Wrecked

LEAH

"I'm so sorry for your loss, Luna." The pack doctor, a middle-aged man with glasses and hair going silver at the temples, looked at me with a pained expression. "We did everything we could. Your future pups... we couldn't save them."

"Tell me you're lying. This can't be real." My voice was trembling, my throat tightening as I fought to hold back the flood of tears.

“The severe impact you experienced caused significant trauma to the fetus and triggered a placental abruption, Luna...."

But hearing it said out loud, that final, that certain, without a single crack left for hope, destroyed whatever was left of my composure. The sobs came like a dam breaking, uncontrollable, mixed heartbreaking cries.

I had wanted these pups so badly. More than I ever let on to Cain.

"Please, doctor, please, do something, there has to be a mistake..." I tried to push myself up from the bed, grabbing the doctor's arm as he shifted uncomfortably in front of me.

"Luna Leah, you need to calm down, we've already done everything we could..."

"Do something, please do fucking something..."

I couldn't hold it together anymore. And the next thing I knew the room was spinning, and everything went dark.

****

I didn't know how long I'd been out after a pack nurse pushed a sedative through my IV. But when I came to, the memories of what happened that afternoon slowly started filling my head.

A few hours ago everything had still felt normal. Or at least what passed for normal in our home.

I'd been up before dawn, getting Cain's clothes ready, making breakfast, packing his lunch. Then I woke Brody, got him washed up and dressed, drove him to the pack's pup school at the edge of our territory, and came back to the mansion to knock out all the house chores that needed to be done before Cain got home.

If Cain came home tonight.

The mansion had been quiet for four days without him. No explanation, no texts, nothing. I didn't need to ask. I already knew where he was. Montclair, two hours away, where Celeste Vaughn was finishing her third year at a design institute whose tuition, apartment, and living expenses were all covered by Cain.

By pack money. By my mate.

Even though Cain was an Alpha whose territory stretched across three cities, he'd never once hired house staff for this mansion. His reason was always the same. He didn't want strangers at his home. The cleaning schedule for a three-story mansion, twelve bathrooms, every piece of furniture, all of it fell on me. Especially now, this far along in my pregnancy. I was barely keeping up. But I didn't have a choice.

If there was one corner he could smell that I'd missed, Cain would know.

I still remembered it clearly. After picking Brody up from school I'd checked his lunch box and found it untouched again. Not wanting him to go hungry, I made him something fresh and brought it up to his room. For weeks now Brody had refused to eat at the same table as me, and instead of saying anything to him about it, Cain always found a way to make it my fault.

"I don't want to eat, Leah," Brody snapped the second I stepped into his room.

"Brody, I'm your aunt. Can you please show a little respect."

"Take it away, I don't want your food!" He crossed his arms over his chest before I'd even set the tray down.

"Brody, you haven't eaten anything since lunch."

"Are you deaf? I said I don't want it!"

"Mac and cheese. You're the one who asked for it." I held my ground and kept moving toward him.

And without realizing it, my foot came down on one of the die-cast cars Brody had lined up across the floor. The little wheels shot out from under my foot and I didn't have time to catch myself.

I went down. My stomach slammed into the sharp corner of the nightstand.

A few seconds later a cramp tore through my lower belly, and a few seconds after that I saw blood soaking through my cream-colored pants, pooling on the hardwood floor I had mopped just that morning. The panic hit me like a wall when it didn't stop.

*My pups. My pups.*

"Brody," my voice came out weak. "Please help me, go get my phone from my room."

Brody looked at me. No panic on his face, nothing. Just those brown eyes staring at me the way a kid stares when they don't understand what they're looking at.

"Brody, please..."

But he ran. His footsteps disappeared down the hallway and he didn't say a single word, and I had no idea whether he'd gone for help or just gone.

I couldn't waste any more time. I dragged myself down the corridor, grabbed my phone from the bedroom and called the pack doctor.

Just right after I made that call, everything went completely dark...I lost consciousness.

****

"Luna..."

The young nurse beside my bed startled me.

"Here's your phone." She handed it back to me, still clutched in my hand when I'd lost consciousness. "We tried reaching your emergency contact but there was no answer."

"The little boy who was with me. Brody. Where is he?"

"When the medical team arrived you were alone, Luna Leah. There was no one else in the mansion."

I was about to call Cain to find out where Brody was when my phone buzzed in my hand. The screen lit up with his name.

Alpha's Hubby.

"Cain, is Brody with you?" I couldn't keep the worry out of my voice.

"Are you out of your mind, Leah ?! How the hell could you leave Brody alone in that house?" He didn't even let me get a word in, his voice sharp and loud with Alpha authority behind it.

"Cain, I—"

"“You’re so fucking irresponsible, Leah!” He snapped at me fast and cruel. He didn't even bother to ask what happened to me.

"Come home right now or I'm locking every entrance to this house so you know what it feels like to sleep on the street!"

"Cain, I can't come home, I'm in the middle of—"

"I get it, Leah. Brody isn't your pup. So you just don't care, do you?"

"Cain, don't be so hard on Leah."

I froze.

That voice. Calm, warm, the exact same way it always was. Celeste. Clear as anything, like she was sitting right next to him.

"Maybe Leah just needed a little time to herself without Brody around. That's completely fair. This is all my fault for putting Brody on you both in the first place. I never should have kept burdening you like this..."

"Celly, stop defending her. What Leah did was out of line. She abandoned a pup and that's something she could actually be charged for. She owes you and Brody an apology."

"Cain..." I cut in, my voice barely holding together. "I lost the pups."

Silence.

A few seconds that felt like forever.

In the background I heard Celeste draw in a quiet breath.

"That's your own fault, Leah. The doctor already told you your womb was weak. Why can't you just accept that?"

Beep.

Cain ended the call.