Wait I'm Pregnant with My Alpha and His First Love's Triplets? Time to Abort & Run novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Herbalist's Cup

Addie steals the truck keys and Burke looks away; Linnea gets the herbalist's cup in Marrow Creek and cannot drink it, and Greywater trucks pull into the lot.

Addie waited until the kitchen was dark before she put the truck keys in my hand.

"Delivery truck, back dock, half a tank," she said. "I told the night cook I was restocking the walk-in."

"Addie, he'll know it was you."

"He can know whatever he wants. I make his eggs."

She hugged me hard, then held me at arm's length and looked at my stomach.

"Are you sure?"

"No," I said. "I'm sure I'm not doing it for her."

"Okay." She wiped her nose on her wrist. "Then go before I start crying on the good flour."

The gate stood at the bottom of the service road, under a single floodlight.

Burke was on duty, and he was looking very hard at the treeline.

I rolled the truck to a stop beside him.

"I need to take a leak," he said to nobody. "Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen. Anyone passing through that gate would have to be a ghost."

"Burke."

"The Alpha gave an order, and I'm following it," he said. "I'm not looking at it. That's all."

He walked off into the dark with his shoulders squared.

The gate was already unlatched.

I drove through it without turning on the headlights.

Marrow Creek was forty minutes down the mountain, a gas station, a diner and a row of shops with their blinds down.

The herbalist's shop was at the far end, above the feed store, with a light still on.

I had bought tea from her for years, and she had never once asked why the Luna came to town instead of using the pack infirmary.

I knocked, and she let me in without a word.

She was a small woman with a grey braid, and her hands smelled of dried mint.

"Sit," she said. "How far?"

"Three months. It's three."

Her eyes went to my stomach, and then to my face.

"Three," she said. "That's a lot to put out of one woman. You know what the infirmary cabinet would have done, so you came to me. I'll tell you plainly it will be hard."

"I know."

"And it can't be taken back."

"I know."

She went to the back and came out with a chipped white cup.

The liquid inside was brown and smelled of bark and pennyroyal.

She set it on the table in front of me.

"Cramps by dawn," she said. "Don't be alone."

I held the cup in both hands.

The shop was very quiet.

Out front, the single streetlight buzzed.

I thought about Bram's voice behind the stone, and the word *Greywater's*, and my hand rose to my mouth.

Something moved low in my belly.

It was a soft, small push, low on my left side.

Then a second one, on the other side.

Then a third, just under my ribs.

My wolf, who had slept through the whole day, woke up and whined.

It was a real sound, in my chest, and I had never heard it from her before.

I had stood in the Blackthorn kitchens for three years and heard women say *barren* when they thought I was out of earshot.

I had stood at four naming ceremonies with my hands empty.

And now they were here, three of them, and they were moving, and they were mine.

They had been mine since before the rite.

Whatever Bram had promised and whoever Verity was, nobody had asked these three.

I put the cup down.

"I can't," I said.

The herbalist said nothing.

I stood up and carried it to the sink and poured it away, and I stood there watching the water run until the smell was gone.

"I came to end it," I told her, "and I can't, and I'm still leaving. Is that stupid?"

"It's a decision," she said. "Different thing. Where will you go?"

I opened my mouth.

I didn't know.

Headlights swung across the front window and lit the shelves of dried herbs white.

Then a second pair came in behind the first.

Two black trucks pulled up to the curb outside the shop, and the engines died together.

The herbalist went very still.

"Those aren't Blackthorn plates," she said.

Doors opened and closed.

Four men got out, in dark jackets, and they walked up to the door in a line.

The one in front was holding a phone.

He didn't knock.

He pushed the door open, and the bell over it rang.

"Miss Fairweather," he said politely. "Alpha Ashdane would like a word."

I stepped back until the counter hit my spine.

"How did you know I was here?"

The man turned the phone around so I could see the screen.

It was a message, sent twenty minutes ago.

*She's gone to the herbalist in Marrow Creek. Please be gentle with her. She's carrying my babies.*

It was signed with a heart.

It was from Verity.

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