Oh fuck.

Oh fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck!

Fuck!

Fuck!

I felt sick. My stomach was churning and the moment I was shoved out of the house I turned and heaved over the railing. She was pregnant. Fucking pregnant. My chest felt tight and I felt dizzy as the image of her with that rounded belly bounced around the inside of my skull. I crouched down, attempting to suck in air.

She was dead. I had killed her.

I knew it had been me that got her pregnant, there was no other explanation for it. She was going to die. Mene was going to take her away like she took away Chrissie. I had killed her.

"I don't care what fucking pack you come from. Don't you ever take that tone with any of the females in Oblitus!" The Alpha's voice was harsh and he grabbed the back of my jacket, yanking me to my feet. My legs felt liquid, like they weren't going to hold me up.

"Stop!" Councillor Jovan came out of the house, closing the door behind him. "We didn't tell him, Jace. He didn't know." The words were a high pitched whine and the grip was gone and I hit my knees. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to puke. I had gotten her pregnant and now she was going to die.

"Are you kidding me?" The Alpha's voice was sharp and I swallowed convulsively, my eyes burning with tears.

"Oh fuck." I croaked it out before I heaved. The realization that she had been pregnant when Stenton had her on that fucking post was enough to make my heart rate sky rocket. "Oh fuck." I gagged, covering my mouth with my hand. She had been put up on that post and he had-

I turned my head and puked up my lunch. I had taken 42 lashes but I should have been put to death. She had been pregnant and I had allowed Stenton to-

The Commands didn't matter. I had stood there, held by nothing but words, and Menza had been pregnant and they had whipped her that fucking bad. To death, the Hunters said she had died for a moment before being brought back, and she had been fucking pregnant.

"Look, that NDA we had was serious. No one knows about her pregnancy, not even him. We probably should have told him, gave him a heads up, but we were stuck on the default of no one knowing because the less people who knew the better and safer it was." The Councillor's voice barely made it through as I swallowed convulsively, the taste of bitter bile on my tongue.

She was going to die, like Chrissie had. I was a curse on females. I was. The image of her rounded belly was haunting me, so much like Chrissie. People kept losing pups and I only ever lost females. She was going to die, I had signed her death warrant. I know people would have questioned if the baby was even theirs but I knew Menza, I did. She wasn't the type of female to go out and mess around with random males. The only person who had slept with her was me and I don't know how it happened, but I got her pregnant.

"Doesn't excuse his reaction." Alpha Jace's voice was sharp and I understood him, I did. I shouldn't have said that to Menza. Regardless of the shock, but in all honesty it had been me talking to myself more than anything else.

"Well... I give him a small pass because it's really shocking to encounter. Not a large pass but a small one." The Councillor crouched by me, "You okay?" He awkwardly patted my shoulder and I looked at him.

"She's gunna die." It came out croaked. "I killed Chrissie the same way. Menza's gunna die." My eyes were burning, the tears making everything blur and there was a heavy pause.

"She died in childbirth... your former female, didn't she?" At the question I nodded and there was a soft curse. Chrissie had been, she had been taken from me. There had been so much blood, Maeve had been born screaming and Chrissie had made no sounds. She just... died. "Fuck. Okay, so you definitely need therapy. I'm retroactively making it bi-weekly, if Amber can squeeze it in." His words filtered in and I didn't even react. I didn't have the emotional capacity to react to that.

"Yah, fuck, she can make it work. Mene, this is a mess." Someone, I was assuming was the Alpha, came over and grabbed me underneath my arms, lifting me to my feet. "Get your footing." It was said gruffly and I struggled to swallow it down, to get my wobbly legs to hold me up. I wiped at my eyes discretely. There was no reason to cry, it was pathetic. My breathing was still strained and I felt shell shocked.

"Make what work?" At the new female's voice I was thumped on the back.

"Twice a week therapy for this jackass." The Alpha clearly didn't like me and I didn't blame him. He would know only what they knew and I wasn't about to expose that shame, the shame of what happened between Stenton and I. I was a horrible male either way, the hows or whys didn't matter.

"Sure, I can get it fit in. With the other Omegas leaving I have space in my schedule." She came up the stairs and I glanced at her, barely looking at her as I looked at the porch boards. I was staring at them as if just the look of them would help the mind numbing panic I had about Menza and her being- I halted the thought immediately. I didn't even want to think like that. "Can I ask why?"

