Drake POV:
The day had already been long, filled with unanswered questions and fruitless investigations. I had spent hours combing through the details, trying to figure out who could possibly have a motive to harm Lily. Yet, despite my best efforts, I ca up empty. No one stood out. No one had any clear reason to want to hurt her, and it frustrated to no end.
As the sun dipped toward noon, Lucas linked with news that Lily was being discharged from the hospital. He assured that he and Nelly would escort her back to the pack house safely and settle her into the ground-floor guestroom. I thanked him and tried to focus on the other urgent matters concerning the pack. Still, the nagging worry about Lily’s safety lingered at the back of my mind.
By lunchti, my thoughts drifted back to Leila. I decided to head to our room to have lunch with her and check in, hoping that she was doing better after our morning together. Perhaps so ti spent away from all the chaos would help clear my head.
As I rounded the corner to the porch, a strange sight greeted —one that made my blood run cold. There, in front of , was Leila, pushing Lily toward the edge of the porch. The shock of it hit like a physical blow, my heart stopping for a mont as I rushed forward, catching Lily just before she fell.
"What the fuck do you think you’re doing?" I yelled, my voice coming out harsher and louder than I intended. My heart was pounding, adrenaline surging through my veins as I held Lily steady, ensuring she was safe.
Leila stood there, unmoving, her expression unreadable. She didn’t even flinch as I yelled at her, didn’t offer any explanation or apology. She just watched , her face a mask of indifference that sent a chill down my spine.
"Why would you push her off the porch?" I demanded, fury building in my chest. "Can’t you see she’s pregnant with my child?"
I couldn’t comprehend it. The woman I had sworn to protect, the woman I loved—how could she do sothing so wicked? And yet, there she stood, no sign of remorse in her eyes. I searched her face for sothing, anything that would make sense of what had just happened, but there was nothing.
Then, Lily began to cry, her sobs filling the tense silence between us. "She confessed to oiling the stairs," Lily whimpered, her voice trembling with emotion. "She wanted to lose the baby. She told that no one else was allowed to carry your child except her."
Her words pierced through like a knife, twisting deeper with every sob that wracked her body. My mind raced, trying to make sense of it all. Leila had wanted to kill my child? Out of jealousy?
I felt a sickening sense of betrayal, the ground beneath seeming to shift as I grappled with the reality of the situation. My wolf, Gile, howled in anguish, torn between the instinct to protect our mate and the primal urge to defend our unborn child.
"Is this true?" I demanded, my voice shaking with anger as I looked at Leila. But she said nothing. She just stood there, silent, as if my words didn’t matter. It was as if the Leila I knew, the one I had grown to love, had vanished, leaving behind soone I didn’t recognize.
Lily’s cries grew louder, her hands clutching her stomach as if she feared the baby inside her was in imdiate danger. "She hates ," Lily sobbed. "She hates because I’m carrying your child, and she’ll do anything to take it away from ."
My vision blurred with red-hot fury. I couldn’t think straight. All I could see was Lily, vulnerable and terrified, and Leila, standing there as if she had done nothing wrong. My instincts scread at to protect Lily, to protect my child at all costs, but at the sa ti, I was torn by the knowledge that Leila was my mate—my responsibility.
I turned to Lucas, who had arrived just monts earlier. "Take her," I ordered, my voice hard as steel. "Confine her to my room until we figure this out."
Lucas hesitated, his gaze flicking between Leila and . He knew as well as I did the gravity of what I was asking him to do. Leila wasn’t just anyone; she was my mate. But right now, I couldn’t risk her being free, not with the accusations hanging over her head.
Lucas nodded, though his expression was pained. He stepped forward and gently took Leila’s arm, leading her away. She didn’t resist, didn’t fight back. She went with him quietly, without so much as a word. And that silence—it unnerved more than anything else.
As they disappeared from view, I turned back to Lily, who was still sobbing in my arms. I held her close, trying to calm her down even as my own emotions churned violently inside .
"It’s okay," I whispered, though I wasn’t sure if I was reassuring her or myself. "I won’t let anything happen to you or the baby. I swear."
But even as I said the words, a part of felt like a liar. I had promised Leila that I would never let her feel pain again, and now, I was the cause of it. My heart ached with the weight of everything that had happened, and I knew there were no easy answers.
For the first ti in my life, I didn’t know how to fix things. All I knew was that the two won in my life—one carrying my child and the other carrying my heart—were tearing apart from the inside out.
Hearing Lily’s sobs and accusations tore at , but when I turned to Nelly for confirmation, her expression said it all. There was a heaviness in her eyes, one that spoke of disbelief and shock.
"We were all three of us out on the porch," Nelly began softly, her voice trembling just enough to show the strain of the situation. "Lily asked for so juice, so I went inside to fix it for her. It didn’t seem like anything could go wrong... they were talking politely." She paused, the weight of what she was about to say pressing on her.
"As I was coming out with the juice, I heard Lily speaking to Leila. She said sothing like, ’Please, forgive . I don’t want any bad blood between us because of the baby.’" Nelly’s eyes darted to the ground, as if reliving the mory hurt her. "I didn’t think much of it at the ti. They were just talking—calmly, too. There was no sign of tension, nothing that would have made suspect that things would escalate so quickly."
I held my breath, every word she said pushing closer to a truth I didn’t want to believe.
"But then..." Nelly trailed off, her face paling as the mory replayed in her mind. "When I ca back outside, I saw it—Leila pushing Lily. I was so shocked that I couldn’t move. I stood there, frozen, not believing what I was seeing. Leila actually... pushed her."
Her voice wavered, and she blinked as if to hold back tears. "I don’t know why she would do that. I don’t understand, Drake."
Her words echoed in my mind. Leila, my mate—the woman I was supposed to protect—had pushed Lily, carrying my child, off the porch.
I felt like the ground had opened up beneath , dragging into a free fall of confusion and disbelief. How could this be happening? How could Leila, the woman I loved, be capable of sothing so heinous?
But the facts were in front of , undeniable and damning. Lily’s sobs. Nelly’s shaken recounting of the event. The look in Leila’s eyes as she stood there in the aftermath, silent and unrepentant.
I felt like I was being torn in two, my loyalty divided between the mother of my child and the mate who held my heart. How could I make sense of it all? How could I fix this when everything seed to be falling apart right in front of ?
I stood there, staring blankly at the porch, unable to process it all. The weight of my responsibility bore down on like never before. I had to protect Lily and the baby, but I couldn’t simply abandon Leila either. My mind raced, searching for a way to reconcile what I had witnessed with the woman I loved.
In that mont, everything felt fragile—like one wrong move could shatter whatever was left of the life I had tried so hard to build.
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