Chapter 5

Celeste pov

I had hoped that my pregnancy would earn me at least a fraction of Ragnar's attention, which he lavishly gave to his concubine. I handed him the test results after an intimate night and he looked at it with a polite expression and handed it back to me.

“Congratulations,” he said passively as if the baby had nothing to do with him.

My heart quaked but I tried to stay strong.

“Aren't you going to say anything else?”

He sighed into his pillow, slipping out of the bed.

“Actually I think I'm going to sleep in my private room tonight, I have a meeting with the Elder council early tomorrow morning, and I need to be well rested,”

I sucked in a deep breath.

“Are you saying that I stress you out?” He paused as he was putting on his pants, his silence confirmed all the answers I needed before he continued to put on his clothes.

By the time he was done and ready to leave, I got up blocking his way out by standing at the door.

“Ragnar, this is the first time you've come to see me in 2 weeks, and you won't even spend the rest of the night? Don't you think you're being a little bit too cruel? You spend every night with sarafina and she isn't even pregnant yet-”

His eyes grew as I mentioned his concubine.

“Do you think it's Sarafina's fault that you've become like this?”

A flush of embarrassment went past me.

“What do you mean…like this?”

He sighed, covering half of his face with his palm.

“Look I know that the miscarriages were hard on you, but don't you think you could have taken care of yourself a little better. The truth is that every night before I come to you, I have to go to sarafina first to get excited enough to finish inside you,”

I thought nothing would ever top the pain of seeing him hand in hand with another woman but this, this did.

I had grown insecure about my body in the previous year and half, even though I had not delivered a single living child. My body carried stretch marks, extra weight and other signs of a body that had housed life.

Even though he never complimented me anymore he also didn't complain either so I had been able to successfully delude myself into thinking that he still found me attractive.

All for him to squash the little hope I had by telling me that he had to be with another woman first before he could tolerate the sight of me.

I fell away from the door, dropping to the ground.

I didn't want to manipulate him but I just wished that he would held me even if he didn't apologize for what he said. I would forget everything if he chose to embrace me at this moment.

Instead he just walked over to the door opening it and glancing at me briefly before he left.

My tears stopped, I was lost in a state of a shock so deep I couldn't even cry anymore. I just crawled to the bed for the sake of my unborn pup.

Then I rubbed my belly, hoping to the moon goddess that for my sake and a little life inside me, they should come out healthy and strong.

The moon goddess must have heard me because for the first time I reached my 9th month, and now all I had to look forward to was my due date for delivery.

This time it was Eva that had been taking care of me, she was careful about what I ate, but not in the controlling way like my mother-in-law.

Sarafina still hadn't gotten pregnant and Ragnar was still giving her all of his attention saying that this meant that he just had to spend more time with her until she eventually became pregnant. But there were days that he could not avoid me completely. He would come and check up on me and the growth of our pop within. This time we didn't check if it was a boy or girl and just let things progress naturally.

Then on a full moon my water broke and I was quickly taken to the pack hospital.

My heart was racing with so much anticipation that at first I did not even fully register the pain that my body was going through until I had dilated about five cm and it started to really kick in and I was screaming up to the roof of the hospital without restraint.

I struggled with earth trustering contractions for 5 hours until the Dr decided that a natural delivery was not for me and a CS was probably the best choice right now.

I did not miss the disappointed look on my mate's face when it was mentioned.

All of a sudden I felt inadequate again, as if I had embarrassed him with the limitations of my body but I decided not to focus on him and rather on the child.

I was placed under anesthesia and I hoped that when I opened my eyes it would be the sight of my beautiful baby alive and well.

At this point I didn't care if it was a boy or a girl. I would cherish my child with all of my heart, that was the promise I made to myself and I was bent on keeping it.

I was slipping into consciousness again but still unable to move.

However I could hear.

And what I heard turned my world upside down.

The Doctor who had handled my surgery was speaking to someone he said; “it was just like you predicted, the pup did not survive. But don't you think that your mate will become suspicious eventually and find out that you were the one killing all of your unborn pups, Alpha Ragnar?”