Fated: The Alpha's Unwanted Luna

"It’s either now or never. Tomorrow night is her execution date, and we need him to let her out by tonight."

"Be careful of the Cruella. She’s a scheming bitch." Laila warned him about Victoria, and Matt nodded.

"I’ll keep that in mind."

Matt left the two of them in his apartment in High Tower and went to find Sebastian, hoping with everything in him that he would actually be heard this time, that Sebastian would do what was right, even if Viola wasn’t his prophesied mate. In Matt’s opinion, she didn’t deserve any of this.

Matt was allowed into the penthouse after telling the guards he had an important pack report to deliver. He would have relayed the news through the mind-link instead, if Sebastian hadn’t shut his off entirely since returning, no doubt the Cruella, as Laila had called her, was keeping him from work entirely too.

When he entered, they’d already finished dinner, and Sebastian was clearing away the plates, laughing at something Victoria must have said. But the moment he noticed Matt, the smile froze on his face.

"What is it this time?" Sebastian demanded of his Beta, clearly unwilling to be interrupted again, unwilling to let his mate’s mood be ruined for anyone’s sake.

Matt’s eyes flicked subtly toward the she-wolf, who regarded him with obvious displeasure but said nothing, before he answered Sebastian. "I have something to report to you."

"What is it? Make it quick and leave." He snapped.

Matt clenched his fists, disliking the way Sebastian was speaking to him now, even to him, all because of this new mate. "Can we talk privately, Supreme Alpha?"

"No," Victoria answered for him, rising from her seat at the table and walking toward Sebastian. "Whatever you want to say to my mate, you can say in front of me. We promised each other no secrets, didn’t we, my dear?" She looked up at him.

"Right. Whatever you have to say, just say it."

Matt hadn’t wanted to break this particular news in front of the she-wolf, but he understood that if he didn’t say it now, he might never get Sebastian alone again with this woman clinging to him the way she was, before tomorrow. He was aware mate bonds could run intensely hot in the early days, the pull to stay close, to attend to one another constantly, but this she-wolf was pushing well past even that.

"Very well, then," Matt said. "I’m here to tell you that the wife you’ve locked away in that old cell is carrying your child. She’s nearly two months along. I hope you do what’s right, not just because she deserves better, but because you’re about to kill her, and your own child along with her."

Matt watched Sebastian’s expression freeze completely, and he began to feel some small measure of relief, believing this, at least, might actually work bring him out of whatever spell the prophecied mate bond had put him into.

•••

Viola began losing hope of escaping the dungeon after trying to reach Wave more than ten times, met each time with silence. Though there was no water source nearby for the creature to easily travel through to reach her, she knew enough time had passed since she’d been locked in here that he should have found some way, some other water, to reach her by now. But there was no sign of him.

Worry grew inside her chest, and she slowly released her grip on the rusted bars of the cell, their surface flaking and crumbling against her palm, the smell of rust thick in the air that turned her stomach. She sank back down onto the muddy ground, feeling even more defeated, as though there truly were no way out of this nightmare.

Viola heard her stomach growl loudly in the silence, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since yesterday. Even after trying so hard to stop skipping meals, to keep herself healthy, everything happening around her had made it impossible to maintain that routine, and worse, it was beginning to look like there was truly no way out of any of this.

She’d tried using her abilities, but none of them had helped in any real way, since she couldn’t even sing, not with the guards stationed too far from the cell to reach.

She was hungry, exhausted, heartbroken. Over and over, the thought crept back that Sebastian himself had been the one to lock her here, and over and over, she tried to console herself with the possibility that maybe he was only bluffing, that he wouldn’t actually kill her tomorrow.

Where was the husband who had once stood as her protector? Her choice to free Yasmin had brought consequences far darker and far greater than she’d ever anticipated, and she couldn’t help but wonder now whether, if she’d never freed the mermaid at all, none of this would have happened to either of them and it wouldn’t have pushed him into finding his prophecy.

She longed for that tender Sebastian, her loving husband, the way an addict longed for a drug. She yearned for his touch so fiercely it sent needles straight into her throat, at the thought that it might never come again, now that she’d lost him to someone else.

Viola was still sitting there in the dark, turning over ways to escape, when she heard footsteps echoing through the silent dungeon corridors. She turned her head toward the sound, her heart suddenly leaping in her chest, as though it recognized the weight of those particular footsteps.

She moved closer to the bars, wrapping her fingers around the cold metal as the footsteps drew nearer, and true to the electric pull that had always answered his presence, she saw her husband emerge through the darkness, and something inside her danced with delight despite everything.

She watched him step closer to the cell, and Viola couldn’t contain her joy when she heard the lock turn, watched him step inside, standing tall in front of her.

"Sebastian..." She whispered softly, when he stopped, watching her without blinking, his face blank, his lips pressed into a thin line.

"Is it true?" He asked her.

Viola was confused for a moment, until he continued. "Are you really pregnant with my child?"

Viola’s hands flew instinctively to her stomach at his words. So he’d found out? Was that why he was here? Had he come to let her go, now that he knew she was carrying his child?

Though Viola had hoped, foolishly, for some kind of miracle, that Victoria had simply vanished back to wherever she’d come from, and Sebastian had come to apologize, to take her out of here, she felt a fresh wave of disappointment, realizing this visit was only because he’d found out about their unborn child.

But it didn’t matter, not really, not as long as it got her out of this. So she answered, "Yes... it’s true." She looked up, trying to gauge his reaction, and if she had hoped to see happiness there, she was deeply disappointed instead by the way his face only hardened further.

"Then we might as well fix that before tomorrow, don’t you think?" He tilted his head to the side, a slow smile spreading across his face, one that sent a shiver down Viola’s spine far colder than the relief she’d been hoping for.

"What do you mean?"

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