Annie's Birth

Annie
I smiled up at Osprey’s angry face. “Hi to you too, brother.”
“What are you doing here?” He repeated, crossing his arms over his chest as he glared at me.
“Gerry found us a place to live. We wanted to seek your approval,” I told him.
He held his hand out. “Well, let me see.”
I eagerly hurried over to him to hand him the paper with the house’s information on it. As he took it from me, I got a whiff of the most delectable scent that I had ever smelled that lingered around him. When my head snapped up so that I could look into his eyes, he smirked at me.
“Find something you like?” He asked smugly.
I let the paper go as I stepped back, holding his gaze. “No,” I answered even as everything in me, including Marsha, screamed yes.
“Well, that’s a shame.”
He looked down at the piece of paper before meeting my eyes. “This is acceptable. I will contact them tomorrow. Are you two leaving to go back tonight or not?”
My mother quickly came over to drape her arm over my shoulders. “I would like for them to spend the night. I wanted to speak with Annie.”
I bit the inside of my cheek as I nodded. “Okay, Mom.”
“We’ll be right back,” she said, smiling around at them before leading me out of the house.
We walked slowly in the opposite direction of the wolf pack. I glanced at her, and the look on her face made me even more nervous than I was before. When she didn’t show any signs of wanting to speak, I cleared my throat.
“What did you want to speak about, Mom?” I asked.
“Who marked you, Annie?”
My hand shot up to cover Gerry’s makeup-covered mark. “What?”
She raised an eyebrow as we continued to walk. “Hannah tried to cover her mark too. It didn’t work either. So, who was it?”
I cleared my throat. “Ummm, my boyfriend?” I answered.
“Why do you sound uncertain about your answer, Annaria?”
“I’m not. My boyfriend marked me.”
“Who is it?”
“The wolf I was with, Lincoln,” I told her, pulling a name out of thin air.
“When are you going to bring him home so we can meet him? Is he your mate? Why didn’t he truly mark you?” She questioned, throwing them at me faster than I could answer them.
“I’m not sure if he will be coming here, Mom. His pack won’t accept a sow as his mate. No, he’s not. That’s why he didn’t mark me like a true mate.”
“Does he treat you well?”
“Yes, Mom,” I answered.
“You seem tired, Annie, sweetheart. What’s wrong?” She continued to question me.
“Mother Annaria came to see me,” I answered. “You know how tired I get after speaking with her.”
“I do. How is she?”
“She’s fine. She just wanted to show me visions of my future,” I answered.
My mother stopped walking to stare at me. “She wanted to show you your future?”
“Yes. She showed me two ways my future could go.”
“Tell me about it, please,” she ordered softly.
I sighed as I began to tell her what the two paths held for me. She remained quiet while she listened to me, and I could see worry cross her face. I hated when my mother looked at me like that. I hated being the reason she was sad or worried. She shook her head before reaching out to pull me against her chest as her sorrow swamped me.
“Oh, Annie.”
“It’s okay, Mom. It will be okay. I will make sure that I make the right choices. I don’t want the first future to be my reality,” I told her.
She shook her head, squeezed me tightly one more time before letting me go, and took a step back. “It doesn’t work that way, Annie. The Goddess doesn’t just show people their futures. It’s very rare. She either does it because you are already on the wrong path or you have no chance of happiness, and showing you what you could have had is your punishment.”
My eyes widened. “I couldn’t be on the wrong path, Mom.”
“Of course you can be, Annaria. Maybe this wolf is the wrong choice.”
“He can’t be, Mother. I prayed about needing help with something to protect me and my boyfriend, and Mother Annaria gave me a way. The Goddess wouldn’t have done that if She didn’t approve of my relationship, would she?”
“If that’s true, then she must approve. I have never heard of this happening before.” She gripped my face in her hands. “Make me a promise, Annaria.”
“Okay, Mom.”
“Promise me that you will go slow with this. I want to ask other Alpha’s about this before you get too deep, okay?” She practically begged.
I sighed. “I promise, Mom. I won’t rush this.”
“Good. Now, we should get back to the house,” she said.
I leaned my head against her shoulder as we walked. “Will you tell me about my birth again?”
“Sure,” she chuckled. “I was doing a perimeter run when Maddy went into labor. Our labor was so hard that we couldn’t communicate with your fathers on where we were. We couldn’t breathe. We couldn’t think. All we felt was pain. It wasn’t like all of the other labors that I had. An hour into it, Annaria came out of the forest, shrouded in vines and moss, with even more vines in her hair. She knelt by our side, smiling sadly at me. ‘Your cub is dying, Natasha.’ We became even more frightened, and Maddy shifted back so I could beg her to save you.”
“And then?” I whispered, breathlessly.
“And then she sent vines up inside of me to bring you out. The vines immediately took you under the soil, where you were incubated for the first three months of your life. I didn’t eat. I barely drank. I didn’t want to be around anyone else. Your fathers would watch over me from afar while I protected the location where I had given birth to you. One day, Annaria walked out, smiling at me reassuringly, and I was so weak that I could barely move. She gently took you from the vines and set you on my chest. She smiled down at me and said, ‘Love your cub, Natasha. You have found favor with the Goddess.’ And I knew right in that second that you were going to be special. And I was right. You’re as special as the Keeper of Vines that saved your life.”
I took her hand as we paused just outside of our front door. “And that’s how I got my name.”
“Yes, sweetheart, it is. Annaria is your guardian. She will always look over you.”
I beamed at her. “I know.”
She hugged me again. “Go to bed, Annie. You have a long way home in the morning.”
“Yes, Mom. I love you. Goodnight.”
“I love you too, Annie. Goodnight,” she replied.
I hurried up to my room, where I threw myself down on the bed. I buried my face in the pillow, glad that I had spoken to my mother. She was a great Alpha Sow, mother, and friend. I turned my head as my door opened. My eyes widened as Gerry shut the door silently behind him before crossing the room to stand over me.
‘What are you doing?’ I mouthed.
He grinned down at me before rolling me over to cover my body with his. “I didn’t want to be without you tonight,” he whispered.
“What if we get caught?” I whispered back.
“Don’t scream, and we won’t be.”
“What do you mean, don’t scream?” I asked quietly.
He nudged my legs apart before wiggling his hand down my pants. My eyes fluttered closed as he flicked my clit.
“Don’t scream,” he repeated as he pushed his fingers into me while his mouth captured mine. “Let’s see how long you can resist.”