Dumped Omega? Now Their Alpha King Begs at My Feet novel Chapter 7

Valerie's POV

"Nothing," I told him, meeting his tired eyes. "You don't owe me anything."

"Just promise me you'll use it carefully."

He nodded, his expression full of a respect I'd never gotten from anyone in the Blackwood pack. "Of course. Valerie, thank you."

With our secret transaction complete, I left his office and made my way to the long-term care wing. This part of the hospital was always too quiet, a stark contrast to the chaos of the ER.

The air was stale with the scent of old age, lavender-scented disinfectant, and resignation. It was a place where time seemed to slow down and stop, where the pack sent their elders when they became too much of a burden.

I was here to see Martha, my foster-grandmother, Alpha Marcus's own mother.

The old she-wolf was frail, a shadow of the woman she once was. I found her in her room, propped up on a pile of pillows, staring out the window at a gray brick wall.

But her eyes, though clouded with age, lit up the moment I walked in. A spark of life returned to her face.

"Valerie, my girl," she whispered, her voice a dry rustle of leaves. A genuine smile touched her wrinkled lips, a rare sight in this dreary place.

I sat on the edge of her bed and took her thin, cool hand in mine. Her skin was like paper, crisscrossed with a map of blue veins.

She was the only one in the entire Blackwood family who had ever shown me an ounce of kindness. While Marcus and his wife saw me as a burden, a mouth to feed, Martha saw a lonely child.

When I was small, she used to sneak me cookies from the kitchen and tell me stories of the old packs, of a time before werewolves hid in corporations and boardrooms, when they ran free under the moon. She was the one who had secretly given me my mother's old books, saving them from being thrown away.

"I came to say goodbye, Martha," I told her softly, my voice catching slightly. "I'm leaving them."

"My real family, they found me," I added.

She smiled, a genuine, happy smile that reached her eyes. "It's about time," she rasped, her breath shallow.

"This was never your cage. You have a bigger spirit than all of them combined."

I gently placed my other hand over hers, letting a tiny thread of my energy flow into her. It wasn't a big healing, not something that would draw attention.

It was just a small act of love and loyalty. I focused on the painful arthritis in her joints, visualizing the inflammation cooling, the pain receding like an outgoing tide.

Verify captcha to read the contentVerify