3: Where is she?
**Kala pov**
Whoever decided to talk shit about mountain lions had to have been out of their goddamn minds when they did. These women, as frantic as they were, acted so darn worried and were nothing but kind to me.
They hurried to tend to me, to check on my belly and offered different things, starting from tea and eventually ending with different foods. I, on the other hand, was so taken aback by their eagerness to help and take care of me that I couldn’t utter a single word.
My world was collapsing out there, outside this tent, while I enjoyed the comfort of being taken care of. How selfish was I?
Finally, when one of the women forced a mug of steaming tea in my hands, I found my voice. “I-” I tried to speak, but the words died in my throat as tears streamed down my cheeks and I forced a weak, “my mate.”
The women in the tent crowded me, all of them trying to hug and hold me. “Calm down, child, your mate has to be okay, don’t worry, that’ll only harm the baby.”
I shook my head, tears streaming down my cheeks. “You don’t understand,” I managed to gasp. “The man who might be attacking this camp isn’t any regular man. He’s been possessed by this awful, unexplainable thing that takes over his body and hurts everyone he loves. Not to mention he’s an Alpha, a very powerful one.”
The women exchanged glances, but none of them focused on my words too much, almost like they simply didn’t care.
Well, that, or they assumed from the get-go that I had to be going crazy, possibly due to pregnancy hormones, or some mental issues.
I wanted to call out to Aife, to tell her to back me up, but since the women in the tent were crowding me so badly, I couldn’t even see her.
“You need to stay calm,” one of them said, her voice stern, face pulled in a frown. She was older than the rest, clearly had to have seen her fair share of awful stuff. “If you don’t stay calm, you only worry the life growing inside you. Focus on the child, everything else can be dealt with later.”
Sucking in a deep breath, I nodded and tried to focus on the sound of my own breathing. As panicked as I was, they were right - I had to focus on the baby, not everything else. I knew that Zion would want the same thing, he cared about our unborn child’s well-being.
By the time I calmed down, at least a little, my hands weren’t shaking as much, so that was an improvement. Slowly, I brought the cup of tea to my lips and allowed myself to savor the taste before I swallowed it.
The noise around me faded into the background, my heart rate slowed a little and slowly, I started coming back to my senses, panic no longer clouded my judgement.
As one of the women held my wrist and checked my pulse, she flashed me a kind smile and nodded in approval. “That’s it, just like that, lovely, take deep breaths and focus on the baby.”
I forced a weak smile, “I’m trying my best. How are things out there?”
She shook her head, her eyes turned a little sharper, as if she was damn near ready to scold me like a child. “Whatever is going on out there is none of your business, love. For now, we focus on you and your child, not the mess out there. It’s a man’s job to protect the camp, women don’t worry themselves with matters as irreverent as that.”
My eyes widened as I listened to her speak. All my life, I had spent it with the witches and we had to stand our ground against any outsiders that decided to try to mess with us. Later, when I stayed with Zion, while men did ensure safety in the pack, I always stood by his side and fought with him.
For us, it was only logical that we stood together and protected what was important. Suppose lions didn’t share the same sentiment as we did.
“Besides,” the woman muttered and released my wrist. “Leader Khan and his mate Enzo are powerful men, both of them. While we prefer living in peace, away from the outsiders, it doesn’t mean we are a bunch of weaklings. Our men are extremely strong, the weak don’t survive the mountains. And to add, now that both of them have claimed a cub who’s expecting too, they are more insistent on protecting home. Both Khan and Enzo will give up their own lives if it means they protect the cub.”
I listened to her carefully, then frowned. “A cub?” Had I missed something? Everything was happening so fast around here that I might have misheard something or just didn’t hear some details at all.
The woman nodded and smiled at me brightly. “Yes, a cub. She’s a wolf girl, Aife, both Khan and Enzo paraded the small thing around with so much pride, you should’ve seen it. They both had always wanted to be parents and now, it seems fate is on their side because the cub was brought right in their arms just like that. One of ours found her near frozen in a cave and from there, she’s been claimed as our next generation. A lovely girl, really.”
I almost choked on my own saliva, but decided not to comment. From what I had seen, it was useless to argue with lions or try to prove something to them - once they had decided something, it was impossible to change their minds anyway.
So, instead, I sat there, looking completely stupid, and dragged a weak, “okay” to agree with her.
That one word seemed to only egg her on, so she went on a rant about how wonderful it was to have a new face in the camp and how excited everyone was for the new addition. She spoke as if it was already a done deal that Aife would never leave the camp and start a new life with them.
Nodding and half listening, I looked around, the women were finally backing away from me, but the longer my eyes scanned the surroundings, the deeper the pit in my stomach became.
I managed to stop the woman mid-rant as I spoke, “speaking of Aife, where is she?”
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