Chapter 3

Celeste pov

I woke up in the hospital.

My mind was lost in a daze, the world around me a blur.

Gradually, my vision cleared, ears perked to the sound of machines beeping around me.

My eyes drifted around the hospital room, and my memories started flooding in, and with it, blood curdling fear.

“My baby!” I said forcing my weakened body to sit up.

“Luna Celeste, you shouldn't move so quickly,” a young nurse cautioned me.

But I didn't care about that, I looked him straight in the eyes and asked; “What about my baby?! What happened to my baby?” The nurse's eyes fell and he dodged my question like it was a bullet, instead talking about other things.

“If you can't tell me, then call my husband…where is he?”

His mouth was buttoned up again, but this time I used my Luna aura to force him to answer.

“Where is he?When did he leave the hospital?”

The nurse bending to my aura replied mechanically.

“He never came.”

My heart dropped to the floor.

“You must be lying. Tell me!” A wave of pain struck through my body like a travelling thunderbolt but I hardly flinched.

“I'm not lying, Luna Celeste, he called to ask about your condition yesterday after you were brought here and you've been unconscious for 15hours after being induced into labor,”

I released the nurse from my aura, already deducing from what he said that my baby was no longer of this world.

“Luna Celeste…I'm so sorry I…”

“Please just leave me alone, I need to be alone right now,”

The nurse bowed and gave me the privacy I asked for.

But truthfully speaking, I didn't want to be alone right now.

My stomach still had a soft arch. Almost like my pup was still there, but she wasn't.

She was gone.

Gone before I could even hold her and tell her how much I loved her.

My mind scraped for a reason to explain why my mate had not come to see me after hearing our child was gone. Was he angry with me? Did he feel disappointed because my body couldn't do what it was supposed to?

I had to wait seven more hours before I got my answer.

When he arrived in the afternoon, he hurried over to me.

“I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner,” he said lifting my fingers and pressing a kiss on them, “I had a meeting with the Elder council and we only came to a conclusion about an hour ago,”

I was so starved for his touch that I didn't even know how important that meeting could have been to take priority over my health.

Instead I just buried myself in his arms and cried until my eyes were red.

He held me, stroking my hair kindly.

“Miscarriages like this happen often in the first trimester, so please don't blame yourself,” he said.

I hadn't even told him that I felt guilty, he just assumed that I must be blaming myself.

Rather than misunderstanding, I chalked that up to him just being really good at reading my feelings.

My best friend, Eva Woods, the gamma's daughter and also a gynecologist at the hospital really expanded into this for me. Explaining that this was the experience of many women, it didn't evaporate the pain but it made it easier for me to carry.

Especially since Ragnar and Eva are the only understanding ones.

Other pack members, especially my mother-in-law, did not hand me the benefit of doubt.

“Maybe this wouldn't have happened if you watched your diet better, there were a lot of things I wanted to cut out of your meals. If I knew this would happen I should have done it before,”

She became like a hawk, monitoring me;from my outings to the food I ate as soon as Ragnar and I started trying for a child again.

I would have preferred to wait a little longer than just a couple of months.

But the longer I took to have an heir, the more I poked holes in my mate's legitimacy to rule and reign as Alpha.

He was the younger twin, and there are still many others that believe his brother would have been a better Alpha.

Wulfric was level headed and sharp, he always had an open ear for the lowest of ranks while others ignored them. But none of that changed the fact that he had abandoned the Pack and moved on with his life without looking back once.

He was a coward that ran away from responsibilities.

Each day the weight of his betrayal nearly brought me to my knees.

I'd sink my fingers through the bedsheets and quietly whimper his name into pillow

Was I the only one who ever dreamed of a forever for us?

I thought we'd be together till our hair turned to streaks of silver.

The bitterness swelled into curses that poured from my lips.

He'd torn me in two then went on with his life.

And no matter what sort of inadequacies Ragnar had, at least he never did that.

A few more weeks of trying and I took in again.

This time Ragnar withheld his excitement and handed me over to the care of his mother.

Without much choice I had to go out and live with her.

She insisted that the most important thing was for me to avoid stress and work, which sounded okay on the surface until it meant I had to go into the woods with her to a private manor.

While I was there, I was treated with very little difference to a prisoner, Ragnar visited every week at first, then every two weeks. Eventually I could only see him once a month.

His explanation was that he was swamped with work back at the Pack House. I suggested returning back since I was already in a safer position in my pregnancy, but he insisted that I stay at the manor until I delivered.

But that never happened either.

I lost my baby there.

But my mother-in-law insisted that her method must be working since the baby lived longer than the last time.

So I remained there, and with tears in my eyes after my last miscarriage I got pregnant again.

And this baby was also lost.

My dreams were haunted with the cries of my pups who never felt the warmth of their skin, never laughed-nothing.

I moved about half dead, mechanically performing the motions but it felt like I had one foot in the grave.

Why does the moon goddess even let me get pregnant, feel the little life growing inside me only to never hold them.

My only inadequate relief was that I knew I had to rest at least for now.

I shifted into my wolf and ran back to the main pack. I noticed that the packhouse was in a celebratory mood before I stepped in. I headed over to the main hall where the party was being held.

What I saw nearly made my heart stop.

“What is the meaning of this?!”