Unexpected: Forever His (Book 1)

Chapter 37: Birth, Rebirth, and Great, Great Sorrow

I smiled up at Amari as he gently held my elbow and led me through the path of flowers. Their petals were the softest of hues and the scent so relaxing that I found it to be one of my favorite spots now that I was less than a month away from giving birth.

"Their beauty does not match your own, Kayla. You have always been beautiful, but you grow more radiant every day." He paused and pulled me closer against him and I looked up at him. "I never thought it possible, but I no longer think about Ke'ala. All of my thoughts focus solely on you and him." He rested his hand against my stomach as he said the last part. "My world."

A chill suddenly shook me and I turned away from him. The tears that stung my eyes meant more than I could ever explain to him, but I desperately wanted to try. I didn't realize that he felt so strongly about me, although it was probably obvious to most of the pack.

"Kayla, you're crying?" Amari placed his hands on my shoulders and pulled me back against him. I nodded. "I...I just...Amari I have to...tell you something."

I turned around to face him and he immediately let his hands fall to his sides. The smile on his face faltered slightly as he looked down at me. "I tell you that you have completely healed my heart of the longing for my true mate and you tell me that you have to tell me something. I'm sure this will not end well for me..."

When I did not answer right away, he lifted his hand and caressed my cheek. I smiled up at him. "I...it's just...Amari, can we just..." I sighed in frustration at the clumsiness of my words. I took a deep breath and looked back up at him. "I think that things are so good the way they are and I...I don't want them to...I mean...after I..."

Amari laughed softly and pulled me against him. "If you are worried that my feelings for you will change after you have Aeron, you could not be more wrong, Kayla." He took a deep breath and turned away from me. "The Ancients, more specifically Eleric, can be rather cruel, you know? I didn't think that my feelings for you would become what they are..." He paused and turned back around to face me again. "Especially knowing that you were only intended to be mine for a short time. Isn't that right, Kayla?"

I swallowed hard. He knew...

"A distraction. I don't mind, but I no longer wish to be a distraction. My feelings are real. I don't understand why he would allow my feelings to become real knowing that as soon as Dante returns to claim his title, he would also reclaim you." He paused and looked out towards the ocean. "Do you even wish to be reclaimed by him? Does Eleric even care about your wishes as his prophesied Queen of Queens?"

I stayed silent and shook my head. Nothing I could say would calm him at that point. He was angry and, truthfully, I felt he had every right to be.

He looked back down at me and I saw the angry cloud of emotions in his eyes. "I did not fight for my position as Alpha only for it to be taken from me as soon as Eleric decides that Dante is ready to return to life here. He lost respect with this pack before. Who's to say he will not lose it again?!?" I looked back down at the flowers below without saying anything which served to anger him more and he spun around and started walking back towards the villa. "Clearly this is a battle I lost before it started. You are as much his now as the day he claimed you!"

It started with a small pain in my back before I felt an excruciating pain across my stomach and I shouted though the immediate tears that came with it. "Amari!"

The desperation in my voice caught his attention and he immediately spun around and looked at me. What he saw made him forget his anger for the moment as he rushed back to me and instantly cradled me in his arms. "Take me to Gandit." I spoke breathlessly as more pains racked my stomach and back. Soon, there would be no more need to argue whose claim over me remained because if there was anything I knew, it was that Eleric's timing was matched to that of the birth of Dante's son.