Chapter 9: Breaking point

Serena – POV

“Serena, are you sure you’re okay? Did the doctor really say it’s just stress?”

My mother’s voice met me the moment I pushed open the door to our quarters. It wasn’t loud or angry—just laced with a quiet suspicion that clung to the air like fog.

I had barely stepped inside. My hand still clutched the paper bag of vitamins and prescriptions that felt heavier than it should have. I hadn’t taken a single thing out. Couldn’t even look at it.

Ma stood in the center of the small living space, arms folded tightly across her chest, like she was holding herself back from shaking me. Her eyes roamed over my face, searching—digging—for something I was too scared to reveal.

I blinked. Swallowed.

“Yes,” I lied. “Just stress. She said I need rest.”

The words felt like cotton in my mouth.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, and for a second, I thought she’d let it go.

“Just stress?” she echoed, slowly, as if tasting the words. “That’s all?”

I nodded. Too quickly. Too rehearsed.

She tilted her head, brows drawn together. “Then why didn’t you look relieved when you came back? Why did your hands shake when you touched the table? Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

“I’m just tired,” I muttered. “That’s all—”

“Serena.”

Her voice cut through my sentence, firm and sharp like a slap. She wasn’t raising her voice, but it rang louder than any scream.

I froze, caught like a child sneaking candy at midnight.

“I’ve watched you stumble through this house for weeks. You’ve barely eaten. You’ve lost weight. You gag every other morning in the sink and think I don’t hear it. You wince when you stand too fast. You hold your stomach when you think no one’s looking. And now—now you can’t even look me in the eye.”

I stood there, still rooted, still silent.

“I’ve lived long enough to recognize the signs,” she continued, her voice cracking just slightly. “This isn’t stress. This isn’t exhaustion. And it’s certainly not nothing.”

I opened my mouth, closed it, then looked down at my feet.

“Please,” she whispered, softer now. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Serena.”

The way she said my name this time… It almost broke me.

A pause. A breath.

“Are you…?”

I didn’t look up.

She stepped forward. “Are you pregnant?”

My body locked.

I didn’t say anything, but the answer was there. It hung in the air between us like a scream with no voice. My silence said it all.

Her face fell. Her lips parted.

“Tell me the truth,” she demanded, stepping closer.

Still, I didn’t move. My throat was too tight. My heart was thundering like it wanted to escape.

“I… I can’t,” I whispered.

That was when it broke—whatever wall I’d built to hold it all together.

The tears came hot and fast, a dam shattering wide open. My knees gave out from under me, and I crumpled to the floor, covering my face with my hands. My shoulders shook with the sobs that spilled out from somewhere deep in my chest.

“Yes,” I choked. “Yes… I’m pregnant.”

Time stopped.

For a long, aching moment, the only sound in the room was my weeping. It echoed off the stone walls and wood panels, bounced around the silence like punishment.

Then I heard it—her gasp.

It wasn’t loud. It was barely more than a breath, but it stabbed through me sharper than anything.

She stumbled back like the truth physically hit her. Her back bumped into the edge of the table. Then she slid down, knees buckling, until she sat against the wall beside me.

Her hand clutched her forehead.

“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no…”

I couldn’t bring myself to look at her.

“I raised you better than this,” she said, voice trembling. “I worked my fingers raw in this mansion. I gave everything I had to keep you safe from this—this. I told you how hard it was for me. How I got pregnant young. How your father left. And still—”

“I didn’t mean to—” I tried, but she didn’t let me.

“You didn’t mean to?” Her voice cracked. “Do you think I meant to raise you in servants’ quarters? To have you grow up scrubbing silverware instead of going to school with real children? Do you think I wanted this for you?”

Tears streamed down my cheeks, but I didn’t move.

“I thought you were smarter than me,” she whispered. “I thought you were better than me.”

I could barely breathe. “I didn’t plan it, Ma.”

“Neither did I!” she cried, pressing a hand to her chest. “But I paid the price for it every single day. And now you will too.”

My stomach twisted.

“I tried so hard to protect you,” she said softly now, voice brittle. “Every warning, every curfew, every time I told you to keep your head down, to not speak unless spoken to—it wasn’t to punish you. It was to save you.”

She drew in a shaking breath.

“I told you never to trust wolves. Not the powerful ones. Especially not the alphas. I warned you what they can do to girls like us.”

I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t even know what to say.

“I told you not to fall,” she said, staring at the floor. “But you did.”

I lowered my head.

Her eyes slowly lifted to me. “Who is the father, Serena?”

I stayed silent.

Her lips parted in disbelief. “Who is he?” she asked again.

Still, I didn’t answer.

“You can’t or you won’t?”

“I… I can’t,” I whispered.

“You’re carrying a baby and you won’t say who put it there?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be sorry!” Her voice rose. “Do you know what this means for us? For you? Do you know what they’ll say if they find out you’re carrying a wolf’s baby and no name to place on it?”

I pressed my hands to my lap, shaking. “I’m scared, Ma.”

“You should be,” she snapped.

Then her face crumbled.

“I gave you everything I didn’t have. And you still ended up here.”

She turned away, her breath shallow, her eyes far off.

“This isn’t the girl I raised.”

Her words were soft this time, and somehow that made them worse.

I wiped my face with the sleeve of my apron. “I know.”

She pulled her knees to her chest and said nothing more.

I wanted to reach for her, to apologize again, to tell her that I didn’t mean to destroy everything she built for us. That I didn’t mean to repeat her mistakes. That I hadn’t even wanted it to happen—that I thought, for just one moment, I had meant something.

But the words wouldn’t come.

So I sat beside her in silence. The air between us heavy with everything unspoken. Me, grieving a life that was no longer mine. Her, grieving the daughter she thought she knew.

Two women. Two mistakes. Two generations of disappointment wrapped in one long, bitter night.

And in my womb, something new was growing—quiet, small, but full of consequences neither of us was ready for.