Deleted Scene 1

A scrapped Chapter 80. A Mother’s Choices Part I that would’ve taken place around 77. The Ren Family, which gives Wisteria a little backstory and a glimpse at Linden and the beginning of their friendship that eventually led to Seff’s and Allium’s. It ended up being irrelevant and revealing information not ready to be revealed at that point.
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Wisteria Ren, an Omega female, mate and wife of Rush Ren, mother of Allium. She was blessed and cursed with a single pup. She was not able to bear litters before or after Allium. How rare to only give birth to only one. She loved her daughter more than anything in the world and would lay down her life to protect her, but she’d felt isolated from the other Omegas whose nests were full of squirming little pups.
The Magnolia pack numbered above one hundred wolves, and it felt small and large simultaneously. Sometimes it was hard to meet every face despite all the passing years.
Wisteria met Linden at the College hospital. Allium was a month old and Wisteria took her for a routine check-up. She held her daughter close as if everyone would stare for not bringing in at least one other pup. It wasn’t rare to be judged. *Did one die?* she would be asked. *Are you barren? Did your mate not perform well?*
It filled her with bitterness, but she did not let it affect her love for Allium. And when she heard Linden weeping in an opened-door room, she found solace.
No other wolf was in the birthing room. Just Linden on the bed holding one pink-clothed bundle. When Wisteria asked hesitantly, “Are you okay?” the she-wolf’s head jolted up and she gasped, clutching her pup against her chest. Her free hand not supporting Allium raised in a gesture of peace. “I’m sorry.”
She sniffed. “It’s alright, I was just startled. I’m Linden.”
“Wisteria.”
The young Omega smiled briefly and said, “You can come in. My mate…isn’t here.”
Wisteria accepted the offer. “Where is he?”
“He’s visiting his pack, the Lovell.”
Her heart went out to the female. The Lovell pack was located two days away. “It’s hard doing it alone. I did.”
Linden’s eyes widened. “You did?”
“My mate was passed out drunk on one of the Frisk Floors.” Now *that* she wasn’t bitter about. Just amused at his humiliation. Just furious that she couldn’t reach him so he out be there for the birth of his daughter. Even after that, she loved Rush; she ensured he would spend plenty of time making up for it.
Linden clicked her tongue and shook her head. “Alpha males. What use are they?”
Wisteria laughed lightly, and there was a brief silence. She was about to offer farewell when Linden blurted, “Will you stay…just a little bit?”
Wisteria was twenty-three, but Linden looked younger. Seventeen or eighteen perhaps? Her eyes were huge and her lower lip trembled. She was afraid.
Well, Allium’s appointment wasn’t for another ten minutes. What was the harm?
She eased into the chair beside the bed and adjusted her sleeping baby so her drool didn’t drip onto her arm. “I’ll stay. This is Allium.”
Linden blinked away tears and smiled. “She’s beautiful. Where are her siblings?”
Wisteria’s heart sank a little. She’d been hoping one of those probing questions wouldn’t arise. “Actually…she’s all I have.”
Instead of the usual pity or disdain, Linden lit up in surprise and relief. Wisteria thought it very strange until the young wolf breathed, “I thought I was the only one.” She looked down at her bundle. “Alarik and I decided to honor his pack and name her Seff.”
Another Omega mirrored Wisteria’s situation. A connection snapped into place and it was from then on that the two females became as close as sisters. They confided in each other in things not even their mates knew.
One of those secrets they shared was Linden’s maiden name and the truth behind it.
Her death was devastating. A part of Wisteria’s soul withered.
But her love for Linden lived on in the form of Seff.
Wisteria stood outside her daughter’s room at Apollo’s Keep. Two gold-eyed Alpha males—it was hard to know if they were Kiran’s offspring or not—watched her from a few feet as if she could be any sort of troublemaker to the Sun pack.
Since Allium discovered the appeal of Kiran Cyrus and the chance to bear his offspring, Wisteria had been just as excited by the prospect. She wanted her daughter to be happy, to explore the world beyond the Magnolia pack, to start a family larger than Wisteria could have offered. Any parent longed for the day their offspring made them grandparents.
