No.2

OLIVIA_POV

Slowly I opened my eyes, the room was bright, too white, too quiet. My body ached everywhere. For a second, I didn’t know where I was. Then I smelled the scent of disinfectant and saw the white curtains around the bed.

Then it hit me. The pack infirmary.

I blinked hard, my throat dry. My hands moved slowly to my stomach. It was flat. Empty.

Panic shot through me.

“No…” I whispered, shaking my head. “No, no…”

Tears filled my eyes. “My baby…” I gasped. “Where’s my baby?”

The door opened, and a middle-aged nurse walked in.

“You’re awake,” she said softly, coming closer.

I seized her hand, my voice trembling. “Please… my baby. Tell me the baby’s alive.”

She smiled and brushed my hair away from my face. “You don’t have to worry, Luna Olivia. You didn’t lose the baby.”

I froze, staring at her. “I—I didn’t?”

She shook her head. “No. You gave birth… to twins.”

For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. “T-twins?” I whispered shockingly, my heart racing.

“Yes,” she said with a soft laugh. “A boy and a girl. They’re small, but they’re fighters. Just like their mama.”

Tears, hot and unending, spilled down my cheeks. Moon goddess, they weren’t tears of pain now. They were tears of a miracle I had never dared to pray for. Twins. A son and a daughter. Eric’s heir and a little girl to soften him. This had to be it. This had to be the key that would unlock the man I knew he could be, the man I had fallen in love with. The cruelty, the affair with Lupiter… it would all fade away when he saw them. It had to.

“Can I… can I see them?” I begged, my voice trembling.

“Of course you can,” the nurse answered. “But first, let’s get you sitting up. You had an emergency C-section, Luna. You need to take it very easy.”

She helped me adjust the bed, every movement sending a sharp, pulling pain through my stitched abdomen. I barely noticed it. All my focus was on the door, waiting for them to bring my children to me.

“Wait here, Luna Olivia,” then she was gone.

A few minutes later, the door opened again, my babies were brought in, and the world narrowed to just them. The nurses helped place them carefully in my arms, and I thought my heart would simply burst from the overwhelming, terrifying, beautiful weight of them.

My son had a dusting of brown hair, just like Eric’s. My daughter had my eyes. They were so small, so perfect. I counted their fingers and toes, tears streaming down my face unchecked. I kissed their soft heads, breathing in their sweet, new smell.

“Everything is going to be different now,” I whispered to them, my heart feeling so full I thought it might burst. “Your daddy… he’s going to love you so much. We’re going to be a family. A real family.”

I was lost in a dream, in a future I was painting with my own desperate hopes. I didn’t hear the door open.

But I felt the temperature in the room drop.

I looked up, a happy, watery smile on my face, ready to share this perfect moment with him.

Eric stood there.

His blond hair was slightly disheveled, his shirt was untucked, and there, on the collar, was a smudge of bright red. Lipstick.

The same shade Lupiter favored. I knew it too well.

My stomach twisted, but still, I shoved it down. I had to show him. I had to make him see.

“Eric,” I said, my voice trembling with a forced brightness. “Look. Look what we made.”

I shifted carefully, wincing at the pain, to better show him the two tiny blessings sleeping in my arms. “Twins. A boy and a girl. Your son and heir… and a daughter. Are’nt they beautiful?”

He didn’t even glance at them. His eyes, cold and dismissive, swept over me and then past me, to the nurses who had frozen by the door.

“Is this true?” he asked them, his voice devoid of any emotion. “These are hers?”

The head nurse, an older woman with a stern face, nodded cautiously. “Yes, Alpha Eric. Born via cesarean section early this morning. They are stable, though they will require monitoring—”

He cut her off with a sharp gesture of his hand. His gaze finally swung back to me, and it was not the gaze of a father looking upon his newborns. It was the gaze of a king looking at a stain on his throne.

A slow, cruel smile twisted his perfect lips. “You truly can’t do anything right, can you, Olivia?”

The words were so unexpected, so utterly insane, that I could only stare at him, my mind refusing to process them.

“W-what?”

“A cesarean?” he spat, the word dripping with disgust. “You couldn’t even birth them properly. You are weak. Miserable. And you expect me to believe these… these things are mine? That my blood could produce such weak, mewling creatures? I can't have my children with you.”

The words hit like a slap. I froze, staring at him, trying to understand what he’d just said.

“W-what are you saying, Eric? I—” I whispered, but the words suddenly died in my throat when he suddenly moved towards me.

Before I could blink, he roughly snatched one of the babies from my arms.

“Eric!” I cried, panic flooding me. “Please, careful! You’re hurting him—”

He ignored me, holding the baby carelessly as if it were a rag doll. The tiny infant let out a weak cry, and my heart shattered.

“What are you doing?!” I screamed, my stitches burning as I tried to reach him.

He turned to one of the nurses, his tone cold. “Take the other one. Follow me.”

The command sliced through the room.

The nurse froze, trembling. “Alpha… please—”

“I said now!” he barked.

The nurse hesitated only for a second before fear won. Then, she stepped forward towards me.

“No!” The scream was torn from the deepest, most primal part of my soul. I clutched my baby to my chest, curling my body around it, a weak, wounded animal trying to protect its young. “No! Eric, please! They’re yours! They’re your children! What are you doing?!”

He ignored me utterly. The nurse, under the weight of his Alpha command, pried my screaming, crying infant from my arms. The physical pain of the movement was nothing compared to the agony of having them taken from me. It felt like my soul was being ripped in two.

“Please! Don’t take my babies! Give them back! ERIC!” I was sobbing now, hysterical, my body shaking uncontrollably. I tried to push myself up, to get out of the bed, to fight, but the pain in my abdomen was a white-hot fire. A warm, wet sensation spread across the front of my hospital gown. I was bleeding. I was tearing myself apart, and I didn’t care.

The nurses tried to hold me down, their voices a blur of frantic pleas. “Luna Olivia, you must lie down! You’ll hurt yourself! You’re hemorrhaging!”

I fought them with a strength I didn’t know I possessed, my eyes locked on the door through which my children had disappeared. The world was a red haze of pain and loss.

The door burst open again, and Eric walked back in alone. He stood in the doorway, alone. His face was a mask of cold satisfaction.

I collapsed back onto the pillows, breathless, bleeding, broken. “My babies Eric…” I rasped, reaching a trembling, blood-streaked hand toward him. “Where are they? Please… just let me hold them…”

His cold eyes met mine. “You won’t be seeing them again,” he said simply. “It’s better that way.”

The air left my lungs. “W-what… what do you mean?”

And then I heard it.

From somewhere down the hall, came the frantic, excited barking of dogs. And underneath it, the cries of newborns.

My body went cold.

“Eric…” My voice cracked.

Eric looked down at me, a cruel smile twisting his lips. “Don’t worry,” he said, his voice casual, like he was commenting on the weather. “They’re not going to waste. They’re food for the dogs now.”

The world shattered.

It was like a bucket of ice water had been poured through my veins. My lips parted, but no sound came out. The room spun, my breath vanished.

I stared at him, disbelief and horror twisting inside me. “No…” I whispered, shaking my head. “No, please… tell me you didn’t…”

But the smirk on his lips told me everything.

Pain tore through my body as I screamed, but no sound came out. My throat burned, my chest tightened. I felt something warm trickle between my legs—my stitches had burst—but I didn’t care.

Eric had taken everything. And he had left me with nothing.