What No One Must Know
Trigger warning: This chapter deals with sexual assault.
POV: Jess
It was not an easy thing to know that Grand Pretre was actually at our shared living space to see me. Even worse, she wanted to see me alone. I looked over at Alexandra worried and shook my head, “I can’t, Your Eminence. As you can see, I am on duty.” I had hoped this excuse would pass and I wouldn’t have to talk to her about the secret I was keeping. She reached over and knocked on the front pole, Alita came out of the tent smiling until she saw Grand Pretre. She got on her knees and deflected her eyes down from her, “I am at your command, Your Eminence.” She patted Alita on the head like she was petting a pup, “I need you to guard Her Grace while I take her current guard away to have a discussion about her future.” Alita nodded and I could feel my stomach drop at the uncomfortable conversation that was to follow. Alexandra looked at me worried, “Are you going to be okay? You look like you just saw a ghost.” I shook my head, “No. Remember that letter I wrote to Teddy?” She nodded at me and I continued, “Well I think I’m going to have to confront that uncomfortable truth with Grand Pretre tonight. Pray for me.” She nodded, “You will have the embrace of Aphrodite and Apollo around you tonight.” She reached over and squeezed my hand and I thanked her. She walked over to Grand Pretre, “Be gentle with her.” The small woman looked up at Alexandra and smiled, “Don’t worry, I won’t bite her. We are just going to discuss the secret and her future. I’ll bring her back with less heavy shoulders.”
Grand Pretre walked to me and took my hand and pulled me off to another area. There was a small tent near the King’s tent and she pulled me in. A small table was in the middle along with a small mirror and a few bottles. She bade me to sit and I did as I was told. She leaned forward and folded her hands on the table, “Now I know your secret so you don’t have to tell me. What I don’t understand is why you don’t share that burden with Alexandra. Why is that?” I shook my head, “It isn’t an easy thing for a lycan to tell others that they cannot reproduce. I don’t wish to burden her with my troubles anyhow. I know she has enough to worry about. I figure it is something I can solve on my own with Teddy. It’s what no one must ever know.” She sighed and shook her head, “Child, you will need her to fix your problem. Her time here is well spent, she is cultivating a new skill and will soon discover that she has immense skill in another element that will help you far more than Theodore Befent can with water magic. He would only be able to extract your eggs to implant them elsewhere but you want to know motherhood. Do you not?” I buried my head in my hands, “It’s not possible. The alpha of my pack made sure of that when he took my innocence and left me torn up inside. I was told no one could heal that.”
She smiled at me and picked up a bag next to the mirror and stuck her hand in pulling out pink dust. She smeared it over the mirror, “You know the thing about making babies is that it usually is an act of love between two beings. Love is a miracle in and of itself, it’s hard to find and even harder to hold on to. BUT, if you know how to cultivate the flower that is love…it can grow.” She chanted something over the pink powder-dusted mirror and the dust glowed. She wiped away the dust and waved at it, “Look here.” I peered down in the mirror, thinking I would see a reflection of myself but instead, I saw a scene where I am sitting on a blanket near Chalshin manor and Derek was tossing up and down a small boy with brown hair. I heard my voice, “Careful Derek, he’s still so little.” Derek turned to me and smiled, “I’ll take care of this one and you take care of that one.” It was then that I finally noticed my pregnant belly and I gasped, “How?” She smiled, “If you follow the path that I am suggesting to you, you and Derek will have as many babies from your womb as you would like. You just have to be honest with Derek and tell Alexandra. Otherwise, he will find out eventually, figured that you lied to him by omission and you will lose him. I know that is not something you want since you both are very much in love with each other. The best way to cultivate the flower that is love is with someone who was born of love and the very essence of life which is light. You see, fire magic isn’t just about heat. There’s a little element to it that others don’t think to use but she will know it soon enough when she is needed. When she discovers that, and it will have to be on her own, she can help you with your problem. Vellum needs your children and while it would be one way or another that you will have children. They need their mother imprinted on them from birth and you know very well that can only happen if you give birth to them yourself. Now that I have told you what you need to know, I think you need to seek out Derek and confess your truth to him then Alexandra. That is something they both must know.”
