A Secret Alpha Mate
Chapter 42

(Isla)

All the blood drained from my face, I felt my vision going in and out and it sounded like I was underwater.

In an instant, my life came crashing around me.

Everything I dared to dream of for my future, for our future, was gone in those two words. Jackson was gone, my place in this pack was gone, I couldn't think about it I could barely breathe.

I barely recognized Gianna coming in focus, her voice ringing in my ears sounding distant.

"Isla darling." Her eyes worried, I couldn't respond, "Can you hear me? Isla?" Her voice comes into focus and I feel like I'm breaking through the surface and I am coming back to reality, a reality that I didn't want to be in. "Um." My throat constricts around those words.

"Come on darling, let me take you to your room." She nods at Lucas and he lifts me in his arms, I didn't care enough to protest.

"Jackson, stay here. I'll deal with it." I hear Gianna tell Jackson in the distance. I collapse on Lucas' chest.

I realize that he's trying to take me to Jackson's room.

"No, no, no, no." I mutter, "Let me down." I lightly slap Lucas' chest to get his attention.

"Put her down." Gianna commands and I'm suddenly vertical.

"Thanks," I mutter.

"Let's get in and I'll start a bath for you, sweetie, we can talk it out." I shake my head, I'm not going back in there.

"I need to stay somewhere else." Gianna and Lucas exchange a worried look.

"Would you like to stay with Abigail, sweetie?" Gianna grabs my hand, I shake my head again.

"I need to be alone."

"We just need-"

"I need to be alone," I emphasize every word.

"I'll take you to a guest room." She walks across the hall from our room and I shake my head. She thinks for a second before pulling me to one side of the hall and opens up a room at the very end, it wasn't big, not even half as big as mine and Jackson's room, my old room, but I didn't even care.

I nodded to her and closed the door behind me, a part of me that seemed so far away felt bad, but I couldn't concentrate on that. I mostly just felt sad and alone.

I curled up on top of the sheets, not bothering to change, and curled in a ball and let the tears run out. I don't know when I fell asleep, or if I ever did.

(Jackson)

I wanted to be with Isla, I needed to comfort her but my dad held me back while my mom and Lucas took her out of the room. It pained me to see her like this and I couldn't focus on anything else but what she must be going through now.

"Son," my dad clapped my back hard and looked me in the eyes, "Focus, you need to speak with her now, get to the bottom of it." I looked him in his eyes and I could see he was as anxious as I was. I nodded quickly and he let go of my shoulder and left the room, everyone else followed behind him. When I heard the door click behind me I sighed and sank into the chair across my desk.

"Jennifer," She looks up and smiles sickly sweet, "If this is some kind of game, I will replace out, and you will pay the price for trying to come between me and my mate."

"But baby," She comes around the front of the desk and sits on the edge of it across from me, "I will be your mate now. Giving birth to the next Alpha makes me Luna."

"You will never be my mate, even if you are pregnant, and even if the child I'm carrying is yours," I state. She looks taken aback a bit.

"You'll come around, we were together for years and your "mate" is an omega." She laughs, "Do I need to remind you of my bloodline? You should be thanking me so the future of this pack stays strong and the next Alpha isn't some omega runt." I stand up, towering over her.

"You will never speak of my mate like that again, in fact, I don't want her name in your mouth," I command and she is forced to submit.

"I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, well I guess it isn't bad news, but you're not marked. She's technically not your Luna. When I give birth to your Alpha heir you won't be allowed to take another Luna besides your heir's mother, aka me." I look at her, she seems serious but I can't tell if she is. I try to wrack my brain to see if I heard of any similar situations but I haven't.

"Even if that is true, I won't accept you as my mate."

"Why so angry? This is both of our faults, it takes two to tango or whatever." She stands up walking closer to me now. She looks up at me innocently,

"I know this isn't the most ideal situation, but I'm just as shocked and scared as you are." She tries to grab my hand but I pull it away. She is right it's not just her fault and I have myself to blame too.

"We are going to the doctor first thing in the morning." She nods and smiles thinking I'm accepting her, "Obviously there will be a paternity test as soon as it's possible."

"Of course." She says, not even looking slightly offended.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some business to attend to." I open the door for her and she stays where she is, "Please get out of my office, we can discuss anything else in the morning." She moves but hesitates near the door. "Should I move my things to your room or-."

"Get the f**k out." I almost yell, she jumps back but plasters on a smirk and brushes past me.

"The Alpha nursery is on this floor so I should be staying near our baby." She saunters away and doesn't look back.

(Jackson)

I run to my room and fling open the door but Isla isn't there. I start to panic a little, did she run away? There is a faint trail of her scent and I follow it down to one of the last rooms on this floor that hasn't been used in ages. I turn the knob and see that it's locked. I start banging on it.

"Isla, please baby, open up. I need to talk to you." My mom appears out of nowhere and I jump.

"Jackson, give her space. She wants to be alone and doesn't even want to see Abigail. I'm sure she's in shock."

"What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to stay close to her, so I was in the room across the hall."

"Mom-" my voice breaks and she pulls me into a tight hug, "I can't lose her, I just found her." I fight against the tears that are pooling in my eyes.

"I know honey, we will figure this out. She is strong and she will get through this." She rubs circles on my back. I stand up and take a deep breath.

