Page 151 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha

“It won’t be long now, Lucian,” she whispered, trying to push that sadness away. “Soon, she’ll be able to play with them, too.”

“I can’t wait,” he whispered back. “Dom’s already looking forward to being a big brother.”

Another bolt of shock coursed through me. Lucian Slate? But that meant…

The memory began to lose focus, and I almost lost hold of it. I tried to do the same thing as before, bringing calmness inside me and holding tight. Get a hold of yourself, Bryn, I snapped. Get. It. Together! After a few seconds, I let go of the shock, and the memory steadied.

Relieved, I tried to look again at my father, but my mother’s eyes were focused on the far corner of the kitchen.

I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. My father looks just like Dom! So, Dom and I were half-siblings.

I let that revelation wash over me as my parents continued to sway together in the kitchen. The more I sat with it, the more sense it made. I’d felt an instant connection to Dom from the moment we met.

I’d never imagined the two of us could be related. I’d have to tell him as soon as I returned to my own body. How would he take the news? Dom had definitely known my mother, but what if he didn’t know his father had gotten her pregnant?

With that question lingering in my mind, the memory shifted again.

I wasn’t standing; I was flat on my back on a mattress.

As far as I could see, the room had only one small bed, and the walls were covered in black, haphazardly painted symbols.

I had no idea what the symbols were, but I felt my mother’s alarm like it was my own.

Unlike the other memories, this one had a staticky haze to it, as if something was interfering with the signal. The light in the room was too bright, and the bed under my back was too hard. I just felt…off. What the hell was happening here?

I couldn’t tell if my mother knew where we were.

I tried to sit up, but my arms and legs were bound to the bedposts.

I’d been in similar positions too many times, but I wouldn’t have thought my mom had ever experienced something like this.

Panic washed over me, but the vision didn’t become distorted like the others.

Maybe it was because she and I were experiencing the same emotion?

Suddenly, I heard footsteps running toward the door. Our eyes widened, staring at the door. Was her captor coming to finish the job? She clenched her hands into fists and flinched when the door was kicked open. She turned her face to the side, squeezing her eyes shut.

“I finally found you.”

That voice. Warmth cut through the fear, and she turned her head. My father was there, covered in blood and bruises, his shirt a stained, tattered mess, but he was there to rescue her. Relief hit my mother and me hard as he rushed to her side and sliced through the bindings with his claws.

“We need to get out of here now,” he said, pulling her to her feet. “They’re sending more Kings after us.”

She took a step and winced as pain stabbed through her. “Luke, the baby—” She panted. “She’s coming!”

My father cursed. Below, we heard the door burst open and the sound of several men running inside.

Lucian sprinted to the window and kicked it out.

My mother turned away from the spray of shattered glass.

He cleared the most jagged bits of glass from the window frame before turning to my mother again.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, pulling her into his arms before leaping through the window into the cool night air. He hit the ground and started sprinting with her clutched in his arms.

As he ran, my vision finally cleared of that staticky haze, but he was moving so fast, I couldn’t tell where exactly we were. The most I could tell was that the land smelled like King territory.

The minute I realized this, I understood that this was the night my mother died. I wasn’t expecting to see it so soon, and I didn’t know if I was ready to see what had happened. At the same time, I knew I couldn’t look away. I needed to know what had happened to them. I owed them that much.

My father sprinted into the woods, with King wolves not far behind.

My mother cried out as pain rammed into her, her muscles contracting.

Her water had broken, and her body throbbed as the baby—me—started to push through.

I wished I could tell myself to hold off.

This was the worst time to go into labor, but the stress of the situation must have induced it.

My father had to stop when she screamed again. He set her down at the base of a large oak tree. She pushed his chest as if to tell him to go without her.

“I’m not leaving your side,” he said, his eyes wet with tears. “I’ll defend you to my last breath.”

She was breathing hard as she stared at him, her hand still on his chest. After a few seconds, she stopped pushing him and nodded. “I know you will. We can’t run from our destiny.” She tried to smile, but the pain and the weight of her sorrow wouldn’t let her. “I love you so much, Lucian.”

“I love you, too, Blo—”

Guards burst from between the trees before he could finish speaking.

Lucian released a roar, his hands turning to claws as he turned to face them head-on.

He killed them quickly and without mercy.

Dark blood splattered over the ground, through the air, across the trunks of the trees.

He was a machine, cleaving through his adversaries before they even got close to my mother.

A wolf bit into his shoulder, but my father didn’t even grunt.

He stabbed his claws through the wolf’s underbelly, and its bowels sloshed to the ground.

My mother watched it all through vision that was slowly fading. She stared at her mate’s back, calm stealing over her as she accepted that she was close to the end. She wasn’t injured from anything external, but something inside had torn.

Once Lucian got rid of that first wave of wolves, he turned back to her. As their eyes met, my hold on my mom’s mind began to slip away.

I scrambled to regain control, thinking I was losing focus again, but I realized at that devastating moment that she was dying. My father seemed to realize it at the same time.

“No.” His voice cracked, tears spilling over his cheeks. He crouched in front of her. “What can I do?” he asked. “How do I save you?”

She gave a weak shake of her head and placed her hand over her stomach. Save the baby, she willed him to understand.

He sobbed once as he looked at her stomach, and then mustered up enough resolve to nod.

He took her hand in his and tried to coax her through my birth.

She was fading fast, but she held on long enough to make sure I was born.

As she pushed, she simultaneously pushed me from her mind.

I was no longer seeing through her eyes but hovering above the scene, looking down at them.

I tried to angle myself to see her face, but I couldn’t get a clear view. The last thing I saw was myself as a newborn in my father’s arms. Newborn-me opened her mouth, let out a cry, and then everything went black.