"We didn't let him know she was pregnant, he just found out and thinks it's going to kill her because his prior mate died in child birth." Councillor Jovan patted my back and I swallowed convulsively, the urge to throw up thick inside of me.

"Ohhhhkay. That's one helluva shit storm. Hey, can you come sit here for a second?" The new female gestured at me but I didn't move. Not until Alpha Jace grabbed my arm and yanked me until I was at the stairs where he promptly shoved me to sit. "I'm Amber, the resident doctor and therapist for Oblitus." She sat down beside me. Not close but enough that I moved away just slightly.

"I've been Menza's obgyn for her pregnancy. Do you want to talk about it?" Her voice was soft, like she was talking to a child and my wolf and I didn't appreciate it. It felt patronizing in a way.

"No." I gave her a look out of the corner of my eyes and received a slap upside the head for it.

"You don't speak to the females in my pack like that." The Alpha loomed over me and I hunched my shoulders. I wanted to retort but I also knew that it wasn't a great idea. I didn't know this Alpha and I didn't know the dynamics of the pack.

"Look. You don't know me and I bet you don't want to say anything to me about anything you have been through. But Menza is pregnant right now and you cannot be a hostile force when it comes to that." The female's voice was sharp. "Loss is hard, grief is hard, but that female in there is going to have your baby and there is nothing you can do to stop it."

"She's going to die." I muttered it out, swallowing hard as I clenched my hands. I was a curse, there was no way she was going to survive it.

"Yes, she will." Her voice was edged and I looked at her in surprised shock that she had agreed with me. "If you keep speaking like that. We have contingencies in place for her to ensure she survives but if you continue with a defeatist attitude about her being able to survive this, when she is already high stress about surviving the pregnancy and the viability of the baby, you just make it worse." The words had me clamping my mouth shut.

"She is high risk in a lot of different ways but right now, the goal is to get her to thirty-six weeks, and then we take baby out. If you are unwilling to help us get her to that goal, then you need to not be here." There was a harshness to her voice that I honestly didn't blame her for. It was just... I rubbed at my face. "I get you have trauma about pregnancy and childbirth because of your prior mate, but she is not her and Menza has an entire team around her to ensure she survives this."

A thick silence fell and I felt almost chastised but I couldn't help it. "I watched her, you know." I swallowed hard, a huge lump in my throat. "She started bleeding right away and... they hacked her open to get Maeve out and she never made a sound." I rubbed my palm with a thumb, sniffing slightly. "Her last words to me were was when she woke me up and said 'something's wrong'. She never woke up after she passed out when I took her to the healers and Maeve came out crying but Chrissie was..." I pinched my lips together, feeling like I had divulged far too much. "It doesn't matter." I shook my head hard. It didn't. Chrissie was gone and wallowing in it wasn't going to help Menza.

"I need you to understand Menza is not Chrissie, okay? Can you set that aside so we can get her through these next crucial steps?" The female seemed to side step what I had just told her and I appreciated that. I nodded. I could do that. I could push it aside until Menza was okay. Bury it deep, like I normally did. "Good. Because we have a lot of work to do and I don't need you stressing her out with her complications."

I swallowed a few times as the female stood up, brushing off her pants. "What complications?" I spoke gruffly as I stood up as well. The female was a decent height but I was still taller than her and she blinked.

"If the Alpha of Sublatus finds out she's pregnant, she and the baby die. She made a deal with Mene to circumvent the infertility curse." The words came out and all I heard was the first part, the rest was just static as I whirled around to point at the Councillor.

"You knew that and let that fucker live?" I snarled, a deep, panicked rage filling me. "He could still fucking kill her and you let him walk around? What the fuck is wrong with you!" Growls threaded through every word and my wolf snapped his jaws together in agreement, licking bared teeth.

"I can't even argue with that. I have the same question." Alpha Jace crossed his beefy arms over his chest and I was someone okay with him being on my side for that because what the actual fuck?

Councillor Jovan sighed, a deep and heavy sound. "Because, despite what I, and a minority of others, felt. The rest of the Council determined that they could not destabilize the entire pack for one singular female." The words had me snarling again and I whirled around, pressing my hands to my face and pacing back and forth sharply. "I agree that he should have died. I even voted for it but we didn't get that and even after we had intensive discussions about the morality of letting him live, they continued to hold firm about not destabalizing the pack."

