#Chapter 5: Care

Samantha's POV

"Looks like you're pregnant for about seven months," the doctor said, removing the ultrasound wand from my belly and tossing a paper towel at me to clean myself up.

I sat up slowly and wiped the gel off of my skin. Seven months. Exactly as Ava predicted.

"And how… How is my baby doing?" I asked, although I hardly dared to hear the answer. I had been malnourished, beaten by the household staff, and emotionally abused for so long that I was almost certain my child was going to be underdeveloped.

Or perhaps worse.

I didn't want to consider what I might do if I found out my baby wasn't going to survive. Ava reassured me as best she could, but until I heard the doctor say it out loud, I refused to hold onto hope. Hope had never served me well before, and it certainly wouldn't serve me now.

To my surprise and relief, the doctor shrugged and said, "It's fine. Healthy."

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. My baby was alive. "Good. That's good."

"Good?" the doctor echoed with a sneer. "So you want to keep this baby?"

Truthfully, I still hadn't decided if I wanted to keep the baby after birth—I'd always figured that taking it to a church or an orphanage would be better than bringing it into the horrible life I'd been thrust into—but now I supposed plans had changed.

Kade knew about it now. And considering how much he loathed me, I wasn't sure what he would do to our child.

But I was still happy that my baby was alive and healthy.

"Well, yes," I admitted. "I was hoping to—"

"I figured." The doctor scoffed as she began to gather her medical supplies. "Typical breeder, only trying to gain the Alpha's favor through pregnancy."

I blinked. "What?"

"Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. Everyone knows that you've been scheming to gain Alpha Kade's affection. And now you got what you wanted, didn't you?"

"I don't know what you're—"

"Kade is going to keep you around forever now. Care for you and that child when you don't deserve it. And that bastard child of yours is the reason for it."

For a moment, I just stared at the doctor in silence. I hadn't schemed in the slightest; I didn't even want this child to begin with. It wasn't as if I'd asked to become pregnant with the pup of a man who hated my guts.

But the doctor had also said that Kade planned to keep me around. Did that mean that he was going to actually care for me and my child, or was he just going to continue my torment?

"Hope is a fool's game," Ava chided me gently. "Even if he's your mate, you mustn't let your emotions get the best of you. Kade doesn't love you, and he never will. It's best if you're not entangled with him anymore."

Once again, Ava was correct. She always was.

Sometimes, during those strange nights of passion and humiliation, I had let myself believe that Kade might feel something for me. That the mate bond transcended everything and that he could change.

But he never did. And he never would. I was just being driven by pregnancy hormones and a mate bond that neither of us ever wanted; I wasn't foolish enough to think that he might actually care now.

As if summoned by my very thoughts, Kade suddenly barged into the hospital room.

"A-Alpha Kade," the doctor said, bowing her head respectfully, "I was just finishing up Samantha's exam—"

But Kade wasn't listening to her. He practically flew across the room, and before I knew it, he was gripping my shoulders and shaking me.

"Tell me the truth!" he snarled. "Who is the father of your child?!"

"What? It's you!" I replied.

"Don't fucking lie to me, Samantha. I talked to your parents already. They told me everything."

I didn't know what he was talking about, but it didn't matter. Because before I could respond, Serena and my parents swept into the room after him, their faces red with fear.

"Tell him the truth, Samantha!" Serena cried out. "Using a normal wolf's child to impersonate the child of an Alpha is a capital offense, but you might be spared if you tell the truth!"

My heart stuttered, then cracked.

Oh.

So this was another one of their lies. Just like everything else they had ever said to me.

I wasn't sure why they had done it, but I knew now that my family was lying to Kade about me. They had told him that my baby belonged to another man.

"Whatever they told you was a lie," I said, looking at Kade. "The baby is yours. I haven't slept with—"

"It's true!" Serena was nearly frantic by now. "Kade, it's not your baby! You have to do something!"

"Kade," I went on, "don't listen—"

"Samantha." Kade straightened, his face going cold and dark as if the stars themselves had winked out of the night sky. He fixed his gray eyes on me, and in that moment, I knew. The dread that hung over my head was too great to ignore.

His eyes nearly went black. "I reject you as my mate. I never wanted you before, and I especially don't now."

The pain was immediate and intense. It began as a snapping sensation in my chest, as if an invisible thread had been cut with a knife. Then, it radiated outward, filling every cell in my body until each fiber of my being was pulsing with the agony of our mate bond severing.

I might have cried out, although I wasn't sure. The sound of the blood rushing through my ears drowned out all else—even my mother's screams.

My world narrowed down to nothing but pain.

And then the blood came. Red liquid spilled forth from between my legs, immediately soaking the hospital gown. I gasped, clutching at my belly, but it was too late.

"Ava!" I cried out, seeking inward for her presence. I shut my eyes and retreated to that sunlit meadow, but it was empty and cold. A chill wind blew through it like the coldest winter's day.

My wolf was gone. Dead. I knew it as deeply as I knew that the mate bond had severed and my baby was miscarrying.

When I opened my eyes again, I found that someone had laid me back down on the hospital bed. Above me, figures moved around frantically, silhouetted by the fluorescent lights overhead.

"She's not going to make it," I heard a voice say. The doctor's voice. "We can save the baby, but not her. She's already dying."

I was… dying? If I'd had the strength, I might have cried out to tell them that I was still here, but I couldn't. I felt myself start to go numb. Tired. And as the world began to darken around the edges, I heard another voice.

"You must do something!" Kade's voice, deep and gruff, was filled with more panic than I'd ever heard from him before. "You can't let my mate die. Do something. NOW!"

In life, the sound of that booming command might have made me flinch. But now it felt so far away and insignificant. I knew I would never hear it again. I was slipping away now, so close to death that I could almost taste it.

"There is nothing we can do, Alpha. Only the child might be saved."

My child. At least my child would live—but what fate did it have in the arms of a man like Kade? I would never be there to hold it, to protect it—

"No," another voice whispered. A nurse stepped into view with a furrowed brow. "Not even the baby will make it…"

As the room began to darken, my eyes fluttering closed for the last time, the final thought on my mind was a single curse. If this was my fate, then I cursed every inch of it. I'd lost my life years ago, but my baby… My baby deserved to live.

And yet it would never even get that. The universe had played a sick game all this time.

Finally, I shut my eyes and let death take hold of me.

The world went black.

But not for long—because a moment later, I opened my eyes again, finding myself in an unfamiliar place.

"Samantha…" A cool hand gently pressed against my forehead. "You will be reborn."