Disclaimer: I'm not Annette Curtis Klause. I don't own anything from her original book, just the stuff I make up.

Here's a chapter for ya. Enjoy...well, try to enjoy...

9

"What?" Nova asks, eyes wide.

"Yep, you heard me, this is ours come April," Alex says, he twirls around the unfinished walls, "this is the kitchen, this is going to be our kitchen."

Nova shakes her head and sinks to the ground. She leans against a stack boards. Alex stops twirling like a maniac and kneels down in front of her. He takes her hands and kisses her knuckles, "Nova, this is ours. We're going to raise our pups here, we're going to live here, love here."

She continues to shake her head, "Alex, this, this is too much too fast. I…I we're having a baby. We're sixteen and we're having a baby. I know for us it's normal but I don't feel like it is."

Alex's smile fades, "Nova I know that this is going to be hard."

She stops him, "No, you don't know anything. You don't have to do anything other than claim it's yours and you don't even have to do that. You could write me off easily and go off with someone else. You don't have to have this pup, you don't have to go to school and face all of those hateful humans being pregnant. It is going to be hard, hard for me."

Alex lets her hands fall from his, "Nova, you think this is easy for me? Do you even know what this means for me? I'm in line to be leader, do you know how much pressure it is being Gabriel's son? Do you know how much pressure it is with that plus breaking pack Law? I'm lucky I'm still in this pack."

"Do you know how much pressure it is being a of age female with a pup on the way and all of these readily available females standing by waiting for you to get tired of me?"

Alex shoots to his feet, "I knew it! I knew you were still pissed about the Adelisa bullshit. How can you even think I'd look at her?"

Nova stands up, "Because I know you Alex. If I hadn't gotten pregnant, our relationship, Adelisa would have come and ripped it apart."

Alex backs up, "Why are you saying this Novalee? You know how I feel about you."

She looks at the floor, "At first Gabriel and Vivian were good about everything, the pack recognized us as mates, but now they're holding the laws against us."

"Nova, seriously, what are you talking about? Why are you bringing this up, what does it have to do with anything?"

She looks up, straight into his eyes, her sapphire blue eyes brimming with tears. "Alex I, I don't want to be with you anymore. I can't handle this. I can't handle being your mate and what it means to the pack. I can't be the reason you get kicked out of the pack."

It felt like someone stabbed him, or rather was ripping him to pieces, "No, you don't mean that Novalee. You can't mean that. We're having a pup, we're having a baby, you can't do this."

She raises a brow, "I can't? I have full ability to reject you as a mate. Just because we have a pup doesn't mean we have to be…together."

Alex closes his eyes and runs his hands through his hair, "Let me get this straight. You don't want to be with me, you're breaking up with me because you don't want to be a leader and you don't want to risk me getting expelled?"

Alex can hear her sigh, he can almost picture the expression on her face. "Alex I don't want to ruin you. You're a good wolf, you're going to be a great leader one day. I'm proud that our son or daughter will have you as a father but, I just can't be with you right now."

"What does that mean!" he snarls, throwing his hands in the air. His eyes narrow to hers, "I love you Novalee, if someone told you different then I'll rip them to pieces, how can you think you'll ruin me? You've made me so much better than I was, I, I can't lose you Nova. Don't, don't do this."

"It's done Alex. We're through."

Alex stands there, dumbfounded. She bites her lip before putting her hand on his shoulder, "I'm sorry Alex, but this is for the best."

"Do you love me?" he asks, avoiding her gaze.

She closes her eyes, "I did."

He shuts his eyes with her voice, he can hear her footsteps leave him, but her scent stays behind, burning his nostrils. Her words repeat inside his head, I did. His world had just turned upside down. When he had brought her out here he had been so excited. This was going to be their house, where they would raise their pup. Now, this place was ruined. This was the place Novalee stole his heart and shredded it. How could things completely 180 like this. What seemed like only moments ago they had kissed and embraced, how was it that now they were separate? Broken up, finished.

Novalee's breath was shaky and broken up as she walked home. She didn't know what came over her. She actually broke up with him. She broke up with Alex, the father of her pup, and former love of her life.

But with everything that had happened recently, Novalee had been doubting a lot. She had been idly thinking about it but never intended to actually end things.

She barely realized she was opening the door to the cabin until Austin greeted her.

"Hey Lee, you and Alex go for a romp in the woods?"

Still not fully aware she stopped by the side of the couch he was lounging on. "We broke up."

Austin laughed, "Sure you did."

"We broke up," she repeated. "I broke up with him. I really broke up with him. We're broken up."

Austin, wide eyed, flashes to a sitting position. "Wait, you're serious?"

Novalee's eyes snap to his, tears finally bursting free, "We broke up," she cried. Austin caught her before she crashed to the floor.

Gabriel found Alex at one of the work in progress cabins. His son was just standing there, staring into space.

He surveyed his son before approaching, assessing what could be wrong. "Alex?" he says, trying to get his attention. Alex looks at him with a blank stare and mutters something.

"What?" Gabriel asks, scanning his son up and down. Something felt off and a parent's natural worry aspect started up.

"Expel me."

Um...yeah. Probably not what you were expecting huh? Heck, I wasn't expecting it and I wrote it! But sometimes things work out this way, better ideas happen when you start on a chapter regardless of what you want to happen overall. So do you hate me?

Thanks for reading, review please? I'd like to hear the comments on this one.

Kaiai