Page 9 of Fated Alpha Baby

I pinch the rubber bulb until the glass pipette is filled to the tip with the pink liquid from the bottle. Once full, I turn to Clarissa and notice the flicker of dread in her brown eyes.

“What’s wrong, Bug?” I ask, my brows knitting to a tight frown.

Clarissa gulps hard, her dragon-shaped eyes flitting to the pipette as she drags in a breath.

“I don’t like it very much,” she grimaces, then lifts her eyes to mine. “Do I really have to take this, Mommy?”

I sigh and drop the pipette back into the tincture bottle, then shift closer to the little girl who is a replica of me. Her brown eyes soften from their usual sharp fierceness, and she nuzzles her face into my neck. I card a hand through her copper brown hair, holding her tightly to my chest to console her.

“You have to take it, Bug,” I whisper at the top of her head. “It’s for your own good.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” she protests, her voice muffled against my sweater.

“No, there isn’t,” I concede with a sigh as I stroke her hair and plant a kiss at the top of her head. “There’s nothing wrong with you. The syrup is only a way to…boost your immune system, and ensure you’re healthy.”

I gulp when the lie leaves a bitter aftertaste on my tongue.

It’s a white lie.

That’s what Amalia called it when Clarissa was old enough to ask questions.

When she couldn’t speak, it was easier to administer the potion by consuming it myself and breastfeeding her. But as my daughter grew older, she hasn’t stopped questioning why she needs to take the medication every night.

I’ve always told her that it’s a multivitamin. But the truth is, it’s a potion brewed slowly for three days, a recipe that remains a secret, even to me.

It’s better that way. Only Amalia knows how to brew the potion, and she’s the only one, apart from me, who knows that Clarissa needs the potion at all. It’s the only way her true identity can be kept a secret from our sisters, and especially from herself.

My daughter, Clarissa Young, is no ordinary witch like the others.

She’s part witch, part werewolf, living in a coven of full-fledged witches.

Having her drink the potion for nearly eight years is how I’ve managed to maintain my peace in the August Moon Circle—the coven that found me running across the rolling hills of Augusta, with nothing but shame and heartache lugged in imaginary bags.

I’d been running, exiled to the trenches of the valley I’d been born in, a face stricken with tears that clung to my cheeks as I padded barefoot toward the unknown.

Amalia was the one who found me while she was preparing wards and runes on the outskirts of the coven territory. She didn’t ask questions—just touched her delicate fingers to my cheek and saw what she needed to see in her vision.

The only reason I knew she was having a vision at all was that I witnessed her eyes turning ice-white for a few seconds before they shimmered emerald green again. She never told me what she saw in her vision, but she welcomed me with open arms.

“I” soon became “we” when I skipped my next menses, and the only thing I heard from Amalia about her vision as she held a positive test was, “My vision was correct. You are with child.”

The next couple of months went into preparing for Clarissa’s birth, and on the evening she was born, Amalia handed me the first batch of masking potion.

Without having to tell her, Amalia already knew that I had conceived a werewolf’s child and that I’d been running from the pack, which is why Clarissa’s true identity needed to be masked—so that no one would ever know that her father was a werewolf.

“Please, Bug…” I whisper gently, a lump lodged in my throat from revisiting old wounds I wish would heal. But the scars remain, eight years later. And I know it’s only a matter of time before my daughter questions me about her father.

For now, I can just keep her safe from the world of the werewolves and make sure her wolf never emerges.

“I need you to take the syrup. It’s the only way I’ll know for sure that you’re safe.”

Clarissa sniffles, then pulls back to stare up at me, her eyes glossed over with tears.

“I don’t like the taste of strawberries, Mommy,” she pouts. “But I will take my meds for you.”

I plant a kiss on her forehead as I reach for the pipette again. As she drinks the syrup, I reassure her, “I will ask Amalia to change the flavor. How does that sound, Bug? What flavor would you like?”

Clarissa swallows the syrup begrudgingly, then wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.