But when the gold ribbon was tied around Allium’s throat, an overpowering fear froze her where she stood. *I don’t want to lose my child*.
Then worse became worst. The Sun and Moon Alphas recognized Seff, fulfilling Linden and Alark’s greatest fear. *Only if you could have been here, my sister*.
She hated the Alphas that day with a sudden and ironclad belief.
Rush shared that belief, but he fell for the unfamiliar luxury. Upon their arrival, they were gifted white silk clothes and a small basket of apples and dried meat. Now, waiting for their daughter to return from somewhere no one was keen on telling them, she smacked his arm.
“How can you eat that at a time like this?” Wisteria hissed at him, swearing off fruit and lamb as well as skimpy silks.
Rush mumbled around a mouthful, “I’m stress-eating.”
She rolled her eyes just as she heard new footsteps. Wisteria whirled, Rush dropping an apple onto the basket at his feet and toppling its contents across the corridor.
Allium’s letters had confirmed Wisteria’s mistrust. She described, at first, how beautiful the harem was, and how she quickly made friends with their mutual interest in the life of a consort. But as the days went on, and then weeks, each story she relayed strengthened Wisteria’s regret at allowing Allium leave. Kiran Cyrus was a cruel monster and she’d sent her child off without resistance.
Allium froze at the end of the hall where she had turned the corner. It was the crack of dawn and the light coming in from the open courtyard painted her in faint pinks and oranges. Her voice cracked on the word “Mom.”
Wisteria crashed into her daughter with an embrace, holding her against her with the intent to never let go. They wept, Rush’s arms encompassing them both. “Alli. Allium, oh gods, my love, my dear, my pup…”
“Mom,” she sniffed. “Dad. I missed you.”
After a few minutes of crying, the three separated to look each other up and down. Wisteria wasn’t fond of the Sun “uniform” of nothing but scraps of silk that left little to the imagination. She was just a piece of flesh for Kiran to admire brazenly.
Wisteria knew something was fundamentally *off* when Allium wouldn’t meet her eyes. Tipping her chin up with the crook of her forefinger, she used her motherly tone to order, “Allium, look at me, my love.”
Instead of her eyes meeting her mother’s, her hands met her belly. Rush swore and turned away. Wisteria dropped her arm as her vision blurred by more tears. “Mom, Dad…I’m pregnant.” She desperately searched Wisteria’s face, hesitant to ask, “What are *you* feeling?”
Regret? Excitement? Horror? Joy? It was hard to define. She managed to turn the question around. “What are you feeling?”
Her lower lip trembled and Wisteria could tell she was holding back a breakdown. “Um…” She was struggling to speak.
“Alli,” Wisteria said now firmly, “what’s wrong?”
“I—I… Mom…you know I’ve always wanted this—to have Lord Kiran’s pups.”
*Lord* Kiran? What a pompous bastard.
“There’s a ‘but’ in there, my love. What happened?”
Just like when she was little, Allium skewed her mouth when she knew she couldn’t escape her mother’s intuition, but this time she was barely keeping her emotions in check. Her hands were covering her belly that looked no bigger than when they parted at the gala. It had barely been two months. “I—Seff…”
“Is Seff alright?” Wisteria asked with a lurch of her heart. If any harm came to Linden’s daughter…she’d never forgive herself.
Tears sprang to her eyes and she buried her face in Wisteria’s shoulder. She let her own tears slip down her cheeks as she rubbed her daughter’s back. “I fucked up, Mom.”
She let the foul language pass. “I know, baby. But friendships can be healed. She was selfless to save you, Allium. She did it out of love for you. You two are closer than sisters. A bond like that can’t break.”
Allium shook violently then, a damn shattered within her. “Mom…I think I lost them.”
“What.”
“Seff *was* selfless. And I tried to be too, to save her from someone trying to kill her, but I—I had to Shift, and I’m terrified that—”
*Oh gods. Linden, your daughter is responsible for mine losing her pups.*