"Yah well, good fucking job! He's on Sublatus confronting people about if she's pregnant!" I almost shouted the words, throwing my arms around.

Councillor Jovan seemed actually shocked by that. "What?"

"Yes! Why the fuck did you think I attacked him last night? He confronted me about her being pregnant and leaving and now you are telling me if he knows she's pregnant, she dies?" I cursed heavily, pacing back and forth, back and forth before I stopped abruptly. "I'm going to kill him." That was the one singular thought I had. I was going to kill him. I didn't know how yet, or the logistics of it, but I was going to.

"Mr. O'Neill, you can't-"

"Oh I fucking can." I snarled again. "If you aren't going to do it. I fucking will! If that is what it takes to make sure she remains safe. I'll fucking snap his neck." I would run as far as I needed to, to get back to Sublatus to kill him. I would bypass all the Hunters and track him down. I would kill him.

"We will deal with it, okay? But you aren't allowed to run off like that. We would need to put you in the Void if you tried." Jovan scowled as he looked at me and I returned it with one of my own, my chest rattling with a heavy growl.

"I would do anything to protect my girls, fucking anything. You can threaten me with jail all you fucking want but if it means that she," I pointed at the house sharply, "lives, I'll fucking do it."

"Look, I hate to agree with an Old Way bastard but he has a point. If that fucker is confronting people about her being pregnant," Alpha Jace paused before he turned to look at me. "You told him no right?"

"Of fucking course I did!" I snapped the words. "For all I knew she hadn't been and I told him he was going insane!"

"Just asking" He turned back to the Councillor. "If he is asking about it, he already somewhat knows. That makes him a problem. Deal with it before I and the guys make a trip because we have gotten attached to Menza and her protection is tantamount to everything right now."

Joan held up his hands. "I'm with you guys, I am. If he is asking then he is already too close to the truth but this isn't a decision I can make alone. I need to take it to the rest of the Council and I will but can we get through the rest of this so I can go back?" He looked a bit harried and exasperated. "I would have him taken care of in an instant if it was just me but sadly this is a group decision so I would like this to be done so I can get back to the Council and start pushing, okay?" I didn't like it but even I could see that it was reasonable. I hated the Hunters for their bureaucracy and red tape but if that was what it took, I would begrudgingly do it.

"Fine." I crossed my arms over my chest. I wasn't happy about it but I would do it. It wasn't like I had much say in it. As the Council said, I was on thin ice. Ice I would absolutely happily stomp underneath my boots if it meant Menza was kept safe. Hell I would be content if I managed to ensure her safety and it resulted me spending several years in the Void.

"I'll be contacting you about it, Jovan." Jace shook his head before he looked towards the female. "You coming over for a reason?"

"It's Menza's check over and ultrasound today. She was a bit late so I came over to see if she was okay." She adjusted her jacket and I felt my stomach rolling at that. Mene I wanted to puke at the thought but she had a point. I needed to keep it in, keep it to myself to help Menza get through the pregnancy. She was right, it wasn't Menza's responsibility to bear my anxiety or panic about it. As much as I didn't want to deal with it, I had to, it was my responsibility.

"Can I... Can I know how she is for it?" It took all I had to say it without gagging. "Is she healthy?" I needed her to be okay. It didn't stop how I was feeling. Chrissie had been fine right up until she went into labour. Even then the early labour had been fine. The small contractions that hit every so often had even made her laugh. We had gone to bed and then... I swallowed hard. Too much could happen far too quickly to stop it.

"That's entirely up to her." The female doctor's voice was sharp and I understood that. I had zero right to Menza, regardless of what was going on.

"It wouldn't hurt to ask." Councillor Jovan gestured between us, his tone conciliatory. "I assume you are asking to give yourself peace of mind regarding her health and if she is having any other complications?" He was looking at me and I gave a mute nod. "See? That is perfectly understandable so it wouldn't hurt to ask."

The female doctor didn't seem all that impressed and neither did Alpha Jace but he finally sighed. "You can ask her, Amber. He's right, it wouldn't hurt to ask." Jace nodded at her, his arms still crossed over his chest.

My heart pounded hard in my chest and I rubbed at my face vigorously. I had fucked everything up even worse than I had previously imagined and as always Menza was carrying the brunt of the consequences.

She just couldn't get a fucking break, could she?