The Choice

Selena

We made it back home again after… well everything that’s happened. I can’t believe I just told Gwen and Damian off like that! That’s normally not me at all! I look down at my belly and realize that I’m starting to have a bump… oh yeah I forgot I found out over Christmas that I was pregnant! Guess my maternal instinct is kicking in. To be honest, I’m happy that I cut any form of my family out of my life. I don’t need that right now. I break out of my thoughts when I realize I’m back home… back to my pack… I walk towards the pack hospital to check in on the men who were a part of the search party to find me.

“Where are you going?” Kieran asks me with curiosity.

“To check on the men. I’d like to thank them for wanting to find me.” I smile at him and head towards the hospital. I can feel his smile behind me and he just leaves me be for now. I made it to the hospital, but I caught my breath on a bench before going in. I see Mia and Connor running towards me.

“Selena! Thank goodness you and the pup are alright!” Mia hugs me and I see relief on Connor’s face. “We should do an exam on you to see if the two of you are ok!” Mia looks at me worriedly and I try to calm her.

“Mia I’m actually fine. They didn’t hurt us and they decently fed us well. I’m here to check on the men who were a part of the search party. I want to make sure they’re ok.” They both look at me stunned. Connor grabs my hand and with a smile leads me inside.

“I’ll show you to them.” It feels good to actually do Luna things by myself without Caroline’s help. I spent a few hours at the hospital thanking the men for their help in rescuing me. It really showed me that the people who see me as their leader, really care for me. Doesn’t matter what my past was like or what baggage I came with when I got here. I’m their luna and they care for me. I breathe in the fresh air and even though it was maybe a few hours to a day, I was missing they still took time out of their day to look for me. It makes me smile knowing I have such a caring pack and they’ll protect me no matter what.

After spending time at the hospital, I finally got to have my first night home with Kieran. I pack an indoor picnic and have it in our room. Some sparkly grape juice for me while he has his own drink, and some of our favorite foods and can’t forget the snuggly blankets! It felt so good to have some comfort food and snuggle. We did that for the rest of the night.

3 months later… early spring

Ugh my belly is huge! Way bigger than I thought it’d be! Thank goodness for the warmer weather and I can wear sundresses to go around my bump. Also, I have an appointment today with Mia and Kieran said he’d come along with me, but he must be caught up on some work. I head to his office and knock on the door lightly so I’m not bothering him too much.

“Hey did you forget our appointment?” I peak my head in but luckily he’s not on the phone with someone.

“Oh yeah, that’s soon! Let’s go!” He gets up from his desk and holds my hand to help me maneuver around the house. Lately I’m knocking things over since I can’t see where I’m going. We get to Mia’s ultrasound room and I waddle my way to the table.

“Hey guys. Are you excited to find out the gender!?” Mia seems more excited than we are about this!

“Yeah, we want to know the gender! I want to know what I’m shopping for! But I feel like I’m way bigger than I’m supposed to be, is that normal?” I ask her my concern and she looks at my belly and smiles.

“Well, we’ll find out in just a moment won’t we. Werewolf pregnancy is around 6 or 7 months depending on who’s having the baby and how many. If it’s just one, then it can be longer, multiples will eventually run out of room so they’ll come out around 6 months.” She puts on some cold gel stuff on my belly and waves the wand around. I look up at the TV screen ahead of me and at first it doesn’t look like anything, but soon we can make out something. “Ah, here we are. Well, just as I suspected… you’re so big because you have two babies… congratulations you’re having twins!” Kieran looked at the TV wide-eyed and grabbed my hand… I just stared at the screen and I couldn’t hear the rest of what she was saying… two babies!? I didn’t expect this surprise! This is going to be a bigger shopping trip than I expected…

“Can we tell what gender they are?”

“That won’t be revealed until the baby shower later today, or did you forget about that?” Ugh I forgot… “I’ll let you forgetting slide, pregnancy brain is a real thing, so I’m told…” She and her mate haven’t had their ceremony yet which I’m not sure why.

“We’ll see you at the party Mia. Thanks for telling us this big news…” I had to sit and process this for a moment. Once Mia left the room I just felt like there was a huge weight on my shoulders… I was only prepared for one let alone two!? I looked down at my enormous belly and as scared as I was, I was so happy for these babies. I smile at my belly and rub it.

“You ok, Lena?” Kieran breaks the silence and I look up at him and smile.

“Yeah, I’m ok. Let’s go and get ready for the party this afternoon.” He helps me off the table and we make our way back to the packhouse to get ready. I was a ball of nerves after we found out about the babies, but I’ll be better about it once I clear my head. We take a walk around a patch of wildflowers and it at least calms me. We make it back in time to get ready and I change into a flowy pale light green sundress with cap sleeves. I curl my hair to make myself presentable and before I leave I find this beautiful note from Kieran.

Dear Lena,

Hey smile… because it’ll make me smile… my sunshine, my darling, my reason for existence. I’m blessed to live a life where you are in it. You never cease to amaze me with your caring, loving and serene spirit. It makes me show kindness even to our enemies. We should’ve and could’ve hurt Damian, Gwen and the king, but we didn’t. You showed the strength and grace of not only a princess that one one got to see, but of a true luna. I’m forever indebted to you for it. I never want to see you become anyone else because you’re already perfectly you.

