WantNovelChapter 182: Mother
Amelia
I've had a lot of happy and a lot of sad moments in my life, but the most intense feelings of happiness and
sadness con the day of my daughter's birth.
Calvin had been at my side, encouragingto push. Considering how things are between us right now, he'd
been really great about it. And the moment they laid Athena in my arms, I'd cried happy tears. She's so perfect
with her ten little fingers and her ten little toes. She has a button nose and cupid’ s bow pink lips that always
seem to be sucking, even in her sleep. She makes the sweetest, softest sounds when she’s sleeping or when
she’s nursing but when she’s hungry, watch out. My girl has a strong pair of lungs on her.
The first person I'd wanted to share my happiness with had been my mother, and that’s where the terrible
sadness had cfrom. | realized that my daughter will never know what incredible grandparents she had. | can
easily picture my father carrying her around everywhere, just like he did with Sophie and probably like he did
with me. The sharp sting of grief had hitquickly and unexpectedly and I'd started to cry.
Calvin is a good man in a lot of ways, but understanding female emotions isn’t one of them. They make him
uncomfortable and so, rather than wrapping his arms aroundand huggingNike someone such as Alpha
Hunter probably would have, he'd patted my arm and toldit would be okay and that it was probably all the
hormones leaving my body. It had taken everything into not punch him in the face.
| wasn’t surprised when he’d left the next day to go back to his pack. We'd talked about him wanting to claim the
pack next door. | guess he wants to try and move the pack or maybe try to flip packs with someone else so that
we can combine our packs. The problem is, I'm learning very quickly that I like being an Alpha and I'm damn
good at it. | wouldn't say this to Calvin, because I'm not mean and | know it would hurt his feelings, but I'm a
better Alpha than he is. So, even if he claims Alaric’s old pack, I'm not combining mine with his.
My new favorite tof day is early in the morning, before everyone else is awake, when | sit in my rocking chair
and nurse Athena. It doesn’t matter how tired | am, or how many things have coming for the day, that tis
ours, just her and me. know she’s a baby, but she’s an Alpha baby, and when she looks at me, it’s like she knows
that I'm her mother, and that | will never let anything happen to her.
When Calvin left, | think the pack thought that things were going to relax a bit. They were wrong. Alaric’s pack is
up for grabs, and | have several warriors who want to claim it, my Gamma included. I'm not thrilled about him
competing, but I also know he didn’t do as well as he thought he would in the competition for the first pack. He
didn’t even make it to the final twelve. | know he’s going to cause problems forin the future, but those are
problems for another day. First, | needed to deliver Athena and get my strength back, and now, | need to get my
warriors prepared for the competition.
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| didn’t think Sophie would mindnot greeting her at the front door, and thankfully, | was right. Unfortunately,
since I'm an Alpha and a young mother, | have to balance nursing my daughter with everything else that | need
to get done. It didn’t takemore than half a day to realize that nursing Athena would have to be done while |
was doing other things or things wouldn't get done and my status as an Alpha would cinto question,
especially with Caleb looking for any reason to overthrow me. | wasn’t sure how | felt about him and Calvin going
to the competition together. Is Calvin secretly hoping to overthrowso | have to return to being his Luna? I'm
still not sure about that, so I'm biding my tand I'm watching Caleb carefully.
And that means, | nurse my daughter during warrior training. Because she’s on a schedule, it's beca routine
every morning that | carry her around while Beta Matthew runs training. Beta Caroline will usually hold Athena
until she’s ready to nurse and then take her again when she’s done, but today, Sophie is here. I'm not sure what
caused her to snarl so viciously before, but Hunter seemed to understand what was wrong and what his mate
needed to feel better. Hunter seems to understand a lot more than Calvin does, or maybe he’s just more
confident in himself than Calvin is. Calvin and | didn’t have an easy start and him not having any sisters or really
understanding women at all was a huge barrier for us to overcome. And while | realize that he does truly care
about me, it’s not the kind of love that my parents had, or that Sophie has with Hunter. I'm happy for my sister,
but every t| see her and her mate together, it makes my heart ache. I'm not sure that Calvin and | would
have had that even if he hadn't claimedpublicly. It's just not who he is, which makeswonder why the
Moon Goddess matedto him, Have | changed that much, or has he not changed at all?
Matthew calls an end to warrior training, and | follow my warriors back to the pawhere Sophie and Hunter are
sitting with Athena. Beside them is a woman | don’t recognize, but | can see that her upper body isn’t shaped
properly. This must be Jocelyn.
“Hello, I'm Alpha Amelia. You must be Jocelyn. Welcto my pack,” | greet her.
“Alpha Amelia. It’s a pleasure. | wasn’t sure what to expect from the first ever female Alpha, but | have to admit,
you're quite impressive,” Jocelyn says.
“Thank you,” | say.
“You've should have seen her when we first walked out. She was nursing Athena while she was directing her
warriors,” Sophie says, looking at Hunter who begins purring at her. Is that what got her riled up?nursing
Athena publicly? She'll have to get over it while she’s here. | have a pack to run.
“Well, I'm no Legend, like my sister,” | say, teasing her.