"I need to talk to you and dad and probably Lucas and Cam too. I'll be in my office, please mindlink everyone to meet us there." I stand up straight and walk back, my legs feeling like lead.

Everyone is in my office in minutes. I can't sit down I keep pacing, there has to be a solution.

"Son, because Isla isn't technically your Luna yet, you haven't mated with her or marked each other then the rules are that your responsibility is to your heir and the mother would become the Luna." Everyone looks at him. I can't believe this. "I won't do it."

"I don't know if you would have a choice." He sighs deeply, "The bloodline is what werewolves care about the most, and the Alpha bloodline most of all. You need to do it the right way and have the mother of your heir become the Luna." My stomach twisted and I felt like the floor dropped out from under me.

Was he really suggesting I had to take Jennifer as my Luna? I felt sick.

"There has to be another way." I hear Lucas say, but I can't focus on anything but this feeling in my stomach.

"Can't he raise the child as his heir and not take her as his Luna?" Cam asks.

"Dad. I-II can't. I can't lose Isla. I will give up being Alpha if it means not losing her." All that mattered to me was Isla, more than being Alpha, the only thing that mattered now was her.

"Is there not a way that Isla can be Luna and Jackson still accepts Jennifer's kid as the heir?"

My dad shakes his head, "I don't think it works like that. We have rules for a reason."

"f**k the rules." I slam my hands on the desk.

My mother looks shocked, "Don't talk to your father that way."

"If I can't take Isla as my Luna, I don't want to be Alpha," I say with finality and walk out of my office.

I don't know where I'm going but I know I can't sleep, I can't sit. I realize that I made it to the edge of the woods that meets the base of the mountains.

I shifted into Flint and focused on the cold wind ruffling my fur and the feel of the soft ground under my paws. I ran until daylight and finally exhausted, passed out somewhere in wolf form.

Daylight streamed through the trees and pieced my weary eyelids. I wasn't ready to face reality yet, but I knew I had to.

I needed to talk to Isla today and I would replace a way to make this right. I needed to tell her my plan to choose her over being Alpha, I needed her to know how much she meant to me.

I reluctantly got up and ran back to the packhouse. I didn't realize how much ground I ran yesterday, but thankfully I must have started circling back because it only took an hour or so to make it back to where I started. I linked Lucas to bring me some clothes out back, not even bothering or caring enough to shower.

My legs felt weak as I walked towards the packhouse clinic. I wasn't sure if it was because of running all night or the fear that Jennifer might actually be pregnant. I stumbled into the clinic and saw that Jennifer, her parents, and my parents were already there. "Oh, honey." My mother rushes to me and grabs my face in her small hands looking me over, worried.

"I'm fine, Mom." I try to brush her off, "I just went for a long run to clear my head." She nods but her face is still filled with concern.

"I know that look," Greg, Jennifers dad comes up and claps me on the back, "I was scared out of my wits when Lisa here told me I was going to be a father." Lisa laughs and nods a bit too enthusiastically.

"Oh, I do remember that. White as a sheet that one was." Lisa adds.

"Can we please just get this over with?" I say, not bothering for politeness this morning. My mom flashes me a look but agrees.

"Yes, I think it's best to see what is going on before we start making arrangements." My mom adds.

Right on cue, the Doctor comes up.

"What a crowd we have today." He smiles up and then checks his sheet, "Oh." He says out loud, "Um follow me, we don't have room for everyone so maybe mom and dad." He looks and Jennifer and me and I wince but Jennifer beams, "How about you two and your moms come in, everyone else can wait out here."

The doctor helps Jennifer up on a table covered in crinkly paper. He takes out a wand and rubs some thick gel across her flat stomach. The next few seconds go by in days as he looks around at the static on the screen.

"Ah, okay then there it is." He says. My stomach drops and Jennifer reaches for my hand that I abruptly pull away, "There's not much to see here just a little sack. It's still too early to really see the baby, but it looks like you are, in fact, pregnant."

"How far along is she, doctor?" My mother asks calmly.

He looks back on the screen and looks like he's doing some measurements with a tool on the screen, "It is a bit early to tell, a month or so, maybe less. The next time you come in, I should be able to give you a more accurate due date and more information on how far along you are exactly."

"When do we come in next?" Jennifer asks,

"Two weeks from now we should be able to see more."

"When can we do a paternity test?" I ask, the doctor looks at me shocked, and Jennifer's mom, Lisa, gasps.

"Uh, well we should be able to do it after the first trimester, so another month or so for a werewolf pregnancy."

"Okay, let's schedule that in as soon as it is possible," I say and stand up.

"Jackson," I turn to look at my mom, "Is there a chance? I mean, in the past month?" She motions to Jennifer and I know what she's asking.

"About a month or so." Her face loses all of its color.

"Oh," was all she could say.

I turn to leave the room and I hear my mom talk to Lisa and Jennifer, "Of course if this baby is Jackson's we will accept it completely as part of our family."

"I can't believe he would ever accuse you of that," Lisa tells her daughter.

"I know Mom, he must just be in shock."

"You're right dear, such a mature thing you are," Lisa says, I roll my eyes even though I know they can't see.

I brush past Lucas and our fathers and head up to my floor seeing if I could get to Isla. I knocked on the door of the room she was staying in and couldn't hear anything behind it.

"Isla?" I called out softly, "Please talk to me, baby." I tried knocking again but nothing behind the door moved.