Alpha Mendoza

Chapter 7

Alessia:

The first thing I felt was the smell.

Not mint.

Not antiseptic.

A different hospital scent entirely, cleaner, sharper, strange.

I jolted upright.

The room wasn’t Red Moon’s clinic.

The walls weren’t the same color.

The machines weren’t the same brand.

The air felt… foreign.

My heart slammed against my ribs.

I had been awake for hours, but I knew that the woman, whoever she was, I assumed the doctor, had me sedated to rest.

We are not home, Sage whispered. Our baby is safer here.

“Well, guess what? We are not staying. Lucien needs us.” I said angrily. I tore at the IV in my arm, ripping it out before I even realized what I was doing. The monitor alarm screeched in protest.

The door flew open.

A woman with silver hair and Beta strength stepped in quickly, hands up. “Alessia, honey, stop… stop, you’ll hurt yourself. You are already exhausted…”

“Don’t touch me!” I shoved her back with a burst of adrenaline. “Where am I? Why did you bring me here? What the hell are these things that you have in me?”

“You’re in the Blue Moon hospital,” she said calmly. “I’m Doctor Grace…”

My vision flashed white.

Blue Moon.

Alexander’s pack.

“He f*****g brought me here?”

“Alessia, you are safe. You just need to calm down…” My stomach dropped so violently I almost collapsed as the memory of Lucien coughing, Alpha Garren yelling…I backed into the wall, shaking.

“No, no, no, take me back… Lucien needs me, he’s sick, he’s dying… if I am away, something could happen to him! Where is my stepfather? Why hadn’t he come to get me out of here? Where is…?”

Grace approached carefully.

“Sweetheart, please breathe. No one here is going to hurt…”

I lunged for the door, needing to leave.

Alexander walked in at that exact moment.

We collided.

His hands shot out, catching me by the shoulders to steady me, but the contact made my wolf spark with recognition.

It made me panic harder.

“Let me go!” I tried to push him away, arms trembling. “Because of you! Because of you! Lucien could be dead right now! I could have saved his life, and you f*****g stopped me from doing so!”

His jaw tightened.

“Alessia…”

“You took me away!” I cried, pushing harder. “You stormed in like a tyrant and dragged me here! Who did you think you were to do so? Who the hell do you think you are? I am not even part of your pack for you to be controlling me!”

“You need to calm down.” He said, controlling his tone as best as he could. But I couldn’t. Not when I knew, that because of him, my fiancé could be dead!

“Do not tell me to calm down! He was bleeding. He needed me. And now he could be… it could be…”

“What? Dying?” Alexander snapped, voice low and furious. “He was putting poison down your throat and you’re worried about him? He was going to make you lose your child, and rather than be thankful that the life in you is alive, you are worried about him.”

“You don’t understand anything!” My voice cracked. “I love him! I was meant to marry him… even after I played him for a fool, even after I was the one who cheated! He trusted me, I could have helped him… and you…” My chest heaved with sobs. “You ruined everything by taking away the one chance that I had to try and redeem myself!”

Grace stepped between us swiftly.

“Alexander, OUT.” She yelled, glaring at him.

His eyes flashed. “I’m not leaving her like this…”

“She is pregnant with YOUR pup,” Grace hissed. “And the stress you’re causing could stop its heart. And right now, she is angry, in shock, and she is scared. This is the last thing that you need, Alexander.”

He froze.

Grace turned her back on him entirely, focusing on me.

“Alessia. Look at me.”

“No… no, please… I need to go back. I need to fix it. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I couldn’t even apologize to him. I am begging you, please let me leave. I don’t want to stay here.”

My breathing spiraled out of control.

Grace pressed her hands gently to my cheeks. “Sweetheart, listen. You are safe. Your pup is safe. You are not in danger. If anything, you are safer here than you would be anywhere right now. But you are in shock and you need to rest. If you don’t, then it is going to harm you.”

“I can’t rest,” I sobbed, gripping her wrists, “I have to go.”

“No,” she said firmly, eyes soft but unyielding. “You have to live. And for the good of what I am seeing in you, I doubt that you are going to want to lose your baby. But if you proceed this way, if you allow yourself to give into this anger… you will.”

A sedative needle pricked my arm before I realized she had moved.

I gasped, blinking rapidly as the world blurred.

“Grace,” Alexander growled from the doorway, “what did you give her? Have you lost your mind? You claim to be helping her, and you are sticking a needle…”

“The only thing that will keep her from miscarrying because of YOU,” Grace snapped. “Because as dangerous as this might be, her anger, your ego, is going to make her lose herself and the child.”

My knees buckled.

Alexander lunged forward as I fell, catching me before I hit the floor. His arms were warm, strong, painfully familiar.

I wanted to push him away. But my body wouldn’t respond.

“Lucien…” I whispered weakly. “I need to go back… please let me leave.”

Alexander’s jaw tightened.

Grace pulled me from his arms with surprising strength. “You will NOT upset her again. And until I say so, until I know that she is stable, you are not going to speak to her. Do you understand me, Alexander?”

He didn’t argue this time.

The last thing I heard before darkness pulled me under was Grace’s fierce voice:

“You may be the Alpha, Alexander, but in here… I protect the mother and child, not your ego or your title.”