“No, | call you the Warrior Alpha,” Sophie says smiling up at me. Hunter kisses the side of her head as if he’s
praising her. Maybe it was jealousy before. | know from recent experience that every woman around you feels
like a threat to your mate. | thought it was justbecause things betweenand Calvin aren’t very settled at
the moment, but maybe it was being pregnant. I'll have to see when he returns.
“Warrior Alpha. | can see it,” Jocelyn says to me.
“Well, | am a warrior, or | will be once | get back into shape, and | am an Alpha, so | guess it fits.”
Jocelyn tilts her head at me. “You're as humble as Sophie, aren't you? Must be a family trait to have strong
women who don’t realize the significant impact that they are having on others around them.”
“What impact is that?” | ask her, as | go check on my daughter. She's sleeping happily in Sophie's arms.
When she doesn’t answer immediately, | turn and see Jocelyn smiling at me. “Blazing the trail for the rest of us
to follow. You’ re the first female Alpha in history. You don’t see the significance in that?” she asks, challenging
me.
“Honestly? | don’t thave tto think about it. Between my parents’ deaths, taking over the pack, waging
war and getting revenge for my parents’ deaths, having a baby, and getting ready for the pack competitions, |
haven't had a lot of time. But now that you mention it...I guess it is sig
“Amelia has already paved the way for other women to take ranked positions in the packs,” Hunter says, making
“Oh please, you'd have made Penny your Gamma with or withoutbeing an Alpha.”
“Yes, but you did it first,” Hunter says smiling at me. “As Nikki would say, that makes you the trendsetter.”
“I don’t think | can hold her and stand up, Hunter,” Sophie says.
“You must be close to your delivery, Soapy,” | say. I'm pretty sure that her stomach is larger than mine was.
Probably because she’s having a boy.
| move to take Athena from her, but Hunter beatsto it. He carefully snuggles my daughter against his chest,
then reaches out to help Sophie up. | can hear Shaw purring softly, keeping Athena settled. Even Hamil, Calvin's
wolf, hadn’t thought to purr at his daughter.
I'm once again struck by the differences between Hunter and Calvin. Calvin couldn't have looked more
uncomfortable holding his own daughter, whereas Hunter looks like he’s been holding babies for years. Who
knows, maybe he has. He's a different kind of Alpha than Calvin is.
“Are you settled in, Jocelyn? Soapy knows her way around the packhouse, but if you need anything at all, you
can ask me, or this is my Beta, Matthew,” | say as he walks up to greet the group.
“Why do you call her Soapy?” she asks while Matthew tells Sophie she can’t hog Athena while she’s here. | smile,
looking at my sister while she tells Matthew that his mate is here all the tand she’s only here for a couple of
days, so she gets as much tas she wants with my daughter.
“It’s the n| called her when | was young. | couldn't say the ‘f" in her name, so it cout as soapy. Then,
our father started calling her Soapy and it stuck. Now that he’s gone, I've started using that nagain.”
“You're as kind and empathetic as Sophie is too, | see,” Jocelyn says.
“What do you mean?” | ask her as we walk inside.
“She must like the nand since your father is gone, you still give her that connection to your father.”
“I hadn't really thought of it that way,” I say.
“No, you probably didn't,” she says cryptically.
“Are you planning to see Dr. Caspian while you're here?” | ask, changing the subject.
“Yes. My legs are healed but now | want to talk to him about starting surgery on my upper body. | want to get
back to being whole and maybe, follow the blazing trail that the Warrior Alpha is making and fight for my own
pack,” she says.
“It would be nice to not be the only female Alpha. While the other Alphas are very supportive of me, it’s like
being the only girl in a good ol’ boys club. It’s hard not to feel like the odd man, or in this case woman, out.”
“And yet, I've heard nothing but great things about you, Alpha Amelia. You're doing a great job and from an
outsider walking in, your pack feels settled. If they didn’t, I'd worry for you, but they seem to be rallying behind
you as their leader,” she says.
I look around, taking a moment to feel what Jocelyn is feeling in my pack. Perhaps | don’t do that enough.
Perhaps | don’t step back and just let myself recognize what I've done or that I'm doing a good job. | know | work
hard for my pack, but I'm so busy doing, that | don’t take the tto see the impact of what I’ ve done.
“Thank you, Jocelyn. | needed this level of perspective. How Hong are you here for?” | ask her.
“That depends. | need to ask Dr. Caspian when he can do my surgery.”
| stop, looking at her thoughtfully. “Maybe he can do the surgery here. | can keep you on the Alpha floor with me,
so you won't be bothered by the pack, although you will have a crying baby to contend with in the middle of the
night. But my understanding is that you are healing quickly and well. Dr. Caspian doesn’t have to return to
Sophie's pack for another couple of weeks, and honestly, | can already tell that you and | are going to get along -
well.”
She smiles at me. “I was thinking the exact sthing, Alpha. And lettalk to Dr. Caspian. If he can do the
surgery here, I'd love to stay and see how you're running this pack. Maybe I'll get sideas of how to run my
pack, if and when I'm able to secure my own.”
“Good. Let's go talk to Dr. Caspian,” | say, feeling lighter than I have in a long time.
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