Chapter 4 A Glimmer in the Wreckage

(Charlie)

I run.

I don't know where I'm going, I just know I have to get out. The pain is a living thing inside me, a physical tearing in my chest where the mate bond used to be. It’s a gaping, jagged wound, and the cold night air does nothing to numb it.

Rejected.

The word is a death sentence for my child.

I stumble through the dark forest, my feet bare, my cloak catching on thorns and branches. I’m running on pure, animal instinct. Away from him. Away from her. Away from the monster in his eyes.

My baby.

I gasp as a fresh wave of agony hits me. Not just the soul-crushing pain of the rejection, but a sharp, physical cramp low in my belly.

Madilyn’s voice echoes in my head. It will take that baby from you... You’ll be bleeding by morning.

I stop, leaning against a tree, my breath sawing in my lungs. I feel a sticky warmth between my legs.

No. No, no, no.

I look down, and even in the faint moonlight, I can see the dark stain spreading on the inside of my thighs.

Blood.

A sob rips from my throat, a sound so broken it doesn't even sound human. She was right. The rejection is killing my unborn child.

I’m losing everything.

The grief is so absolute, so suffocating, that it almost paralyzes me. I want to lie down on the forest floor and just... stop. Let the darkness take me.

But the hollow, deadened part of me that used to be a wolf forces me to my feet. 

Move. They won’t win.

I don't know how long I run. Hours. My mind is a white-hot fog of pain. I cross the territory line, the invisible boundary between Kaleb's land and my father's, and I don't even feel the familiar tingle. 

I’m too numb to feel anything.

When the Silverwood Pack house comes into view, I’m barely able to crawl. I make it to the wide front porch of the house I grew up in, and collapse.

The last thing I see before I pass out is the door flying open.

I wake up to the smell of antiseptic and lavender.

My eyes flutter open. I'm in a clean, bright room in the Silverwood pack’s hospital and a cool hand is resting on my forehead.

"Charlie? Thank the Goddess."

I turn my head. "Elara?"

My sister smiles, her face a blur of relieved tears. She’s the pack physician, her kind, steady face the exact opposite of my own.

"You're safe, Char. You're home. Nobody’s going to hurt you here."

The words break me. "It's gone," I whisper, the tears starting to fall. "Elara, he... he rejected me."

Her face hardens. "We know. A patrol picked up your scent in the woods, but you got to the house before they could find you. You've been unconscious for almost a day. You lost a lot of blood, I was so worried."

Blood. Reality slams back into me and I wish I were dead.

"His rejection killed the baby," I sob, my heart crumbling to ash. "I was pregnant. I only found out yesterday, a few hours before..."

"I know you’re pregnant," Elara says, her voice suddenly calm and commanding, all physician.

"I ran every test I could. Your hormones are... well, they're a mess from the rejection shock. But, Charlie..."

She grabs the ultrasound wand from the machine beside the bed. "What I don't understand," she says, squirting cold gel onto my stomach, "Is this."

She presses the wand down and I flinch, bracing for the empty, silent image. Bracing for the confirmation of my new, hollow life.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

A sound. Faint. Faltering. Like the fragile tremor of wings in a space that’s too small.

My eyes snap to the screen and I see it. A tiny, flickering glimmer of light.

"It's still there?" My voice is a shimmering thread.

"I don't know how," Elara whispers. "A rejection this brutal always terminates a pregnancy. But Charlie... your baby is fighting. They’re holding on for dear life."

She turns to me, her face serious, pulling no punches.

"It's weak, Char. Unbelievably weak. The next few weeks will be critical. But your baby isn’t gone."

They’re alive.

The single, tiny spark that Madilyn and Kaleb couldn't extinguish. 

A tiny, defiant ember in the middle of all this wreckage.

My hand covers Elara’s on the wand. "My baby’s alive," I say aloud, and for the first time since opening my eyes, I feel something other than fear or grief.

I feel rage.

I will not let them have this. I will wipe them from the face of the world before I allow them to touch this little fighter growing inside of me.

The door opens, and my father, Alpha Marcus, enters. He’s a mountain of a man, his face carved from stone. Behind him, taller and leaner, is Rohan.

My father’s chosen partner for me. The man I left when Kaleb crossed my path.

"Charlie," my father says, his voice a low rumble. He looks at the blood on the sheets, at my pale face, and his hands clench. "You're home."

"Dad..."

"You are the heir of the Silverwood Pack," he says, cutting me off. His voice is iron. "You always have been. That bastard you ran off with didn't change that. You just forgot for a while. Don't forget again."

He’s not a man for hugs, but he clasps my shoulder and it’s enough.

Enough to know that I’m safe and welcome. That turning my back on them didn’t stop them from loving me. My eyes fill with tears again and my father clears his throat uncomfortably.

He’s never really known how to deal with overt displays of emotion. He nods once, then leaves us, giving me a moment.

Rohan steps forward. His hazel eyes, always so kind, are filled with a pain that mirrors my own. He looks at me, and he doesn't see a rejected, humiliated former Luna. He sees... me.

He gently takes my hand and his fingers are warm and strong around mine.

"I never stopped loving you, Charlie," he says quietly, his voice steady. "Not for one day. You’ve always been the only one for me."

He lifts my hand, pressing his lips to my knuckles. A gesture of pure, old-fashioned devotion.

"You're home now," he vows. "You're safe. I'll protect you from anything and anyone. I swear it."

I look at this good, kind man, and I feel... nothing. 

I’m a hollowed-out shell. I have no love left to give. 

But I’m so, so tired of feeling alone and uncertain. I nod, unable to speak, and let him hold my hand.

Elara comes back after Rohan leaves, and I can tell from the grim expression she’s wearing when something’s wrong.

"Charlie, there's something you need to know."

I lean back against the pillows, too exhausted to deal with anything else. But life doesn’t stop just because I’m broken.

"What now?"

"A few days ago, before you arrived, our border patrol found someone. He was half-dead. Very nearly mortally wounded."

"Okay...?"

"It was Kaleb's Beta. Ezra."

I sit up, the movement making all my muscles scream in protest.

"Ezra? Here? Is he still alive?"

"He's comatose. We're keeping him stable, but he's in bad shape."

She lowers her voice. "Before he lost consciousness, he begged me, begged me, Charlie, not to reveal his whereabouts. Especially not to Kaleb."

My heart should be pounding. I should be demanding answers. Why was Kaleb's Beta here? Wounded? Why was he hiding from his Alpha?

I can sense it. A deep, dark conspiracy. The missing Beta. The evil tattoo. Madilyn's return. It's all connected.

And I find I don't give a damn.

"Send him back," I say, my voice as cold as the gel was on my stomach.

Elara blinks. "What? Charlie, he's terrified."

"I don't care."

The ice in my own voice shocks me. "I don't care what Ezra said. I don't care about Kaleb's pack. I don't care about his conspiracies. He made his choice."

I look away from my sister, staring at the wall.

"When he wakes up, you send him back to his Alpha. Kaleb's problems are not my problems."

I am done with him. Once and for all.

I’m no longer Kaleb's Luna. I am Charlotte, heir of the Silverwood Pack.

And I have a child to keep safe.