Under the golden twilight sky, a few butterflies fluttered among the flowers. They perched from one flower to another and then chase each other, showing off their beautiful wings.
Inside the manor, Sophie was standing by the large window, watching Jan and Luciel playing with the other lycan children. They were running around happily in their wolf forms in the vast courtyard of the manor.
Luciel was seen playing hide and seek with several other lycan children, while Jan was playing with the butterfly occasionally perching on his nose. Jan wanted to catch the butterfly, but then it flew away from his nose. Jan immediately chased it vigorously.
Jan, who was running while looking up to see the butterfly flying above accidentally tripped on Luciel's body, who was stalking a lycan pup that was hiding.
GROWL
RAWRR
They started fighting again.
Sophie, who was watching them from afar, couldn't help but smile. Her two sons grew up healthy and happy. Even though they seemed to fight a lot, they always did it in a playful manner. She wished it would always be like that. Luciel was Jan's best friend, just like Jan was his.
At first, Sophie didn't know that apart from Jan and Luciel, there were other children in their group when they moved back to Riga. She thought that Leland had only brought the lycan warriors with them. When she saw the lycan children, she was slightly surprised.
Leland explained the warriors would be serving them for a very long time in Riga, so the Alpha allowed them to bring their children and mates with them.
Leland said that the real reason he did that was for Jan and Luciel. If the warriors brought their children, Jan and Luciel would have playmates. The boys would not be lonely.
Sophie was touched by this gesture. She realized Leland was very sensitive to what Jan and Luciel needed. Sophie hadn't really thought Luciel and Jan would be lonely in Riga because they both had each other, but Leland did.
This made Sophie feel so lucky to have this man as her mate. He was truly the dream husband and father any woman could ever ask for.
She looked at her flat stomach and wondered when she could give him another child. After the healers confirmed that she was healthy enough to carry another baby, she and Leland had been regularly doing the deed with the main objective to conceive.
Initially Leland was worried about bringing a child into this world when he and his pack was undergoing an important mission to topple the kingdom of Riga. However, Sophie convinced him.
She said they didn't know how long it would take them to finish with the mission, if they were ever going to succeed. It might take years before they could win the war and by then they would already lose precious time.
"I trust you. I know you will be able to protect us if anything happens in the future," Sophie said convincingly. "We have waited for many years. I don't want to wait any longer…"
Leland always listened to her words and demands. So, that's why they had started trying to have a baby. Because she asked for it. However, it's been so many months and Sophie still was not pregnant.
This started to make her feel worried. What if she had become sterile from the prolonged health issues?
No, the healers would have said so, she thought to herself.
Sophie closed her eyes and remembered her last pregnancy. It still pained her whenever she remembered the children she lost.
When people said time heals all wounds? They lied.
Time doesn't heal anything. In reality, time presents us with the opportunity to bury our pain as deeply as we can.
And that's what Sophie and Leland did. They buried their pain because of the loss, so they could move on with life.
A gust of wind stirred the flowers. Sophie, who was still looking at Jan and Luciel, was now deep in thought, remembering her two other children, Morgan and Emery.
If they were still alive, they would have been four years old. They would be playing in that garden with their two older brothers.
Sophie wiped away the tears that had were forming in the corners of her eyes.
When Leland said they were going to Riga, Sophie was happy because not only did she miss her hometown, she also missed Morgan and Emery.
After Leland finished taking care of all the matters related to the pack moving here, Sophie would ask Leland to take her to visit Morgan's and Emery's graves.
She opened her eyes and took a deep breath. Suddenly, a pair of big hands wrapped around her waist from behind.
The couple must be so in tune with each other, the man came and hugged Sophie just as she was thinking of asking him to visit the grave together.
"Are you okay?" asked Leland. He tilted his head and kissed Sophie on the cheek.
Sophie nodded with a smile. "I am fine."
When he arrived at Livstad, Leland only took a short rest before getting busy arranging the pack and distributing tasks to the warriors who had accompanied them to Riga.
The Alpha had to move quickly and silence the elders, who judged him to be slow to act. He didn't actually care what the old wolves said about him, but he cared about Sophie.
From behind the scenes, the elders and some power-hungry members criticized Leland for not being as strong as before, and they blamed Sophie for it.
According to them, ever since Leland married Sophie, he had become soft, sluggish and indecisive. They even referred to Leland as a toothless wolf that had lost its fangs.
They used to firmly believe that Leland would surpass Alpha Leon in leading the Blood River pack and make Blood River the most respected among all the packs in their continent.
However, their faith faded when Sophie came to Alpha Leland's life. Ever since she came, Blood River had suffered a lot of setbacks. They thought Sophie was a jinx.
During her time as Luna, the woman did not contribute anything to the progress of the pack.
All she did was take care of the children they believed were not Alpha Leland's children but the children of another lycan. Sophie and her two children were a disgrace to the pack.
Honestly, Leland wanted to destroy them all. But if he did that, would it all be over and solve the problem?
No!
That would only bring in more criticism. If he killed the elders who talk badly about his mate, it wasn't just the elders and those few lycans who would criticize Sophie but the entire pack. They would blame Sophie for breaking the pack..
Those elders had existed since Alpha Leon's leadership, even among those there were ones who have existed since Alpha Ethan – Leland's grandfather.
They had contributed a lot to the advancement of the Blood River Pack and had a large following. If Leland killed them, then their followers would definitely not accept it, and there would be more rebellions ensued.
So the one way to achieve his goal to silence them was that Leland had to prove himself.
This content is taken from (f)reewe(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