Chapter 121

Sarah POV

I’m seriously worried about Ella. She’s acting so weird these days. Her career is taking off, so why is she so anxious about my life? I wish she’d stop asking all these questions.

It’s always, “What do you feel like?” like I have any idea. I’m sick half the day, then starving, then sleepy, then sick again. If she’s so damn interested in being pregnant, I told her, go get pregnant too. There’s only a mile of alphas who’d top her with the slightest invitation.

Yes, I keep telling her, I know it’s twins, and yes, it’s girls. I have no idea if they’re going to be alphas, betas, gammas, or even omegas, and she knows it. The placenta injection is risky, and we’re all going to know everything in just a few more months. What’s the rush?

Last night was particularly awful. Zane was talking about the Sanrichzky Farm, which has faced some terrible problems with drought this year, and Ella decided it was a great time to launch into a story about this fashion spread she’ll be featured in in Vogue. And when the two of us didn’t fall all over ourselves about how wonderful that was, she threw a full-scale temper tantrum and stormed out.

What is wrong with her? Can she really not spend five minutes not being the center of attention? Zane says she’s jealous of me because I’m an alpha and she’s a beta, which is probably true. But why?

Frankly, I’m not enjoying any of the alpha parts of my life. I hate the way I can’t go for a coffee without getting swarmed for autographs and blessings. What do they think I know about the Luna Temple? I went there twice, and it was horrible the first time and worse the second.

In fact, I blame the Luna Temple for all my anxiety about the girls. I’m about to be a mother of two, and am I thinking about breastfeeding and diapers? No, I’m thinking about whether we need to appoint official goddess-parents and what my will should say.

I’m a young, healthy, virile alpha female. Right now, right this minute, I should be happier than I ever have been before, and all I’m doing is settling my affairs and wondering what’s wrong with Ella.

Not to mention, Zane is right about the Sanrichzky Farm. We need to help them, and here I am, I’m too bloated and exhausted to even travel over there and check things out for myself.

If I dream of the White Wolf tonight, I’m going to ask her advice.

I snorted. If I’d been that White Wolf, I’d have told her to stay away from Ella.

I was about to close the journal when I saw the second page ended with a poem. Olivia liked to sprinkle poems into her journals.

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,

And the dry stone no sound of water. Only

There is shadow under this red rock,

(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),

And I will show you something different from either

Your shadow at morning striding behind you

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

I recognized it as a passage from T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” certainly a sad choice for an expectant mother. She’d been afraid, and she hadn’t been sure what she’d been afraid of.

I shivered a little, thinking about it. The only way to deal with fear, in my opinion, was to confront it, which meant my greatest fear was the unknown, the thing you couldn’t confront. I thought of poor Olivia pregnant with twin girls and fearful for them and for herself of something she couldn’t name, couldn’t turn around and confront, demanding, “Who are you? What do you want?”

I empathized so much, in fact, that I confronted the fact that I felt the same way. Why had some “nut job” taken a shot at me? Why did I “find drama” everywhere I went now?

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

But I wasn’t facing a handful of dust. I was the goddess-mother of two extraordinary alpha girls, the same girls Olivia had birthed and worried so much over. The legacy I had taken on so blithely was intimidating as hell—a handful of landmines.

I thought then of Chloe when I first found her, this little pick, puckered potato wrapped in her little blanket. I’d had no idea then what she would come to mean to me.

And then she’d had a sister I loved dearly as well, along with a father, that, well . . .

How did I feel about Zane? I loved him, I wanted him, I admired him, and I wanted to spend my life with him. In a sane world, that should have been more than enough.

The real issues concerned how selfish my love for him was, how much I wanted him to disrupt, even ruin his own life to make room for mine by his side.

I thought of the journal in my lap. Olivia had been articulate, fully educated in wolf lore, strong, beautiful, and the perfect alpha. How was I supposed to compete with that?

Was I supposed to compete with that? As a human, was competition really a thing between us?

How was I to fill those shoes? Olivia had been groomed to be the pack’s co-leader. She had been raised with the awareness that her fate was, well, fated, and even if she’d had doubts, her life had been mapped out for her, and that gave her confidence.

What, ultimately, could I offer to Zane? To the girls, I could offer my education, my love, my conscientious behavior, my diligence, and my guidance. But to Zane?

I could offer my love, but what good was some human’s love to the pack alpha? I could offer my guidance, but that was mainly based on my ability to research things, and one day everyone would realize everything I counseled was based on Google search and turn their backs on me. My diligence and behavior were worthless to him as well.

I could offer him my body, and I was happy to do it because it allowed me access to his, all miles and miles of gorgeous muscle and tendons and sinews and smooth skin that he had. I loved at night to plot out just how I would touch him in the morning, what I would touch and then kiss first.

I thought of what Olivia said about knowing “bedroom tricks.” Well, I knew a couple. I should research more online. Maybe things involving ice or feathers?

Nothing involving bondage. Not ever. For both of us, I thought.

I hoped.

No, I thought.

I looked down at the journal and turned the page.

Angela has decided she doesn’t like her name anymore. She’s going to go to the temple to change it to Emile. She says people will trust their pets to her more.