I rose from my seat and nodded at her, “You’re right, I am tormented by not telling them so this will ease my torment and provide me with the support I need.” I left the tent and headed over to the mess hall where Derek would have been playing cards. I stepped in and heard one of the guys say, “Uh oh, there’s a hen in the fox house! Derek’s girl is here!” The guys picked on him as he rose from his seat with a smile and walked over to me, “Hey Jess, what’s up?” I looked him in his eyes, “I need to talk to you about something really important. Can we speak alone?” He nodded, “Sure thing. Let me just let the guys know I’m leaving. Okay?” I wrapped my arms around myself and nodded, “Okay.” He walked over and told the guys about how he wanted to spend some time with his girl and then walked back over to me. He followed me out of the tent and we started to walk in a field until we were out of earshot of the camp. I turned to him and started to tear up, “So what I’m going to tell you is really difficult but I need you to listen until I am done. Okay?” He nodded and I wiped the tears from my eyes and said, “During my last run, I decided to run with my father’s pack. Usually, I run with my father alone but since he was in Terre, I couldn’t. Well, the alpha has had his eye on me since I was a young teen, he’s in his twenties. I rejected his mating advances during the run that he didn’t take kindly to and so he did it anyway. I don’t want to go into details because it is too painful to remember but it was far too rough and he broke my womb. I had Teddy take a look at it when he first came to live in Blackwood, he told me that I likely wouldn’t be able to produce children. He said he would do research and try some experiments to see if he could help. He had written to me earlier today that he may have something that would help us have children but I spoke with Grand Pretre earlier tonight and she said it would be an implanting situation like they do in Terre. That’s groundbreaking for Vellum but I will not be able to leave an imprint on our children.” After I finally got all of that out, I collapsed to the ground and sobbed, “I will understand if you don’t want to marry me now but just know that I didn’t want to keep this secret from you but I was ashamed.”
Derek got to his knees and wrapped me in a warm embrace, “It’s okay Jess, I will always want to marry you. You could be crippled, bloodied, bruised, and scarred and I would still love you. Just know that this alpha of yours will face a challenge from me once we are married and his pack will know of his crimes. It’s okay that we can’t have kids from your womb too Jess, I will love you and our little ones no matter how they come into the world.” I looked up at him, “Grand Pretre said that if I follow a path, I may still be able to have children.” He looked down, “Oh? What’s the path? I will do whatever I can to help ease your burden, my love. Your troubles will always be my troubles.” I sighed, “She told me that I needed to tell you and Alexandra what happened. That was the first step. Alexandra will discover new element magic that will help to heal my wounds. That is all I know and I cannot tell Alexandra about this new magic she will discover, she has to find it on her own.” He chuckled, “Leave it up to fate for it to be Lex to fix it for us. I wonder why the world thinks she needs to be everyone’s hero. I suppose it is her own fate to be the fixer. Something tells me she doesn’t mind.” I shook my head, “I don’t think you’re far off from that.” I buried my head into his chest, “Thank you for listening and being so understanding.” He leaned his cheek on the top of my head, “You had to go through something awful, Jess. I will never understand the need for someone to take something that isn’t theirs but just know he will know my anger for it. You didn’t cause this either so don’t blame yourself, blame him. I’m just glad that you told me so we can work through your trauma together. Now, I believe you need to go make this admission to Lex. Right?” I nodded, “That’s going to be so hard for me.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed it, “I can come if you want.” I shook my head, “No, you can go back to your game, love. I will talk to her alone.” He nodded, got up, and offered his hand, “We can talk about our plans to avenge you later. Okay?” I took his hand and hugged him when I got to my feet, “I love you, Derek. I don’t think I’ve ever told you that.” I could hear his smile in his voice as he said, “No, you haven’t but neither have I. I love you too, Jess. Now run along and let Lex help to heal you too.”
I left the field and walked towards our tent and worked out in my head what I would say to her. Would she understand what had happened without me telling her the whole story? Derek understood because he knew how brutal some alphas can be but would Alexandra who knew little about lycans, our society, and hierarchy? I guess I would know the extent of what her understanding was soon as I approached the tent that we occupied. Alita was standing outside and she smiled at me as I approached, “I hope your conversation with Grand Pretre was fruitful.” I nodded, “Yeah, it was. Can you do me a favor?” Alita nodded, “Sure, what’s up?” I looked through the small gap in the tent flap then back at her, “I need to have a conversation with Alexandra, alone.” Alita smiled and patted my shoulder, “Say no more. I was going to stock some of the packaged food items on the shelves for breakfast so I won’t have to get up early tomorrow anyhow. Take your time.” I nodded, “Thanks.” I stepped into the tent and cleared my throat. Alexandra closed the book she was reading and tucked it away, “What’s up, Jess?” I sighed and looked her in the eyes and said, “Well, where do I begin?”
