Mated To The Alpha: A Standalone Wolf Shifter Romance, стр. 44
As Reine moved to mark Ziva, something shifted deep down behind Ziva's eyes.
Reine thought she saw insanity there. Fear, rage and more than a touch of desperation rolled off of Ziva, filling Reine's snout with the sour stench of it a second before Ziva started to speak.
"Kill me, Reine. Kill me and this cub, or I will kill you! One way or another, only one of us can stay here. You would be doing me a favor, really."
Touching Ziva as she spoke so fiercely made Reine's 'sight' kick in.
Two possible outcomes flashed, as usual, through Reine's vision.
In the first, Reine saw Ziva coming after her again, scar notwithstanding. But this time, Ziva would go after her by attacking Emma instead. Emma was a young cub in Reine's vision, so young that she was no match for Ziva. Ziva killed Emma, in flashes so grotesque that even as just a possible future, it made Reine sick to watch.
She saw the pack not being entirely sure it was Ziva who did it, even though her scent was on Emma's body, because Ziva swore she was trying to protect Emma, not hurt her. But Reine knew differently. Reine saw herself going after Ziva then, ripping her throat out right in front of the entire pack in a murderous fit of grief and anger.
She saw doubt in Thomas's eyes at Ziva's guilt, and a wedge being driven between brother and sister. She saw Thomas fading to nothing, grieving his mate, and some of her pack doubting her actions as an emotional, protective new mother, tearing her pack apart from the inside.
The second possible outcome followed quickly on the heels of the first. She saw herself leaving this pack, with Henry and her unborn cub. She saw Emma being raised human, and even noticed that all of her visions down this road included Henry and Emma, but not herself. She wasn't shown when, or how, she'd die, but she didn't see herself in her cub's future.
But she did see Thomas being a good Alpha after she left, her pack staying intact even if angry, confused and unforgiving of her for leaving. She saw Ziva pulling herself somewhat together, once she'd left, and Emma eventually returning here, to find happiness and peace as an adult wolf with a family of her own.
She made her decision, standing there in the woods over Ziva. It wasn't even a tough decision, in her eyes.
Stay, and live to see her cub die, her pack divided, and her brother eaten by grief. Or go, and know her family would be safe, even if she herself wasn't a part of it.
In that instant, Reine chose her cub's life over her own.
She never told Thomas, or anyone else, why she left. Henry tried to get the information out of her, but she didn't have the heart to tell him that in one future he lost his child, and in this one he was destined to lose her. She just didn't have it in her.
She briefly thought of staying, and trying to change the future, but she knew she just couldn't gamble with her cub's life like that. She'd rather gamble with her own.
24
Emma woke, her mother's visions still fresh in her mind.
She stretched her body tentatively, to help wake herself up, and was rewarded with dull aches and pains. She glanced around, groggy, to realize that she was in her own cabin, tucked into her own bed. Elam was beside her, propped up on his side, watching her wake.
"How do you feel?" He asked.
His face was full of love and concern, with no sign of being pissed at her for killing his adopted mother.
Emma realized that he probably had no way of knowing that she was also his real, biological mother, born from a rape by a shape shifting mist-man, and that outside of insanity-laced ravings, Ziva had never admitted that to anyone outside of her original pack, before spilling her guts to Emma and Kate just before trying to kill them. That was assuming that her ravings could even be trusted as truth, Emma thought.
"Honestly, I don't feel too bad. Wasn't I shot? Twice? Am I on some really good drugs or something, not to feel like hell? Or am I still dreaming all of this as well?"
"As well? What have you been dreaming about?"
Emma wasn't quite ready to talk about that, she wanted to mull everything her mother had shown her over in her mind before exposing everything to the light of day. She had no interest in everyone thinking she'd lost her mind in addition to being shot.
"How did I get here? Did Ziva really shoot me?"
She asked as much to change the subject as to find out the answers.
"Yes. According to the images you were rapid-firing at me, she did. According to Kate, as well. I carried you here, on my back. You gave me quite a scare, you know, passing out at my feet like that, covered in blood."
"I'm sorry. Ziva. Is she...?"
"Dead? Oh, yes. You took her down just like I taught you when we were hunting."
"Elam, stop. That sounds so... Don't you care that I...?"
"That you defended not only yourself, but Kate too? From an insanely mad woman who admitted everything from being raped and abandoning me to killing the people who took me in? The same crazed woman who was determined to kill you both as well? Emma, I can't be angry about any of it. You saved Kate. And more importantly, to me anyway, you saved yourself. Ziva was right, it would kill me to lose you. I love you, Emma. More than anything."
"I love you, too. Wait, how did you know? I didn't even start trying to throw visions at you until right before Ziva tried to kill Kate."
"That can't be right. I started