I smile as I re-read the letter over and over until I finally make my way downstairs. Caroline and Mia did a great job decorating with subtle amounts of flowers around the dining room and outdoor porch. I didn’t want an enormous party since I’m not really into them, but we ended up deciding on a tea party. Some actual herbal and fruity tea and some lemonade or iced tea. I look around at all the love that’s surrounding me with all these people showing up. The actual party is so dainty, cute and relaxing. The soft yellows, greens, blues and pinks all over. Tea cups, floral glasses for the cool drinks, cakes and finger sandwiches spread the tables.

“Caroline and Mia, you did an amazing job!” I beam at them for all their hard work.

“Oh, it was very simple to do. We know you’re not a party person, but this was as simple as I could think of.” Caroline smiles at me and I just smile back. I give them both a quick hug.

“I’m going to get some iced tea, want some?” I offer them with a smile.

“We’ll get some in just a minute.” Mia walks over to fluff a flower arrangement and I grab my glass to grab my drink. I take a sip and I feel fine. I mingled with some of the party guests for about an hour, and as I was about to get a second drink, I immediately dropped my glass. Something’s wrong. I can hear others trying to scramble to get to me, but I grab onto a chair. I grasp my throat showing that something was wrong with the tea.

“Take her to the hospital now!” I hear Mia and Kieran yell at the crowd. I start to get nauseous and everything starts to get blurry. I feel Kieran picking me up and I fall asleep in his arms.

Kieran

Why does this keep happening to her!? I carry her in my arms. Connor and dad examine her glass to see if there’s anything off about it. Connor and Mia immediately work on giving her medicine and hope that it hasn’t affected the babies… how did I not know that someone would try to do something!? I sit down in a chair feeling helpless… I run my fingers through my hair as I hear machines being turned on and a heart rate monitor being put on for the babies. So far it doesn’t sound like it’s hurt them whatever it was.

“Was everything checked?!” I growled at Mia, Connor, and my mom who were in the room with us.

“Yes, we checked everything! We thought everything was safe!” Mom is sobbing feeling terrible about this!

“The drinks, the flowers, the decor? Something has to be off!” I growl again. I’m getting pissed off that people keep hurting Lena!

“The flowers…” Mia looks dazed for a second and dashes off. When she comes back, she’s got a bouquet and is wearing gloves. “What kind of flowers were at the party?!” She looks panicked at mom.

“Um wildflowers around the forest. They’re Selena’s favorite…” Ok that’s sweet that she remembered that.

“These ‘wildflowers’ are poisonous!! These are oleander flowers! 4mg of the sap can kill someone! We need digoxin antibiotics, now! I don’t care if it’s expensive, it’s what we need! The blurry vision, getting sick… that’s a body’s natural response to getting rid of poison! I’m not blaming you mom.” Mia gives mom a hug, but I can see the anger in mom’s face.

“Good cause I didn’t get these flowers! Someone brought these as a gift!” We all looked shocked at her.

“Who sent it!?” I growl at them. Nobody would think to check flowers…

“I’m not sure… there was a card! I remember since it was odd…

’to the wildflower turned rose for the day…

Flowers… they decorate beautifully but they are poisonous… and women are like oleanders… it’s all right to watch her once in a while, but if you ever try to taste her even once, you’ll head for hell!’ I heard that by someone once and thought you should know. Hope the taste of your tea was delicious…

GD’

I snap the card away from mom’s hand for a moment to read it myself. The initials didn’t stand out to me, but I had a good guess. I crumble the paper and just try to control myself.

“Do what you have to… save my family…” I tried to keep myself composed, but I had to get out of there before I shifted in the room! I went back to the party where most of the people had scurried away after what happened. I saw the glass Lena was drinking out of and saw a leaf and some petals in it. It wasn’t in the iced tea, but it was in her specific glass… so either someone gave her this specific glass or someone spiked her drink with the flower…

“Conrad, dad did you find anything useful??” I’m slowly losing control over Duncan! He’s pissed that something happened to Carolina and our pups!

“Well, I can confirm that the flowers in Lena’s drink was oleander… someone ground it into her iced tea and it looked like just a floral drink. It fit with the rest of the party so no one thought anything of it until it was too late.” Conrad was in full warrior mode and I respected that. He wasn’t being my brother right now, he was my top warrior.

“Find me security right now! There was supposed to be a border patrol! IF there wasn’t, then there’re cameras! Let me see the feed!” I growled at them! We go to my office where I have the security system hidden in a secret room. We go back three hours to see who could’ve planted these for us to find… and what I see shocks me down to my core… Gwen and Damian leaving the card and flowers on the porch and leaving before the guests or us went out there.

This made me growl louder. Gwen was Lena’s trusted family member! It’s going to break her heart when she finds out. As much as I want to protect her, I have to tell her. I make my way back to her hospital room, and see she’s sleeping. I pull up a chair and just hold her hand. I kiss it to comfort her and myself. Smelling her scent calmed me and Duncan… I could hear the monitor and the babies were alright.

“So… do I get to find out the gender of my pups…” I ask Mia and Connor to lighten the mood.

“Well, we were going to save this for the party… but given the circumstances… sure… you’re having a boy and a girl. Congratulations. We’d like to keep Lena here for a couple of days just to monitor her, your pups and to make sure the poison is fully out of her system.” Mia tried to smile at me but ended up crying. Her mate, Ash gives her a hug and tries to comfort her. This wasn’t how I expected the day to go. I end up falling asleep next to her trying to protect her.