated or exasperated by one small action. But figuring out the identity of that one small action was a headache. There was a reason there were few foresight wiccans. Between age and mounting visions, they put a strain on the mind. From time to time, that strain could prove too much, and like a branch holding too heavy a load, it would snap.

It was a rarity for a vision of the future to be clear and unchanging, but when they struck, they rendered me unconscious and drew blood with their vivid images. Just like the vision I had that ultimately led to my current situation. Sometimes, the vision of the future would never come to fruition, leaving me wondering whether I had done something to prevent it – a left turn when I should have gone right or an offer rejected when I should have accepted.

One of my earliest visions as an eight-year-old girl was of a sweet little boy with dark curls. The scenery around us flickered with rapid change, as did his clothes and the way he had his hair. What remained unchanged was the round dandelion covered in feathery white seeds he gave me. I never did meet my sweet boy, I never received my fluffy dandelion bloom and I never knew why the vision failed to arise. The why had always left a sour taste and an anxious weight behind. Perhaps that was the first creak of the branch in my mind, the first sign that I too would end up like some of the foresight wiccans before me.

“Angel?” Dominic’s sharp voice rattled my daydreaming away.

The memories of my cosy, flourishing Canadian home were ripped away, replaced with the sterile white walls of the examination room and Dominic shaking my coat, beckoning me to slip my arms into the sleeves.

“You floated away from me there,” he bristled under his cool demeanour.

I turned to let him slide on the shell-pink woollen coat, not wishing to keep him waiting any longer than I had and to hide the fear plastered across my face that I had zoned out as he groped me.

“Sorry, I was just thinking about home…” And I was relieved I had my back to him so he couldn’t see my panic mounting as I realised my slip of the tongue too late.

“I got you lusting after the bath I promised you?” he chuckled, lifting my hair from under the coat collar and believing by ‘home’, I meant our home. “Well then, let’s get you back home so I can have you all to myself.” He lifted my hand to brush his lips. “Just how I like it.”