The Alpha's Fated Outcast: Rise Of The Moonsinger by Ejiofor Dorcas

190 The truth of her birth IV

Miriam

The morning I left; the temple was quiet. Everyone was still sleeping in their chambers from the chilliness of the early morning. I didn’t take anything. I wanted no reminder of this place.

I stepped out into the cool dawn air, and paused, glancing back at the temple that had been my home for so long. But now, I was leaving.

Shaking my head, to fight the nostalgia, I turned away and started walking down the path that led to the home of the midwife. For the first time in three months, I felt relief. I was going to start afresh, a life where I would no longer be just a priestess who had given up her child, but a mother searching for a way to heal my shattered heart.

It took me about an hour to arrive at the Midwife’s house.

When I reached it, I paused at the gate, listening for sound. I must have stood there for about ten minutes when I heard the piercing cry of a baby. I paused, listening. One of the doors to the room opened and the husband of the midwife emerged and crossed over to the other side of the house.

A moment later, the midwife and her husband came from the other side of the house carrying a baby. The midwife passed the baby to her husband who was playing with her, nuzzling her with his mouth.

I stood frozen where I was hidden as I watched them. That was my baby.

Her brown curls curled around her hair like carpet. She was cooing, laughing at the funny noise the midwife’s husband was making. They didn’t give the baby away? I wondered silently, watching them.

After staying there for a while, I summoned courage and walked into the compound. As soon as the midwife and her husband saw me, a small smile settled on their lips as if they had been expecting me.

“You don’t look surprised?” I asked.

The midwife laughed. “I knew you were going to come back. All the women always came back for their babies and I kept her for you.”

“Do you want to hold her?” her husband asked gently.

My eyes misted with tears. “Can I?”

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truth of her birth V

with baby curiosity. I gently took her from the man, and a

Every sadness that had taken me hostage seeped out as I held her. I

take it you ran away?” the midwife

stay there anymore. They won’t let me stay with the baby and I don’t want

at the temple, here would be the first place they come to.

I inhaled shakily. I had thought about leaving and I knew I couldn’t stay here but I had no idea how to go about it. How do people survive outside the

get a job,” the husband of the mid–wife started saying. “Even if you do get a job,

I shook my head.

not so much a job if you look at it.

“It’ll be too much strain for her. I’ll take her elsewhere. The Alpha and his Luna are just newly married a year and some months precisely and the Luna has been trying for a

and turned to me. “Your baby is special, Miriam. Since she has been with us, we’ve had such a turn in everything and we

to the pack house. When we arrived at the

and the baby’s voice was echoing,

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of

that had

he rushed up the stairs towards

smile. Lyla had stopped crying too and was staring at him with baby curiosity

ceremony being done at the pack today. You look…” he paused, his eyes running my entire length.

You don’t look half as bad either. You’re still

pack, Blue Ridge. What are you doing here, Miriam?” he asked for the third time. “Don’t

head. Lyla was coming

work?” he asked again, staring at me with surprise. “What kind of

story, Jeremy but maybe one of these days we will catch up, that is if I